Originally Posted by
prathmann
I'd suggest continuing to use your SuperNova but supplement it with a bright battery light to use in situations where your night vision is compromised by other lights. Lots of vendors selling nominal 1200 lumen (prob. really 600) with Cree XM-L T6 LED such as:
http://www.amazon.com/CREE-Bicycle-H...3310617&sr=1-6
for about $25. They run about 3 hours at high power or all night at the low power setting and can be either handlebar or helmet mounted. Having the battery light as a supplement to the dyno one also gives you redundancy if any problem should develop with either light.
I have the MagicShine version of this that I used before, but I was getting 1.5 - 2 hours after a year of use. Are there any battery packs that use 18650 batteries that are cheap and easy to swap out? I think I was paying about $40 for each battery pack. To run from dusk until dawn, that would be about $200 in batteries, plus the space to carry them.
I think my 900 lumen flashlight that I have runs about an hour per battery on high.. so I'm wondering if maybe I should just start with strapping that to my helmet and see what it does. It's more of a spot than a flood, so maybe it would be less likely to blind drivers??