Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
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Personally I think 1500 lumens is too bright, unless you have a Magicshine then you need 1500 because their 1500 is a tad dimmer then Cygolite Mitycross 480 lumen light! If you have night vision problems then you might need 1500. The system I have I can more then see the road with, in fact I usually ride with the lights on the medium setting. Too much light hitting the pavement bounces back into your eyes causing night blindness that allows you to see nothing but blackness outside of the light beam.
From that response I'm guessing you're used to narrow beam lights that throw a lot of light but only illuminate a very small area. Total waste of lumens IMO.
But if, on the other hand, you want to light up the whole width of the street - it'll take a lot more than 1,500 lumens to do it.
Halogens are only about 60% as effecient as LEDs and an automobile uses 110 watts on low beam. So a close approximation would need about 60 watts of LEDs to generate the same lighting over an equal area. Currently, bike lights aren't even close.