This makes total sense for anyone who has a reason not to charge in the day. Remembering can be hard, for me and lots of other people. It's easy for some people, and other things are more important to them than charging frequency.

But that's exactly why I like to be able to charge my lights at work if I need to, in case I forget to charge them at home and don't have enough juice to make it the full round trip commute.

Yes. I'm saying different strokes for different folks, which makes more sense to me than arguing that one's way of doing things is better for others. You like charging in the day. [MENTION=21724]cyccommute[/MENTION] wants to avoid it. I don't like it, either. I like never charging my headlight, and dynamo lights are bright enough for me, but they're not bright enough for him. That's OK because he doesn't mind charging at night. See, the different parameters have different weights for different people. More light would be a bonus for me, but I'm not willing to pay for it with a regime of nightly charging, while you and he don't mind that. Super reliable clamping or mounting are important to you and me but he doesn't mind improvising his own solutions. See, you and he and I are just three examples of various mixes of different weights. Lumens per dollar seem to be important to him, a little less to you, and a lot less to me, and that's another example. It's all an engineering puzzle to choose the best light for a person's situation and needs.

No, I don't like charging in the day. I prefer to charge all my lights at once, at home in my little charging station box (shoebox with a power strip, USB hub and a bunch of mini-USB cables). I was just pointing out that I have the option to charge lights at work, in a pinch, if I happen to forget to charge at home. And I do forget, occasionally.

Some seem to totally overlook the fact that one can use more than one type of light. My prefrence is a dyno light that can be on 100% of thee time, and cover 98% of my needs without any thought or effort. For the other 2% I also have a high output battery light that gets used infrequently, thus not requiring daily charging.
Now on the other hand, my e-cargo bike has lights that run off the battery, but dont require any additional effort beyond the normal charging.

And my point is that under the way that I use my lights, I would have to charge at work or carry another battery for each lamp. That's a significant investment based on the price of the lights and spare batteries...if the light allows for spare batteries which may not always be the case.

The Cygolite system also has a flaw in battery management. If you do happen to have spare batteries, the only way that I can see to charge them is in the light. So if you do need to use 2 batteries for 3 hours on high, how are you going to charge both batteries overnight?

It's also not impossible to charge a clone pack at work if needed...although a 2 to 2.5 hour run time doesn't require much additional charging. The chargers are cheap and the world is full of plugs.

That flaw doesn't affect some people, depending on how they use the light, but it is serious for others.

Can a Cygolite light work while being charged? That would be nice. My B&M battery-powered light (IXON Core) can accept a charge and keep on working. I used it on an all day ride and powered it (and other things) with a big external USB battery. So my "spare" battery doesn't go inside the light. Of course, this is not terribly convenient, using a USB cable and figuring how to mount the external battery in a stable way. It was OK for me because it was an unusual ride for me. If I had to power a light all day often, I would probably do something else.

These are evil and you should be ashamed of yourself for giving money to the "people" who make them. Those subhuman scum need to go hungry until they figure out how to make a light that either isn't front heavy or has a mounting system that will tighten enough to keep it in place anyway.

For a few bucks more, is pretty well balanced, and only gets adjusted maybe once a mile on chipseal, and a lot less on decent roads.

This is why I'd like to see more simple light heads that can run off a common 18650 pack; most of the Chinese headlights are already standardized at ~8V off two 18650s, (with two pairs paralleled as the "normal" included pack) and it wouldn't be hard to make taillights with the same power requirement and some decent flash patterns, plus this would allow a switch to be placed at the battery to turn on all the lights at once; no more getting off the bike after a scary street to find you forgot to turn your taillight on.

Heck, if they'd make decent lights for such a rig, I wouldn't mind building out a 2s/10p pack and case to put it in the triangle and only charge once a week for even my winter commute. Would even be worth throwing on a 5V regulator and USB port to keep my phone topped up at that point.

I use a Cygolite 850. It is affordable (about $80 on eBay) and good for daytime visibility and night time too. In other words, during the day, cars can see me and at night, I can see where I'm going. Win/win!
I have ran this light for 3 hours and have not exhausted the battery yet!

Huh? The light you linked to uses exactly the same mount with a heavier light head. Although I don't use the factory mount, most of these lights come with a variety of o-rings so that the tightness of the clamp can be adjusted.

And it's not like these lamps are any heavier or less well balanced than most other lights around.

The triple light sits almost balanced on the bar, though, where the single ones have almost all their weight forward of the mount point, so they have a much stronger tendency to pitch forward.

Still a far cry from being able to tighten down a screw until it just ain't gonna move.

All those rubber straps and o-ring mounts are rubbish anyway. My Cygolite mount *NEVER* needs adjusting unless I accidentally bump the light with my hand or arm, pushing it slightly to the side. As for up/down pitch aim, it never moves in the slightest.

Not in my experience. I used the lights with the o-ring mount for a while and the mount was fairly secure as long as the o-ring was small enough.

I also have a dual light version of the one you posted and it's balance point isn't any different from the single emitter light. All of the weight on all of these lights is towards the rear of the light anyway. That's where the electronics and, more importantly to weight distribution, the heatsink lies. None of them are "weight forward". Old halogen lights could be a bit weight forward because they didn't usually have (or need) a heat sink and the reflector on the light was usually the heaviest bit.

But LEDs are relatively lightweight forward of the center line because the reflector and housing aren't that heavy.

By the way, the reason that I don't use the dual emitter lamp like the one you posted is that it doesn't put out twice as much light. It puts out the same light from 2 emitters. It uses the same 18650 battery pack and draws the same amperage as the single emitter so each lamp is putting out half as much as a single emitter. I suppose there is some way to work around this so that both lamps would put out as much light as a single emitter but it's beyond my capabilities. I suspect that it would need a much larger battery as well.

This is something that I've noticed on a few other dual emitter lamps I've been suckered into buying. They all put out the same light as a single emitter because they use the same battery. The "Free Lunch Gene" is strong in these lights

More like a medium cry I agree that I don't like the o-ring mount but that's not because of the light shifting. It never shifted on me even when used off-road. I went to a clamp mount because it's far more convenient to switch lights from one bike to another. Pulling the o-ring off...especially if it is tight...is a hassle on a cold morning.

On the other hand, the o-ring mount isn't so bad that someone should pass these lights up in favor of something that costs 3 to 5 times as much for the same light output. As I posted above, there are inexpensive DIY mounts that work as well as the more expensive light mounts and the cost of the light and clamp is still far below that of the more expensive lights.

Believe it or not, it's almost a deal breaker for me. As you point out, frequent putting on and taking off is an annoyance with O rings. I want my light to be easy on and easy off, and I am willing to pay a lot more for that.

I find O rings usually acceptable. But if not, there are a lot of 3D printable mounts on Thingiverse. I've gone to those for some of my Chinese lights. They generally are more permanent though (IE takes a couple of minutes to get them off).

See post 7 above. The Mawri mounts are fairly cheap, rugged, strong and easy to remove. They actually have 2 parts so that the clamp stays on the bike and the light is mounted to a sliding mechanism. Here's the Expilion on the Mawri mount



And the mount without a light



I just leave them in place all the time.

Back in the days of flashlights, I use the same clamp





For "Magicshine" lights, there is a cheap plastic block that screws to the bottom of the light.


Hoffman even has a good mount for a helmet



I have managed to break a couple of mounts but that was only because of a spectacular crash I had. I'm reasonable certain that no other light mount would fair better. That particular mount has been kicking around since 2008 so I'm reasonably certain about it's durability.

It's Marwi, not Mawri. In any case, yes that's a good solution. Amazon ought to recommend those when people look at those lights. It would put those headlights into another light, so to speak.

The second of the 2 Magicshines I bought came with a metal mount that works really well. I haven't seen one anywhere else, and I got this one shortly after the xml emitters came out.

I can recommend a the german brand Busch & Müller (Busch & Müller: Products). They make lights for dynamo and rechargeable battery power sources, and are top quality. The germans have legal regulations that require a headlight not to blind uncomming traffic among other things, which is great. B&M abides to these regulations.

I have the Ixon Core for a headlight, and Toplight Line as a rear light - both powered by batteries. The Ixon Core has a 15 lux mode for "be seen" and a 50 lux mode for when you need to see an uniluminated road, which it does to perfection. I find that I can commute for an hour a day for about two weeks before the Ixon Core needs recharging, which can be done by either USB or wall plug.

edit: I'm not sure where to buy in the US, but i think Peter White Cycles might be an option.

Thankfully I'm in a situation where I don't need to remove my lights (I don't even carry a lock for my bike and just park it outside stores around here, no problems).

I don't have to remove my lights for security either. But I do have several bikes that I use for night riding and being able to easily and quickly shift lights from one to another is a plus.

I have the Ixon Core, too. I don't use it often, as I usually use dynamo powered lights. The beam shape from the Core is great. But the light is front-heavy and pitches forward from vibration. I could get their bolt-on bracket, but they didn't tell me I'd need it. I bought mine from xxcycle.com in France. The brightness isn't that great, either. I'm used to dynamo powered lights which are also not super bright. The Core and the dynamo lights are bright enough for me but not for lots of folks here who want a lot more light than that.

Brightest Dynamo powered (AC) light: B&M IQ-X (150lx)
Brightest DC light from B&M: IQ-X E and IQ-X Speed (150lx)
Brightest DC light: Supernova M99 Pro (320lx, 1600lm)

There are also (external) battery powered lights with cut-off beam like Spezialiced Flux Expert or Outbound Lighing Focal Series.
outboundlighting.com
kickstarter.com/projects/outboundlighting/high-performance-lightweight-long-lasting-bike-lig

M99 Pro light looks awesome, but ~$500 is just insanity for a bike light. I could never justify spending that much.