SON Hub Dynamo, wired LED lights .. I have to actively think about turning them Off.. when I ride it does not matter one way or another ..

Resistance is Negligible ..

8K lumens, pretty hilarious.

Yeah, I bought a half dozen of the various magic shine knockoffs about a year and a half ago, most all of them with a battery pack. I've had one battery set "fail," meaning it works intermittently, if at all. The other 3 or 4 sets are working just fine, for now anyway.

The problem with the battery packs are that the connecting wires are super thin and fragile, and the soldering is very minimal, just a tiny touch of solder. You have to be a bit careful handling the battery packs.

The lights themselves work well. I get over 2.5 hours running at full blast, which is pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

I depend on my lights too. So much so that I would never ride with just one, front or back, even if I spent $1000 on them.

I'm not sure what the tradeoff is, because I think I have at least 4 cheap Chinese knockoff lights now, the longest for probably at least 6 years now, and I've never had any trouble with any of them, apart from fraying cords which take a couple of years to be a problem and I doubt any light would be immune to this. A fraying cord is a minor inconvenience IMO.

My first light was an MR16 halogen in a hunk of plumbing parts with a 12V SLA brick zip tied to the rear rack. Truly horrid DIY. I went through offroad HID and several other generations. What you can get now for $30 is brighter than and probably as reliable as anything you could buy 8 or 10 years ago.

I have bought a couple of the battery version of the lights that dyno owners say are awesome lights. Supposedly exactly the same thing as far as light output goes. Let's just say I sent them both back within 24 hours. I would NOT care to ride my route with that level of light output.

It's all very well to have nice shaped beams and I wish we had more options available in the US for that. However, on my route I do NEED to be a certain amount obnoxious. On hilly/windy 2 lane roads with no shoulder and cars doing 60+ MPH, I want a light that will get attention instantly. I also want a boatload of lumens when I'm coming down the backside of a hill at 30+ MPH in pitch black.

I'm told where the twin headlight scheme for the halogen E6, was in series , secondary bypass thru or on , Primary on or all Off.

LED lights would be wired in parallel .. either each or both, on or off.

Night rider 12v twin headlight units were dazzling bright, at the expense of shorter amp/ hours of battery capacity,





'/,

I've been using similar lights to those linked to above for 5 to 6 years without issues. They aren't unreliable and their output is about the same as you'll find on lights costing 3 to 5 times more. I have a Cygolite Epilion 850 which I got with REI dividends. It still cost me about $140...7 times the $20 Chinese knockoffs...and it isn't as bright as the $20 lights. I certainly glad I didn't pay any "real" money for it.

I agree with what you said except for this. Your problem was using a 12V battery. Overvolting the MR16 by 20% to 14.4V doubles the output to around 1200 lumens. I can't do it for $20 or $30 nor for the weight of the Chinese lamps but the output is simply amazing! No LED even comes close.

I did switch to a 14.4V bottle battery on the MR16, it really still was not as bright as the LEDs I run now. It may have put out more light but it was flooding it all over the ditches and the trees. The HID I switched to had a lot of light but took 30 seconds to switch on and was very heavy (machined brass case).

How do you tell Chinese knockoff from authentic Chinese?

I believe Authentic Chinese uses a bit more MSG.

If it has a name brand and you can find a website for that name brand with the product listed, it's probably not from "Joe's We find whatever you want to buy in a Shenzheng back alley and slap it in a box" company. And therefore you might have a chance at some kind of support. For Chinese knockoffs, your support in case of problems boils down to "you can buy 5 of these for the cost of one equivalent non-knockoff, so waddaya want?" Given the almost zero problems had by most people with the cheaper lights, and the fact that IMO nobody should ever ride with just one light anyway (MAYBE only one daytime light) that's a reasonable tradeoff.

XinTD C8 V5 XM-L2 U3 3D 18650 Flashlight
This looks like the current version of the light I got 2 - 3 years ago. $29.99 and bright enough to be my main light it will work fine in the daytime without exceeding your $50 budget. Adding a good charger and some good (Panasonic) cells will exceed $50 if you don't have these already.

I've had multiple defective lights from china. A tail light broke after less than a dozen uses. Granted, I paid less than $2 for it. A head light battery is barely working. Out $10.

Well sure, the utter crap is just that. I wouldn't even buy a < $10 light.

The batteries on these, I consider them the equivalent of the ink cartridges that come with printers. They prove the light works, but they're pretty low capacity and will only last a short time.

The lights themselves are fine, though in most cases you need to be careful with the wires to keep them from fraying. The battery, well, once you figure out that the light is going to work for you, start battery shopping. I posted a link to my current choice before, $10 for a waterproof battery box, and $27 for a set of four high quality Panasonic cells off Amazon.

When four good cells, bare, with no enclosure, cost $27, you gotta assume you're getting crap when you buy a light, charger and battery for $15.

I think most people also realize that the lumen rating is utter bullstuff. But because they say it's an 8000 lumen light for $15 doesn't mean that actually getting an 800 lumen light for $15 is a bad deal. You just need to know what you're getting. Which is just as well, because I don't actually want an 8000 lumen light.

+1. Have you ever passed a blinky-light cyclist on a dark road in your car? I do it less sure of myself and whether I'm leaving the room I should. But with city lights this is way better.

I have a cygolite something or other, and my favorite setting is a steady beam with a flickering to it. Good for daytime and night time use.

That's not a light output issue but a light management issue. Many of the LEDs I've used are flood lights and have, for me, exactly the same problem that you detail. The light is just too diffuse.

But if you use a 12° spotlight, it's pretty easy to see that the LEDs don't compare.

$50? No, but we are talking about your life so it might not be crazy to spend a little more. For my commuter, I gave up on battery lights entirely and use a reliable dynohub light set. The B&M Eyc on the front and Topline Light rear work perfectly. The front light has both daytime running beam and night time mode which switches automatically using a photo cell detecting light conditions. The daytime beam is focused higher to get driver's attention. The rear also has a brake light option which is governed by a chip monitoring the input to judge deceleration. I use a Sanyo hub on a wheel built by Peter White which wasn't horribly expensive and only adds .5 watts drag compared to the extremely expensive SON 28. If $75 sounds crazy then I'm certifiable, alive, and hey, I no longer worry about batteries.

Marc

I'll keep my LEDs though. Something to be said for 3 ounces of battery instead of 3 pounds of battery and the same runtime.

And there's the inevitable dynohub post. Like clockwork.

That pair of Cygolite lights that [MENTION=328212]downwinded[/MENTION] recommended are good. I know the Metro well and bought a Streak. The Streak is smaller and less expensive but just as well made. The downside is shorter battery life. I don't think I can get two hours out of it, so to be safe, I have to charge it before every ride. But it is a very good light for the money. If you think $75 to $100 is crazy, wait until you spend the money. You'll realize you've gotten your money's worth.

Flashing headlights are good in the day. The only place where they are obnoxious is when I am on the bike path and someone is flashing them while aimed poorly. The angle of incidence to my eyes is tiny, which makes it painful. I know I should just look away, but for some reason, my eyes go to the source of the light. And it's one place where a bright flashing light is not necessary.

I personally don't use a flashing headlight, but I agree they are a good thing. I generally use a steady light, powered by a dynamo. It's not for everyone, but it works for me. I really like the convenience of not using a battery for my headlight, as a good headlight requires a lot more energy than a tail light. I don't mind battery powered tail lights. I use my Cygolite Streak only on bikes I don't ride often, because those bikes don't justify the installation and cost of a dynamo system.

Cygolite Metro 400, $38
Cygolite Hotshot 2W, $21

These lights charge with a USB mini (not micro) connector, and you cannot remove the batteries. This arrangement works well for me but not for everyone.

Construction is excellent, and so is customer service. They replaced a light for me in which the battery had stopped accepting a charge before the unit was three years old.

I found this set on Amazon. And this set too. Both are cheap. Took me 5 seconds.

Thanks, Korina.

No offense intended, but I'm not asking anyone to Google "lights" for me. The problem is, everything looks awesome in photographs, whether it has a $2 price tag or a $200 price tag. I started this thread primarily to see what people think about the idea of daytime lights -- not so much which lights I should buy. I'm only going to upgrade if enough people can support my hypothesis that daytime lights are important and that the basic ones I already have are not good enough.

Thank you again for providing those links, though. To me, they look kind of cheaply made. Have you actually seen or used either of those sets?

The second set you cited uses some kind of non-rechargeable, non-AA or -AAA batteries. That would be a pain to replace. I got one of tail lights that came with a bike I bought. I'm also not confident that it's bright enough.

Yeah, don't use lights that use watch batteries. You end up spending money on them, and you hardly get any light out of them.

Neither one of those is, IMO, anything like a usable daytime light.

As conditions require, I will run my dyno operated headlight to make me a bit more visible to oncoming traffic. If conditions demand, I'll turn on my tail lights as well.

plus one and then some :thumb:

The hearty perenial.