Somehow I missed this post for a few days.

Yes I did, between two local Radio Shacks, one or the other has some in stock. I found a good deal on line somewhere, but I don't have the url right now. When I find it I will send it to you, I'm going out in a couple of minutes. I have not bought anything from there yet, as the price is better in quantity, and I'm not sure I need that many.

Both the AAA's and the AA's are great. I think the increase in brightness is worth it. I have not really kept track of the run time or the expense too carefully, because I decided I am going to use them anyway, even if it is a little more.
I did use up one pair of AA's in my Cateye TL-LD 1000. That does not bother me at all, I do about 6 to 8 hours in the dark per week until the snow gets here. I consider that worth it to have a light that is as bright as it is.

I don't remember when you first mentioned them in a thread I was reading, I got some AA's the next day and they ran until about 3 weeks ago. If I can find that thread later I will get the date and give you an approximate run time for that set of AA's. I used up one set of three AAA's in the Performance "Flare" but, I did not keep track of the time, and I used the light as a flashlight a lot too. No way to track that set.

I also sometimes will use the Cateye light on steady as a light to see something in my bag or to get the keys into the house lock etc. I don't think I would ever use more than 2 sets per year in either light. The run hours go down for me in the winter.

So..........two sets a year, how bad can that possibly be? Not bad!

I'm glad you brought it up. Thanks, I appreciate it.

Now, if that red dot on the monitor will just go away !!! Hey, it's on the wall too! Hey, it's on the keyboard!

Of course all of these comparisons are useless if you don't start with new batteries from the same batch.
Even then it may not be equal, batteries vary. So there can be lots of different results from light owners.

I compared the two Xenon flashers I have to the LED lights in that thread, only the two brightest LED lights were brighter than the strobes I had. I'm talking about the self contained battery operated strobes. I should have said that before. I did not think about over volting the Xenon strobes, that may change it completely. But until you know if it shortens the bulb life or creates any other problems it's a little early to say it will work well on the bike for a while. I have no idea.

The LED lights that I am referring to are the Performance "Flare" with Lithium batteries (the brightest by a good margin) and also the Cateye TL-LD 1000. They both have lenses that increase the visibility of the LED, I think Cateye claims that the lens increases the LED visibility by 1.5x. The other LED lights I have used are no where near these two, that includes most of the older red blinkers. Unless you have seen one of these it's hard to imagine how much brighter they are than the older style led lights. That's why I put up the comparison photos. There are a couple of other new style LED's out there that I think are about the same, but I have not seen them in person.

I think I still have one of the Xenon strobes somewhere, If I can find it I'll try to put up a good comparison photo. The other problem I have with the Xenon strobes is they run the batteries down much faster and lose brightness faster, I finally stopped using them. The rated brightness was not something you end up riding with very long.
I think the specs are on line I'll try and find them.

I did only compare the bike lights to the running lights and they were incandescent. In the photo.

But, I rode my bike behind my friends bike with him having my taillights on his bike for over 50 miles in the dark. I slowed down and let him get up to 1/2 mile away in traffic to see what it looked like, when the road was straight enough. I should have taken my camera, the results were amazing. The bike light was easy to pick out from the cars, and lit up the power lines and the trees once in a while, on a corner or a hill.

A blinking light on a bike is also more noticeable in traffic with cars around. A lot more. It gives more of a warning signal than just another vehicle going along that a motorist might assume is going the same speed they are. The rate at which the light blinks has a lot to do with it too. It changes how our eyes react to the light. The pupils expand and contract, some fast blinking lights blink too fast and your eyes don't pick up as much of a change in brightness.

I am very intrigued by the "flare." seems like the only downside might be that it's pretty focused to the rear. might be good in combo with the xenon. :-) thx for the info.

Good observation, it is.

From a few blocks away the focus "cone" expands a lot and is pretty wide, when you are just a couple of car lengths away it loses a large portion of it's power from the side. You can still see it just fine, but it's not blinding any more. I think it's a perfect plan to run both at the same time. I did have to modify the bracket to get it to fit the seat post the way I wanted. I took pictures and there is an old thread where I explained this to someone before. I can find that later if you like. It was not much work.

Yeah on my cateye el200, my gf and I go through a set maybe once every 2-3 months in flash mode. Plus they hold their juice when it's like 10-15F.
When you know the right people on ebay... you don't need to worry about buying any more lithiums for a long long time..

Depending on how fast you're going, if the light isn't blinking at 4+ Hz, the distance between every blink could be like 10 ft, which is no good in traffic. I run my niterider taillight solid plus a rapid blinker on my helmet.

Holy Electrons Batman! What did your unit price come out to be?


I have not really given that any thought. It seems like there are a lot of overlapping factors. I see what you mean about the velocity of a bike. I don't know if I can measure the speed of my flashers above about 2x a second.

Hehe.. about 50 cents a pop vs. about 2 bucks a pop retail.
If you REALLY wanna fry some LED's, get these: https://cgi.ebay.com/8-AA-3-6V-2400mA...QQcmdZViewItem

Lithium thionyl chloride 3.6V *PER CELL*
Feel like running 7.2V through a blinker? Hehehe..

Me and a mate set up brake lights on his bike when we were kids. The difference was that it was off, then when you braked, the light when on. I'm sure it could be modified.

The design made a circuit thruogh the light, which incorporated the brake lever. When the brakes were applied, the movement completed the circuit and the light went on. Real simple stuff, but worked pretty well.

No practical use, but when you are the only 9 year old with brake lights on your bike, you look pretty cool (well, sorta!)

I wonder what would happen if I put two in a Cateye TL-LD 1000? I wonder what would happen if I put four in my Realight 27 LED light? 14.4v ! I wonder how much the life of the led's would go down, or if something would over heat?

Oh crap......now I have to try it!

Am I going to burn out the lights in 10 minutes?

As you can clearly see, some of us are still doing that kind of thing.