I am about to order this light based on postive comments in the light selection guide thread.

TrailTech Eclipse HID Bar Mount Bike Light with Smart Charger and waterproof cable

However I have some reservation, not about its brightness or battery life (the normal concerns) which I am satisfied with, but about how easily and cleanly it can integrate into a bike.

I will not hang the battery to the handlebars (need space for hands) but likely to the top tube, with only ~6" of wire needed to the light head unit. But its looks like it comes with lots of wire and a bag that may not be balanced/centered under the top tube.

To those that use this light, does this sound like a feasible way to do this? A compact minimal wire install?

(I started a new thread as owners of this light may not read the light guide thread as they already have a light)

Thanks-
Al

I just got this unit, and I'm a big fan. The light is plenty bright (I illuminate signs better than most cars) and really gets attention.

I connect the bag to my water bottle cage (which I don't use anyway). The back side of the unit has two nylon straps, each with two button fasteners. I loop them through the top of the cage and it works pretty well. The straps are oriented so that the bag itself will be on one side or the other of the top tube if you did it that way. I have a hybrid frame and getting it on the top tube was a little snug (I think I could only fasten one of the two fastners on each) -- that's why I went with the water bottle cage installation. The battery/bag itself is about the size of a deck of cards and maybe an inch or so thick.

The cord isn't super-long, but I usually route it through the quick-release for my bike lock to eliminate slack. It hasn't been an issue for me, but if you want a real clean look, you might have a challenge, since the cables are actually a part of the batteries and light -- you can probably cut and solder on new connectors, but I believe the polarity is critical, so be careful.

Thanks. That was helpfull. The battery pack is smaller that I thought.

I am hoping for an install kinda like I drew on the photo of the bike attached

Al

I bought this light too and I am very happy with it so far. I started out hanging the battery pouch from the TT but the straps weren't long enough to really secure it, so it 1) swung back and forth annoyingly and 2) brushed my legs when I was up sprinting. You can however tuck the coiled part of the cable inside the front zipper on the pouch. If you constructed strap extensions -- maybe 4" long x 1/2" wide nylon strips with snaps-- you could strap it along two axes between the head tube and top tube, and that would be pretty clean.

The method I hit upon is to use velcro tie-wraps to strap the cord along the bottom of the tt and tuck the battery into my pannier. Its a bit of a stretch with the stock cable, but I ordered up the 4' non-coiled extension along with a second handlebar mount for my fixie.

One other comment about this light -I orderd the 12 degree flood but I'm going to see if they can send me the 6degree spot reflector so I can compare them side-by-side. I fear the flood is too wide and I'm both losing some distance as well as unnecessarily blinding the oncoming traffic ... YMMV

That was my concern - the wobble. Perhaps I need to add a stabilizer strap to the side facing the head tube, similar as you suggest.

Or maybe the battery can fit under my seat without using the nylon bag. Or perhaps an upside down mounted 'bento' bag under the top tube.

As you can see, I don't use panniers or racks on this bike - I also remove and re-install lights constantly as I don't use them for weekend club rides.

Al

An old belt or a cheap new one, or some rope, makes a good stabilizer. Go around the whole battery and the head tube at the same time. I have used paracute cord.

Bento would work perfectly if you didnt mind it sitting on top. I got the 4Ah Li-IOn batt and it would definitely fit inside the posted dimensions for the small one: 31/4" X 1 1/4" X 3"



https://www.trisports.com/benbakis.html

I just ordered it.

Al

I found the light to be very good. I am using a dynamo system now with 4 Luxeon 3s but the trailtech was a good light and still is. I am thinking of using it for night mountain biking now. I just used a cheap seatbag from supergo and turned it upside down to mount it like the bento box on the top tuble and it worked good.

I'm considering this light. How bright is it compared to a ?? watt Halogen? How 'bout 2 x 3Watt Luxeon LED system like a CatEye Double Shot or Dinotte?

Check out the Light Selection Guide sticky thread.

Al

I will when I have time to read through 290 + posts but until then, I'm looking for a quick comparison from folks in this thread that have experience with this light and others.

I'll let you know how it compared to my Cygolite Rover xtra 6/10W halogen.
The first page has svloids chart, but it unfortunately doesn't include this light, but you can check out other 10W HIDs lights in the chart and see how they compare to halogen lights.

Al

Cool. I started reading the Lighting Sticky from the last page and read backards. It would've taken 291 posts to find slvoids. Thanks.

I'm still interested in hearing your comparizon with your 6/10W halogen or any other comparisons becasue not all HID are equal even if they have the same wattage.

Riding with the Trailtech I would often be mistaken for a car and given the right of way by people who would normally cut me off. I don't think I ever outrode my Trailtech and I rode speeds over 40mph with it. I can't ompare to anything I have owned before, it blew the pants off my 18w Specialized fireballs light. It is basically the equivalent of a car or motorcycle headlight I figure.

The weakest HID bicycle light on the market that I know of is 10 w. It's a lot more light tham a 16 w halogen. You can see for your self in 2 minutes. Start at the front, the first post is all you need.

Read the very first post in the thread "light selection guide". There will be a few links to some beam comparison shots, the links are all grouped together it's easy. It will not take long to find the L&M HID or a halogen or LED photo. You can get a good idea.

I switched to it from a 20W halogen. It blows away the halogen. It's somewhat brigher, probably about 2x but maybe not quite, but also it's a lot whiter (some say bluer) whereas the halogen is definitely yellow, even when overvolted.
Personally for my riding, which tops out at about 18 MPH in the winter, the 20W halogen is probably OK, if coupled with enough battery for a 2+ hour runtime. But with the lamp at $120 I just couldn't resist. I'd buy it again, though if money were tight I'd go back to the DIY 20W MR16 halogen.

I'm considering the exact same purchase. I imagine most folks own the spot variety, so has anyone purchased the flood version? Any thoughts on whether the rider needs more distance than periphery or vice-versa?

All HID's are pretty much equal. The only differences that I know of so far are the cateye stadium (bright bright light), lupine (good electronics), L&M (good reflector, throws out more light), and the rest of the crowd (NR, trailtech, jetlite, etc).

At the same consumption, the lupines will probably be brighter than "others". (Might want to confirm with 2manybikes). Also at the same consumption, the L&M will put out more light because the custom aluminium reflector's able to throw more light out rather than the cheap glass ones that everyone else uses.

For comparison, you're looking at the following in order: 13 watt HID, 11 watt HID, 27 watts of halogen, 16 watts of halogen, and 11 watts of halogen.

That's what I said: I bought the flood and I think its too wide.

Hey slvoid,

Thanks for the pictures, it really shows how bright a HID is compared to a good Halogen. I hope this will help others as I snagged one of the L&M Arc's from Nashbar for $263. BTW: You just named 3 that are NOT equal to the rest.

From your pics, it looks like 13W HID is about = to 27W Halogen for brightness. No?

The Lupine is a little better than the Nightrider on 10w, it looks like a similar style reflector as the L&M lights.

If you operate any of the HID bicycle lights on the market at 10 watts, you get about the same amount of light from them. After all, they use the same bulb from the same company with different reflectors, different electronics, and different lens angles. I don't know about the new 30w HID from batteryspace.com. I think it's a bigger M-16 bulb.

Using the different power ballasts I can see the difference, 10w 11w 13.5w 14w 16w etc. The difference is noticeable. Different reflectors are noticeable in the comparison beam photos and in person. The different angle lenses start to mean less, and even out above 10w HID because of the amount of light. Unless you can see the lights side by side it's hard to tell. I'm saying exactly the same thing as slvoid, but just saying it differently.

If you are a bike light newbie and want to learn more..........

Even if you have no intention of buying a Lupine light, go to the Lupine beam comparison photo page. Just by moving the cursor around you can see the difference between spot and flood lenses, also HID, LED,And halogen illumination. Lupine currently makes the most powerfull LED bike light on the market, that might be a surprise.

You will get a great idea of the difference between the same wattage and the three different kinds of bulbs.

Go to the first post in the thread "light selection guide" go to the links for the beam comparison photos. This will teach you more about light power and beams and reflectors, the efficency of different bulbs etc. than a typed response. Don't search the entire thread.

Your blog was really helpful. Here's the quote from https://ahpook.vox.com/
Thanks for sharing your impressions and your homework. I'm off to buy the TrailTech in spot configuration. I enjoyed the photos of your commute you posted. That is some beautiful country.

Hey thanks. Glad it was helpful.

Resurrecting this thread because I bet it'll come up in a search at some point.
I fixed a problem that had been bugging me with the Trailtech mounting system.
Noisebeam mentioned this in another thread: the way the mounting bracket is
set up, it's impossible to get the wingnut tight enough to keep the lamp from
slipping off its set position. There is actually the right hardware to do this
correctly, but they have the washers and nuts set up all wrong, so there's no
friction in the place you need it. L to R from the front, the way mine came, it goes:

(|#|%_---_|||#<-

( Bolt head
| washer
# plastic bracket L
| washer
% nut
_ metal light bracket L
--- exposed bolt
_ metal light bracket R
||| washers
# plastic bracket R
< wingnut
- exposed bolt

So there's literally no way to apply tightening force between the metal bracket and the
plastic one, causing slippage. I reordered things to get a big improvement:

(|#|_%---_---#<-

( Bolt head
| washer
# plastic bracket L
| washer
_ metal light bracket L
% nut

So I can tighten the nut up directly against the metal bracket and it gets held against
the outside washer very nicely. I'm going to track down a couple more nuts, they look like
standard pitch threads so it should be easy find. There should be plenty of room on the
plastic bracket to make a real "locknut" setup like this:

(|#|%_%--%_%|#<

( Bolt head
| washer
# plastic bracket L
| washer
% nut
_ metal light bracket L
% nut
-- exposed bolt
% nut
_ metal light bracket R
% nut
# plastic bracket R
< wingnut

This way you could tighten the nuts on either side of the metal bracket *towards each other*,
pinching the metal light bracket between them, like axle cone locknuts - the wingnut and bolt
head will still have enough purchase to keep the whole bar from rotating but the problem we're
seeing where the wingnut/bolt stay in place but the light slips relative to the bolt will
never happen again.

Batteryspace = Decent battery folks, bad bad mechanics :-)

(edit: Bah, it's ruined my spacing. see my blog for a nicely formatted post)