Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
I was using the Philips batteries. Chemistry wise it shouldn't matter - in fact Eneloop capacity is less than a normal NiMH, the only advantage
AFAIK is that they hold their charge longer. In this case I took the light off charge minutes before putting it on the bike, so that shouldn't matter.
I ask because the stock Phillips batteries had a reputation for being crappy, regardless of whether it was cold weather or not. There's a number of reviews on amazon and a few elsewhere about it. Here's some links -
Amazon.com: Martt Harding's review of Philips BF48L20BBLX1 SafeRide Black LED Ba...
Bad news: (1) Like a couple other reviewers, at least one of the four batteries was defective. I charged them before trying the light, but it ran only 20-30 minutes. It took a couple days charging and discharging the batteries in an external MAHA charger to prove conclusively that at least one and perhaps two were not up to snuff.
Amazon.com: Christopher J. Olsen's review of Philips BF48L20BBLX1 SafeRide Black LED Ba...
The a few of the AA batteries that came with my light were not real good, and the first time it didn't run very long. But once I had good batteries, I got an hour and a half on high before it switched to low.
Amazon.com: PaulSquatch's review of Philips BF48L20BBLX1 SafeRide Black LED Ba...
1. Stock batteries are junk. After a few charge/discharge cycles it still wouldn't run more than 30 minutes on high. I ran these cells through a test on my charger and two of the cells had only 1300 mAh capacity. If I decide to keep the light these are going in the trash.
Amazon.com: Peter Olson's review of Philips SafeRide Silver LED Battery Driven...
I would agree with the general view of other reviewers that the light has a great beam pattern but poor battery life. I was finding the latter to be particularly true for cold weather riding in northern Wisconsin. I had a set of four Enloop XX batteries in an older bike light (a B&M Ixon) which I used for comparison tests in the SafeRide. This was done on different evenings with similar but not identical temperatures. In each case the batteries were fully charged. The SafeRide light and batteries were indoors at room temperature and then placed on a bike handlebar outside and turned on. The test with the Phillips batteries began at 42°F and ended at 40°. The light switched from high-power to city mode after about 35 minutes and shut off completely at 39 minutes. The Enloop XX test started at 41°F and ended at 37°. The SafeRide ran for 83 minutes in high-power mode and another 15 minutes in city mode.
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I said this elsewhere, but the eneloop marketing claims that the newer models are better in the cold than the older models -
http://www.amazon.com/eneloop-cycle-...ywords=eneloop
(Name followed by "Low Temperature Capacity")
Eneloop "1000 Cycle": +14 degrees F
Eneloop "1500 Cycle": -4 degrees F
Eneloop XX: -4 degrees F
So I do not know if/how well eneloops would work at temps like -25 degrees Fahrenheit, but it definitely sounds to me like a combination of just plain craptastic batteries in the Phillips light, and modern eneloops claiming to do better in the cold, means that you'd probably get far better results from Eneloops in the cold or in the warm than you did with the Phillips light and crappy batteries. I don't know if that would be good enough for your conditions or not, though. Also of note is that if I remember right, the Phillips light claimed not more than 2 hours of battery life, whereas the ixon iq claims 4-5 hours.