Originally Posted by rekmeyata
I find the run time on high for the Phillips to be right about 50 minutes and 90 minutes on low, kind of short but it's using 4 AA rechargeable bats, so maybe once the bats go dead I can get larger amp hour bats to replace those with. I never ride longer then that at night anyway so it's not an issue for me.
Glad that works for you. According to the Swhs review I linked to two of my posts up, there was a batch that had faulty electronics causing sort runtime. You might have one of those units. I'm not sure if mine, purchased late Nov 2011, exhibits this, since I didn't check runtime much before putting in the voltage converter.
I would not buy the dynamo version because the light output is about half of the Saferide 80. Also according to Peter White you can get a dynamo hub and recharge the Saferide 80 with it! See:
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/philips-bat.asp Also scan down that page and see another light show from the Phillips. Peter White is now liking this light over any of the dynamo lights that he has sold before.
You might be able to run it with an external USB feed, though I found that mine refused to run when I had it charging from a computer. With the different plug I haven't ever fed 5V high current to the jack. When I installed my converter I drilled a hole I could seal and fed the power to the battery terminals. IIRC I posted details to "Total Geekiness".
And very recently Phillips released a rear tail light with 6 LED's that make the rear light up with a very bright ring effect using 6 very high powered led's that is claimed to be visible 360 degrees around the bike(bold added), and avoids the problem of a spot rear light. Initial reports are claiming that the light is the brightest tail light they have ever seen.
I haven't looked up the marketing material, but if the bold portion is verbatim, it seems rather sketchy at best, and downright dishonest at worst, unless qualified in the literature. Certainly avoiding the "bright spot, hit or miss on curves" is a good thing.
Tor