Dinotte 5W LED vs. L&M HID?
 

Hi all, is there anyone who has (access) to both of these lights and would like to share some beamshots? I'm currently still thinking about buying Dinotte as my 2nd (backup) light, as my little Cateye EL400 proved to be a little underpowered for this task. The L&M Arc is wonderful, but it has limited runtime, and I can't currently afford the top-of-the-line Arc Ultra model.

check here - Down at the bottom is a shot with an HID light.

I have the 5 and it's great but it's a flood and doesn't throw that far. It's nice, light and tiny though so it's got a lot going for it as a backup light.

I use it as one of my main lights. I have it bar mounted with a helmet mounted spot that throws a little farther ahead.

Dalmore, thanks for the link. If you had choice of just one Dinotte - would you choose the 5W (flood) or 3W (spot) model?

I have the ARC on my bars and the Dinotte 3W spot on my helmet. It is a great combination.

I haven't used the 3w spot yet so I'm going to reserve judgement. I've been using the 5w with my Princeton Tec EOS to this point.

I'd be worried about finding a replacement bulb for the HID. For one they are expensive (about 100USD), and for two they might take forever to get.

BTW, my wife uses a Cateye Triple Shot for her commute and loves it. It costs just a bit more then the Dinotte, shipped from Germany.

Where price starts coming in- I have a problem as Accessories over here in the UK are a lot more expensive than in the US. I was looking at the L&M Arc and came to the same conclusion that battery life was not long enough.

I did buy an Exposure Enduro Turbo that I tested against the L&M Arc and to me it was as good but battery life better. http://www.use1.com/exposure/product...duro/index.php

However- for about half the price of the L&M and Exposure- I was Looking at the Blackburn X6. Met a rider that had one and it was good and at that time I was using 2x 10w halogens. These were good enough for offroad but zilch on battery life-only just over an hour. He was getting over 3 hours on full beam and a lot longer on a dimmer setting.

Edit- I have an aversion to HID's after a friend of mine blew two bulbs in quick succession- The cost was frightening- + the fact that Led Bulbs are reliable and can take knocks. To be honest- If I could get twin 20 w halogens with a decent battery life- they would be my choice but the Luxion bulbs are very deceptive on their light out put- They may only be 5w but I would put it at around 20w conventional. Having two of them in the Exposure and I have enough light

That image was taken using a Light and Motion HID Li-Ion.

Currently, any LED over 3-watts is really just several LED elements made into the same case. You will get a wider beam pattern but the light output will be whatever LED elements they molded into the LED case. Most 5-watt LEDs are really two 3-watt LEDs de-rated to 5-watts due to the heat limitations of the LED material. It's sort of like three 5mm 1-watt LEDs in a light and that light being advertised as a 3-watt light. It's really only as bright as a single 1-watt LED, except it is consuming 3-watts of power and your beam pattern is wider than just a single 1-watt LED. It's going to be a long time before LED lights will ever put out the amount of light a halogen or HID light is capable of. Of course, if the light output of an LED is good enough for you then the longer run time with considerably smaller batteries is an equitable trade off. I use the Mag-Lite 2-AA 3-watt Mini-LED flashlight and it's just fine for the type of riding I do. Others will find a halogen or HID is a must for there type of riding. Always use the proper tool for the job at hand.

you can go with a hid from batteryspace.com not the greatest thing but cheap and you can get cells to run as long as you want. mine has 8 hour runtime for less then 300.00

Thanks for your ideas. What I meant - the HID (Arc) I have already. Has been working without problems for the last 1.5 years, so even if the bulb goes dead sometime soon, I can say I have had some fun. But the battery life, which, by the way, is not much less than when the light was new, could be better. I have the NiMH version, 3.5 hours on high, 4 hours on low. In the winter, it's more like 2-2.5 hours, when I tried -20C ride, it only lasted for less than 1 hour. So I'm looking for a backup, LED based light, as light and small as possible (Dinotte), but with a decent runtime. I was also looking at L&M Vega, but the runtime is <2h, and you can't change the batteries once it's dead.

^^^

The Catyeye Double Shot might fit what you need. 200 euro is the cost, and it has a decent run time, is very small, and can be helmet mounted.

Also try putting the battery in your pocket, I've found that I can increase run time a lot in very cold weather by doing so.

No expert here but from what I've been reading there is indeed a single 5 watt luxeon emitter. But from what I've read, anything stronger is indeed a cluster like you describe. Not that it matters ... this field appears to be very rapidly changing.

Wrap your battery in some kind of insulation and stick a chemical hand warmer in there. Or if the cord is long enough just ride with the battery under your jacket. That will bring it back or keep it going just fine. 98.6 is nice and warm. You can always make or get a cord extension if you need one.

Great idea 2many, I will wrap a warmer around my ARC LiIon battery when things get real chilly.

For the record, I got that one from slvoid. :)

Stand up guy. :)

Now, who did slvoid get it from? ;)

That's one of the good things about being an engineer, you can come up with your own ideas. ;)

Hey, I'm a Chem E undergrad. It just hasn't gotten cold enough yet for me to need to think about it. I'm sure I would have done the same thing. :) (I hope)

And if something goes wrong with that idea, it's slvoids. :D

Just kidding, ColorChange nothing will go wrong.