If I compare the NiteHawk Emitter and their cheapest halogen, the LED light Emitter:

-lasts longer
-is smaller
-is lighter
-doesn't have cables
-is cheaper (MEC price)
-is more versatile (10% mode)
-more enviro-friendly (no lead-acid battery)
-runs on easy-to-find AA batteries

Basically, the LED beats halogen in every aspects. As for power-per-unit NiteHawk claims it's as powerful or more than a 10w halogen but forum members seem to disagree with that statement. I tend to believe the forum members. But even if it's only as good as a 5w halogen, it still beats halogen in every aspects.

Disclaimer: I have not tried the Emitter yet.

I saw a cateye el500, which seems to use the same voltage and LED element as the performance or nashbar LED's, this morning during my century. The guy had TWO of them on his bike and the spot it created was about as bright as my specialized 5 watt halogen (with a maglight bulb, not the MR11's) run off of 4 AA's.
Though it did have a pretty cool effect cause the two lights made him look like some kind of automobile. Plus the battery life is arguablely longer.

What about kerosene?

Aww, that was surpassed by burning magnesium powder decades ago! :)

I read what you wrote. You wrote "LED are worse headlights", "they're poor seeing lights", and "LED aren't better than halogen now". These are opinions, based on a limited number of parameters, but you presented them as if they were general facts. I was pointing out that that isn't the case.

The above quote is obviously in error. The commercially available luxeon lights (EL500, SuperSpot) are 1 Watt right now. A 4 Watt halogen will drain the batteries at least 4 times faster. The average 10 Watt halogen will drain the battery at least 10 times faster. That is a BIG difference, if you ask me. The EL200 you mention is a small fraction of a Watt - there is NO WAY on Earth that it can possibly consume 4-6 Watts. (The EL500 does not have a brightness control, BTW) The personal question becomes how much light do you really need, how often do you want to recharge your batteries, and how many batteries do you want to carry.

I hve a 12W HID, and 40W of Halogens.

I need a LOT of light, and I can recharge at will.

LED's have potential, but are really weak. If you need lots of flashes, LED's are your game.

If you want light on the road, HID is your best bet, halogen can do at least as well or better for less money.

LED is good if you want flashes.

Well, I'll take your word for it, that you read what I wrote. But you don't seem to understand it, I'm sorry to say.

I was as clear as I could be about the halogen vs. LED comparison. And nowhere did I say, without qualification, that "LED are worse headlights".

I did say "they're poor seeing lights", but they are. That's not an opinion, unless we're talking about owls riding bikes. That *is* a fact.


Huh?

Look, you have to compare like with like. What are you saying? A ten watt halogen bulb will drain a battery ten times faster... than what??

Comparably powered LED and halogen systems, with comparably bright bulbs, have closer runtimes than you believe. That too, is a fact.

Since I didn't say the el500 had a brightness adjustment, I have no idea why you're pointing out that there is no brightness adjustment on it. All I said about that light is that I've got one. (There's that reading problem again...) That light *does* vary in brightness, however, with battery life. And it only lasts about six hours in the brightest mode. I know-- again, I've got one. It *does* last a lot longer in dimmer modes, though, but those modes are good only for being seen. And yes, they are.


Small fraction of watt? God. The El200 is a *six volt* light. How many amps do you think it draws at its maximum brightness? No, it's not .01amp. It's about .5amp. So, true, it's not a 4w light, it's about a 3w light.

But it won't last at maximum brightness vastly longer than a 3w halogen light-- and certainly not *three times* longer. It won't last even twice as long, *at that brightness*. And, for that three watts, you get more lumens at a time with halogen than you do with the LED. That's the point.

I've said it before, but as there seems to be some trouble understanding what I'm saying, I'll repeat it. Commercial LED don't provide more lumens per watt than halogen. They just don't. Not yet, anyway.

LED last longer than halogen given a particular total battery energy (watt-hour), but not that much longer *at a gven brightness*.

The reason LED have such long run times is because they become dimmer, but still run on those weaker batteries. Halogen, on the other hand, do in weak batteries very quickly.

Again, these are just the facts. Why does all this hurt people's feelings? And why don't you just look into this yourself, instead of arguing with me about it? Sheesh.

Do your homework - you're just embarrassing yourself. If you can't get this right you have no business giving any opinions about lights.

Please, my rear LED soaks up nearly a watt. Fraction of a watt, are you sure you're not confusing the cateye front light with a cheap 1 LED blinker?

I know when cateye rates their LED front light at 30 hours of battery life, that's 30 hours down to piss water brightness. But I use lithium AA's in my EL200. They're good for about 3-4 months of city use in blinker mode and they don't get dim. Lithium ions are 4x the price of alkalines but for me, they maintain voltage more than 4x longer so the price is worth is.
Has anyone done any tests to see how long the cateye's maintain their max brightness before dimming? I'm guessing according to the battery discharge curves for a duracell, no more than maybe 2-3 hours.

A 1 Watt luxeon uses about 0.35 amp, and it gets HOT. (I have held one in my hand while its running) The small LED's in the EL200 would MELT if they tried to pass even that much current. How many LEDs are in your rear light?

OK, I just looked up the datasheet for a superbright white LED on a supplier website - the brightest they had. The maximum current rating is 0.03 Amp, and the maximum power rating is 0.12 Watt. This particular LED has a typical forward voltage drop of 3.5 V (max 4.0V), similar to a Luxeon. The maximum power rating for a headlight like the EL200 made with 3 of these would be 0.36 Watt. Using the "typical" operating spec (3.4V, 0.02Amp) you would get 0.2 Watt.

A 1 Watt luxeon requires 3.5V drop. The question you should ask is how long does it take a the battery pack to droop below 3.5V when supplying 0.35 Amp. At that point the LED driver circuit would have to start throttling back the duty cycle (brightness) to maintain 3.5V across the LED. Then you have to ask how much does the brightness have to decrease for it to really matter? If my EL500 were running at half its normal brightness I would still be doing just fine.

The EL500 contains 4 AA cells, so each cell would have to droop below 1V to start throttling back the duty cycle. At 1V NiMH cells are over 90% discharged anyway. I use 2000 to 2250 mAH NiMH cells. The 2000 mAH cells can supply 0.375 amp for about 5 hours. (Note that NiMH cells maintain their voltage better than alkaline under load - that is, alkalines droop faster and deeper but have more mAH per discharge.) The 4W halogen the above person is so fixated on would produce about 4 times the brightness and exhaust the batteries at least 4 times faster. (4W/1W = 4 for those who can't divide) Personally, I DON'T need 4 times as much light, but I DO need 4 times as much battery life. That's the trade-off we all have to decide for ourselves.

Yes, and a candle would beat the Emitter on all these categories except the last one. I have a 3 LED light and I love it. It runs forever on one set of batteries, it's light etc etc. But in terms of being able to see where I am going, even in semi-lit urban areas, it is exactly as useful as a candle. So my preferred choice at the moment is a 10w halogen. I cannot wait for LED technology to improve to the point where I will be able to ditch the halogen. And please, do not mention current high-end LEDs such as Lupines. I've got to eat too :D.

--J

19 LED's :)

I think all this discussion would be pointless if you actually just try the Nitehawk emitter on the road. Ask the store if you can test it outside or something. I'm really sure they wouldn't mind.

If the current single LED headlamps use similar output LED's, then I've seen it, two of them actually on someone's bike at 5am in the morning. Like I said, the light's comparable to the specialized AA battery powered halogen that I have. My 10 watt light&motion low beam would completely wash out even two of those.

I will! The store isn't exactly next door so be patient. From rgarza28 report, the emitter looks as least as good as the 5w halogen I had and returned. I should get one next week at the lattest and will report back.

Halogens or LED beightness.... it all boils down to lumens and candlepower and the ability to see the road.

I'll add that there new Luxeons LEDS that are 5W, with an output of 120 lumens. a 10-watt halogen bulb will put out about 140 lumens..
Considering that the runtime of halogens vs. the 5W luxeon. you get much more run-time over weight ratio for batteries. the 5W Luxeon consumes about the same energy as a 1-3W bulb. suitable for AA batteries..
Albiet, there aren't any affordable 5W LED systems yet (each LED costs ~$30), but there are makers that build systems containing 3, 3W systems that have (50 lumens * 3 = 150 lumens ).

So three 3W systems have 150 lumens. A 10 watt halogen has approximately 150 lumens.
Three 3W systems consume 9 watts. So 9 watts of LED get approximately the same lumens as 10 watts of halogen?

From my calculations it would appear so, actually even brighter, depending on who you talk to about those 3W LEDS.
According to Lumileds that make the Luxeons: 1W Luxeon: up to 40 lumens. 3W Luxeon: 80 lumens. 5W Luxeon: 120 lumens

Therefore a system make with 3, 3W Luxeons could potentially produce 240 lumens! This, of course if its propoerly built with proper voltage and regulated.

Electrolumens makes a single 3-3W flashlight that is really bright 216 lumens:
http://www.elektrolumens.com/4_SALE/For_Sale.html

He can also custom-make you bike lights up to 420 lumens based off of a couple of those flashlights.. that's BRIGHT!

here's the web page for a 3-3W LED light. take a look at the beam stop at 180 feet away
http://elektrolumens.com/Tri_Star_Ph...ar-Phazer.html

Interesting thread!

I had created and installed a full electrical system on my bicycle with a 12v generator, rectifier, and a SLA 6v battery. I then took a CatEye HL-HD100 headlight and converted it to use 10 LEDs and hooked it into the electrical system. Added turn signals fore and aft, plus a tail light with brake light, and I was all set. The headlight was disappointing, to say the least.

I recently bought a Night Hawk 10w light, and replaced my modified Cateye. Then I hooked that into the electrical system and removed my original SLA battery. Now I have plenty of light, no car mistakes me for a road-side reflector anymore, and I can ride at night in comparative safety.

According to this: http://nordicgroup.us/s78/#Watts%20Versus%20Lumens

A 10W MR16 is putting out 400 lumens, quite a bit more if you overvolt it a bit.

My HID would appear to be putting out about 600 Lumens, and that is about what I would consider minimally acceptable for fast night rides.

I'm no photography expert but in those shots, it appears that the sky, which I presume to be infinite distance, is a lot brighter in the picture of the tri-star light. In fact, look at the spot above the tree, the light is lighting up a spot of air. Now unless the thing is able to light up black space at infinite distance, I'd take the comparison pictures lightly (pun intended) for now.

Anyway, other than the color, the beam pattern of the 9 watt LED looks pretty much like the one on my 10 watt halogen, which if Sloth is right, is outputting almost twice as much light at 10 watts as the LED is at 9 watts.

I'm not quite sure where he's getting 400 lumens, because most of the information I've been reading, and you can google it: "lumens per watt halogen calculation", gives about 20-lumens per halogen watt:
therefore, on the high end, i've seen 200 lumens for 10-watt halogens. and that is pure math. depending on which halogen you get, they have real-world wattage vs. the reading in a test-chamber, so it can range between 140-200 lumens..