So, Erick. Did you get the Emitter? If so how do you like it?

I found that it shakes (and rattles) a lot on rough roads which makes the beam bounce around. On Smooth roads its fine so, as a result, I now avoid those roads. Other than that I like the light.

I have a Cateye EL300 (5 LEDs). Out of curiosity, a couple of days ago I rode with it instead of my 35W halogen homemade system. I felt blind. The only time I use it is when I am headed out on my road bike and just need something for the 5 mile ride in pre-dawn twilight to an early group ride. I can take it off and stick it in my jersey pocket. For my 40 minute commute in real darkness year round I prefer to actually be able to see the road. It does make a good flashlight, though.

I have a 3-LED light on my helmet. It's a barely-adequate back-up light. I wouldn't want to go more than 10 mph with it, but it would get me home. And with the helmet mount, it's perfect for night-time roadside repairs.

I don't think LED headlights are ready yet. There are LEDs that are bright enough, but they have a very limited lifespan and cost a lot more than bulbs.

I have a 3-led cateye on my helmet, it's an OK "be seen" light, and it lets me find my bottle cage and read my computer at night, but I wouldn't ride with only that except in an emergency.

I have a 20W halogen for that; I wouldn't feel safe doing 20MPH with much less.

BTW if you're at all handy, you can easily build your own system. My 20W halogen system cost about $25, it would have been about $45 but I already had a motorcycle battery charger for charging up the lead-acid cells. Someday I'd like to get NiMH but for now the lead acid works and was cheap ($12). I got 2.3 AH, I'd recommend going with 4, the 2.3 is getting dim by the end of my 40 minute commute.

I've also got a 12V amber strobe on order for the back, to supplement the 2AA LED Nashbar flasher (which is flakey since it's not waterproof and got pretty much filled with water during rainy rides this summer).

Hey do you have any instrucitons or website with instructions on building a home-made system?
Thanks, eric

I haven't gotten an LED system. i think the jury is still out. I'm gonna try and wait for the local Velo-swap out here and see if there are any deal.. then i'll get something.

See the Total Geekiness -thread in Commuting.

--J

the jury isn't out. it's in. LED headlights are great. if you wanna see in pitch black, no moon darkness, then get yourself a halogen with huge power. otherwise the LED lights are bright as heck. go to your LBS and try them. at the local MEC here they have a whole display of lights and you can compare them side by side. it's no contest: the LEDs are just as bright if not brighter, and the battery lasts for tens or hundreds of hours.

sd

If you're looking for a cheap LED to use instead of one of those really expensive camping ones, I did that this spring. Was going camping for 4-5 months and didn't want to bring the old maglight (too much weight, batteries). The LED headlights were expensive, so I checked the bike area (at the MEC) and got a planetbike 3 LED light. It's fantastic. I've used the same alkaloid AAs since early May (came with it), and they've gotten A LOT of us, and are still going strong. There's no other light in the woods at night (the moon?), so it get's used. It fits in the hand no problem, can take knocks and bumps and water is fine. It was less than half the cost of one of those headlamps and uses AAs instead of some nonstandard batteries that cost a fortune. It comes with a clamp for the bike that has a built in quickrelease, so you can change it from bike to bike in seconds. Now for lighting it up when biking, yeah it's for the city. But it cost something like $17 (can), and planet bike donates 10% of their sales to bike charities. Here it is: http://www.planetbike.com/frontlights.html# It's the "Beamer". Looks like they changed the design a bit, made cut outs around the light. Better for the road, worse for the camp. Click the "images/info" to see the old design. Most shops will still have the old ones. I also see they have one of those really bright LEDs now. Hmmm... I used their "BRT Spot" for a bike light and a camp light, but it's not enough light.

Ya- if you have a chance for a side-by-side comparision that is the best way.

I love brussel sprouts. IF they're steamed properly, I'll eat them like candy. If they're cooked like most people cook them, then I'd as soon eat mud.

I have the Digital Emitter version of this light - I could light up a Hockey Arena with the thing!

Seriously, it gives me plenty of light for my riding home on rural roads with no street lights. The light goes out about 100 - 150 feet with plenty of dispersion - good light - lots of forward visibility.

Is there a way to mount the Cateye EL500 on a helmet?

I saw the Performance Viewpoint Gen3 light and bought it. I got the non-digital version. When you guys referenced the Nighthawk Emitter, I went to the Nashbar site, and they look like the exact same light. I just went out back into the school field to compare it to my Cateye EL-300. They both cast the same size beam out in front of me, but on "high" the Gen3(Emitter) is VERY much brighter. The EL-300 gives a round beam of equal intensity throughout, with everything barely visible at about 20 yards. The Gen3 at that range has an overall same sized beam, with the center, where I'd be riding, bright enough for me to be able to see 2"-3" holes in the pavement. I'd been using the EL-300 for commuting in lighted areas. The Gen3 will let me ride with much better vision. One thing about the Gen3(Emitter) that I don't like is the upper section of the light is held on by three "inadequate" tabs. Most other lights have a screw somewhere holding the two halves around the battery compartment. I imagine them coming apart if I hit a good bump, but they haven't yet. Since I don't commute that often, I haven't actually used it riding yet at night. I was thinking of using it for seeing the road, and mounting an EL-300 pointing directly at driver's eye height for being noticed.
If you're going to be sailing along at a good clip, I think you still need to get the bigger lighting systems.

I think that would require the use of some amount of tape or glue.

I think i might go for this thing, or something like it that I can put AA rechargable batteries:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...129799023&rd=1

it's based of a 5Watt Luxeon LED. pretty much any bike light out there is based off a 3-watt LED. This light pumps out light like a 15-20watt halogen.. not bad price either.. just get a cheap handler-flashlight mount and your set (removeable too for camping :)

I have found, that combining the Planet Bike Super Spot and the cateye el-500 makes quite a suitable beam to ride by at night up to 20 mph. Together they make up for the others weakness. The super spot has a diffuse beam that lights up a wide swath immediately in front of the bike and the el-500 has a really focused beam to shoot out 30-40 feet in front of the bike. Together they still weigh less than most of the other high end lights I have seen and last 5 times as long. I have tested them in streetlights (don't wash out when used together) and pitch black and find this solution very satisfactory.

I just got one too. I was quite disappointed. It's about as half bright as my other light, Cateye HL500II(4 AA batteries) 2.4W. I changed my strategy to keep the Cateye as a main light and Super Spot for the Aux. HL 500II is not a bad choice, just keep a spare set of batteries(2.5 hours and start dimming with a set of 1600mah NiMH). I'll skip a couple of generation of LEDs in the future. I want to know from those people who have both Planetbike Supoer Spot and Cateye EL500, how much of the difference in brightness. I read somewhere on the net that EL500 is brighter than HL500II.

I have the Cateye HL-EL400 and used it for the first time last night. I got it mostly so other cars see me since most of my ride has decent street lighting. But there are a couple dark spots and it lit up the road just fine for a nice 15mph cruise. Good deal for the price, IMHO.

Both lights claim a 1000 candlepower and use luxeon leds. The super spot does really well at lighting a wide area directly in front of the bike but doesn't project as well further down the road (dims out at about 20 - 30 feet).

The Cateye EL-500 has a tightly focused beam that projects well over 40 feet but the spot is so focused it is rather small. The EL500 spills some light to the side but I find it not quite enough for my comfort when I have the beam aimed far enough out to ride at a good spead.

The two lights together completely cancel out the others weakness. It is probably the' equivelant of a 10 - 15 watt halogen with really good optics once you use both together.

I will probably add a petzl headlamp for serious descending when I get into overnight brevets in the future. For now the two lights are perfectly suitable for my needs right now as well as an evening workout in the country.

The bummer is that this setup is sensitive to the voltage drop you see with rechargeables and requires Alkaline batteries. The Cateye light gets flakey on low voltage as well so a backup is key in my opinion.

Thanks for the info, Paul L.

At 30-40 ft/s, I'd have one second to respond if I were using LED's...

That's why I am thinking of a headlamp for descending. Also, my estimates are conservative as I have not gone out and actually measured. Maybe I will go out and measure tonight and come in with some exact figures.

What? I've never had any problem running my EL500 on NiMHs for 2-4 weeks between charges. The LED itself only requires about 3.5-4 Volts, so NiMHs should be more than enough voltage, though who knows what kind of regulator they've attached to it. It's possible you have a bad AA cell that's causing the problem.

I thought the drop in voltage = a drop in brightness with LEDs. I might have to try the rechargeables now. I thought I read somewhere they dimmed the lights on the luxeon lights. If you are not seeing a difference then I will try it I think.

There's two types, regulated and unregulated.
Regulated ones maintain the same brightness as voltage drops though I'm pretty sure current draw increases.
Unregulated ones get dimmer as battery goes down.

It depends on how the regulator inside works. Some of them will automatically dim to reduce load, and others won't. I have a pile of NiMH cells so I haven't run a set until it totally quits yet - it would be good to hook the light up to a power supply and see what happens as I ramp down the voltage. NiMHs are about 1.4V fully charged and about 1.0V mostly discharged, so I would hope it would operate down to at least 4.4V which is a good 1.1V per cell discharge. (Compare to 1.75V and 0.6V for alkaline) The luxeon requires 3.5V, plus some overhead for the regulator.

Use lithium AA's, 1.7V to the grave.

Anyone know if the light output of this is any good? With 20watts I´d expect it to be good but the low price might mean low quality.
http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/115...eam-Light-.htm

Tested my distance on my Super-spot-EL500 combo last night and I paced the farthest spotlight out to a distance of 50 - 60 feet. So that would be somewhere between 1.5 to 2 seconds at 20 mph.