Originally Posted by
john0
Thanks for these suggestions.
The pulse of the
L&M Vis Micro is still too rapid for me -- I want a "heartbeat" from medium bright to high:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAj1QAqrOEE
Also I see that they do have an optional rack-mount that the light can dock with, which I need. But it's $10... + $11 shipping. $21 and a hassle for the plastic mount that should come included.
http://www.lightandmotion.com/bike/vis180micro.html
click the "EXTRAS" link
The
Cateye TL-LD570-R is very close to what I'm looking for. I definitely like that big "rear reflector" kind of design (I'll be mounting it on a rear rack), and it seems to have very wide visibility:
http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/TL-LD570-R/
But the pulse is still a bit too fast for me. Also it looks hideously jittery-while-pulsing here, though that might just be a video compression artifact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycXfFdHnsDY
But the deal killer: it's not rechargeable.
The
Cygolite HotShot 2W USB is the one I'm trying to find an alternative to.
It
has a notoriously narrow/focused beam, and although the flash speed can be slowed down (not sure how far), I don't think it has a fading "pulse" option.
The
Radbot 1000 has a mode that alternates a slow pulse with a flash cluster. Not rechargeable in any case.
Why
does the universe, and its henchman the bike industry, make life a matter of tradeoffs with no
actually good option?
The Cygolite Hotshot is relatively low priced, especially considering its output. It wouldn't be the most satisfying way to get the job done, but one way to possibly increase the effective angle of focus is to...buy two...improvise a little side by side mount, and have them slightly angled away from each other to get something closer to the angle of coverage sought after.
Maybe Cygolite has considered or is considering designing a Hotshot with double the current model's beam angle coverage. Most tail lights currently seem to be so small. Something a little bigger, even if it was twice as big, and a little heavier, but with better beam angle seems like something there'd be a market for.
I have the Hotshot. I'm not giving it a grueling workout, and for the riding I'm doing, I don't have to worry much about the character of the light it displays, other than it being bright...but it seems to doing just fine.