Originally Posted by
Falchoon
I think it's great that Burton has the time and money to come up with another good front light setup I must say I'm a big believer in not needing to re-invent the wheel or don't fix what aint broke. I use AYUPs on my bikes and think they are great (possibly better than Burton's lights) for the following reasons.
Cost. The basic AYUP kit is nearly 1/2 price of Burton's setup. $250
Equipment. You apear to get more equipment and features for your $ with AYUP. You get handlebar, helmet and headmount for the light, a mains charger as well as a car charger, an extension lead for the battery in case you want to put it in your jersey pocket or mount it somewhere else on the bike and also red caps for the lights in casr you want to use them as rear ones. The battery, though it is a dedicated one for AYUP and not AA or similar generic one, has a high and low beam function, flashing or steady and the latest 2012 batteries have "fuel gauge" built in that lets you know when they are getting low on charge. The standard battery is a (conservative) 3 hour one with a 6 hour one a $22 option.
Compact designand ease of portability. It's a 20 second job to transfer the lights between bikes. The lights are small and light for those road racer weight weenies and still allow mounting of other accessories such as bike computers or bells on the handlebars and stem.
Warranty.To some folks warranty is important. A bit tricky for non-Australian residents as I'm guessing most of you are as you will need to send them back to Oz if there is a problem, which I doubt you will have - I've had mine for about 4 years and they are working as well as the day I purchased them. No different to buying parts and accessories from UK retailers as a lot of us do.
An advantage Burton's lights may have over the AYUPs is they could be brighter, probably more impoprtant to a MTBer than a commuter or roadie.
Disclaimer: I have no connection to AYUP except being a happy customer. And, not dissing Burton's lights, just making what is meant to be an objective comparison.
Actually I've mentioned a few times in these forums that I kinda like Ayup lights and think they're perfect for most cyclists.
This set-up is being looked at for a number of other reasons that make it interesting for other applications. The lights I've mentioned will plug directly into the 12V system of the e-bike I'm using, which will eliminate the need and cost of additional batteries as well as have a minimal current draw. (Velec Electric Bicycles) The light is self regulating and will accept anything from 9VDC to 45VDC. The build is also rugged enough to permanently mount on an e-bike and stand up to the higher stress levels that cone with the higher average speed associated with e-bikes. A couple years back Velec dropped their lighting system because of too many broken light mounts and warranty issues. The housing on these has a limited lifetime warranty and a dust and waterproof rating. The individual units retail for about $120.00 each, and could be retrofitted to any of those bikes or possibly installed as OEM equipment. I'll be in touch with the gentleman who owns and operates Velec with the results if they're positive. He's nearby.
I'll also be installing a number of these on a XC bike for off-road use. Normally if riding in a group everyone has some benefit of the combined light from other riders which is why I think Ayups are usually more than adequate. Riding solo off-road is always considered a little risky and not recommended - at night even less so. So even one of these helmet mounted and a couple fork mounted is probably overkill, but with cut-off lenses will probably be good day-time running lights anyway. At that point we're probably looking at about $400 for three lights and batteries, a continuous runtime of about 4 hours and a 2,200 lumen output.
But these are also suitable for off-road motorcycles as well so if I put everything on the same machine and tie it into the electrical system, I expect to end up with about a 6A draw and 5,700 lumens output with a variety of lenses to distribute the light. Off-road racing vehicles with 12,000 to 20,000 lumens isn't unheard of and these units will actually stand up to continuous use without overheating.
For bicycle use I've decided that RC Lipo batteries are the best bet and can be sourced without backorder issues. Low drain batteries are ideal which are also cheapest and 11.1V units (3S1P) are protected against over discharging simply because the LED shuts down at 9V. Have also 'built' a battery pack using 10x rechargeable AAs just to show that its not complicated and certainly not that expensive.
So actually the point of this post was to demonstrate that even the average guy could put something together for about $150 (one light/ one battery)that would outperform and outlast most of whats currently being pushed on the Internet from China and still buy something made in the USA. One of the guys that owns an established local bike shop has been following my progress closely and has decided he wants to do the same thing for his own personal use. Considering he could buy anything else at wholesale - thats probably an indication that this has worked out pretty well.
I also have ties with a number of shops and since these units and batteries can be sourced in quantity, and warranty issues handled locally, we may decide to offer kits.