Originally Posted by
fietsbob
Could just do it properly..
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/dymotec.asp
B&M Dymotec S12: Price: $ 315.00, Bottle dynamo ..
Lumotec Oval Plus 12 (12 volt) headlight and bracket Price: $ 82.00,
$ 17.00 spare bulb, is 5 watt (12 volt)
[ its halogen , so an LED substitute is also needing to be a 5W load.]
taillights: $ 68.00, a rack mount, or $ 52.00, rear of mudguard mount..
I guess 'properly' is a relative thing. When I looked at hub dynos didn't see anything I thought was suitable for running anything equivalent to 40W of lights at 12V for off-road use. And since my electric bike has a 12V output for a headlight, it also would need neither an extra battery nor a dyno hub if I went this way.
The road bikes I'll probably just run with a helmet light anyway so single 900 lumen light and battery for that would be less than $200, and in fact, I can just 'borrow' something temporarily from the mtb bike.
So my decision was based on redundency, availability and overall flexibility rather than cost. There were definately cheaper individual solutions - IMO this was the better overall solution for my own uses.
Someone else might take an entirely different approach depending on their own objectives and I'd have no problem with that.