Planet Bike 2W Light
 

What does everyone think of Planet Bike 2W light? Is it any good?

Decent, but not a great beam IMHO. I now use the Blaze 2W as a helmet light and replaced the bat-mount light with a Sigma Speedster, which has a Euro-stye shaped beam.

Yes, the beam is pretty narrow. I use mine on my helmet too, but got a much brighter light (Serfas True 500) for the handlebar. The Blaze 2W as a helmet light works well for alerting motorists to your presence, but I don't think it's enough for general lighting. The Super Flash mode is very eye-catching, but I usually use it in the higher constant mode.

A 1w seems sufficient and will have about 2x the run time. I have one of those.

I don't think it's sufficient, but I guess it's better than nothing....

Schmidt Dyno-hub and eDelux LED is my preference . wont go back ..

the battery lights are just for short trips.


Didn't they Recall the 2W?

I had a planet bike 1w light and I thought it was the most miserable thing ever. I honestly was afraid to ride with it. I put it on the bike, went about 200 feet from home, turned around and went back home and put my old light on again and never used that light again, it saw about 30 seconds of use.

I don't know why you'd spend $40 on that thing when you can go and get a 1000 lumen light for the same money with rechargable lithium ion batteries, or an 18650 flashlight, a pair of batteries, charger and handlebar mount that's way more light for half the money.

If you're referring to the PB Blaze 2W, I don't have one. That being said, if you are needing a primary, to see by light... $60 for under 150 lumens... I don't think it is all that strong of a value.

You can get any number of MS clones that will give you 3x the light for not even half the money. If you don't like the external battery pack, you can still find a light that is more than 2x the output for roughly $20 more. Example- http://www.amazon.com/NiteRider-Lumi.../dp/B008RLRMNC

I had the 1w version and it was a pos. It was only useful in flashing mode to light up all the reflective signs.

Yeah man, the op is definitely looking to spend $500 on a lighting setup that's not switchable between bikes and not as bright as something he can get for $40.

yawn .. the ride in the dead of night or just in town IDK .. I need light year round

theres a " my lumens are more than yours" pi**ing match amongst posters play that if you wish

I don't Care ,., there are cheap generator hubs even less than Shimano's..

there is a handlebar mount Version of PB's light, that is wired to a 3w6v dyno hub , any brand.
so they come off to go in your pocket .. no battery discharge time issue.

BTW its using their 1w output too ..

knock your selves out

happily the oncoming rider had a light .. I just stopped , put a foot down so one of us became a fixed location,
so the other guy could pass on either side they wished ..

sorting out a dynohub wheel upgrade for my Brompton

shimano hub, whole wheel $99.
+ maybe $50 for the head and taillights .


as I said 2 W PB , were they recalled ? have an older 4,8v powered PB
light it s ok.. I dont ride at 18 mph at night in the rain ..

so I've lived 3 score and 6. [in spite of owning M/C when 20 something]

I got an 8w 6v Nightrider halogen light . external battery pack 20 years ago, it still works .

FWIW.. I think the other bulb+ reflector sealed unit is 15w, ..

The PB 2 watt puts out almost as much light as the B&M led on my wife's bike which runs off a dyno, the shortcoming with any battery light is run time and with nimh rechargeables the run time is decent and I find it to be an adequate light to see by.

Higher output battery lights will often suffer from runtime issues.

My daily driver has a dynohub and BM headlight and I use the 2w as a supplemental light there but it can serve as a primary light on other bikes or be run paired with other hotter lights.

I love dynamo lights and all (it's all I use actually except for mtb), but $150 is a lot of money for bicycle lights, for many people. $50 for a dynamo head light and taillight is bottom barrel stuff "be seen" lights.

$40 for a PB 2 watt light today is really really overpriced. Have you seen those $40 cree lights at all? Even the low mode has decent runtime and that low mode is brigther than the PB 2 watt. Next time you're in BC, I can show you my dyno and battery setups, both not costing top of the line money but delivers top of the line performance.

The only decent Planet Bike headlights that came out was the Planet Bike Alias HID, but that quickly got outdated when leds came out, sucks for folks who spent $300 on that thing.

:lol:

+1

:thumb:


I've got the half watt PB Blaze mounted on my helmet. For some reason PB only offered the helmet version of it in this wattage, not the 1W or 2W, even though they were available in handlebar mounts. It works for getting drivers attention, but for illuminating the road, it is at best supplemental, and that's at medium-ish speeds. Every now and then I'll find myself out with an inadequate front light and the helmet light and between the two I can just light up a patch of road ahead to keep an eye out for hazards, but it's hardly impressive or adequate.

I'll say it is still going strong after nearly three years of constant use.

I'd be curious to know more about the bolded lights there. I wasn't aware that that those came in re-chargeables and so haven't been looking at anything with that size battery because of that.

I had a 2w for a few months. It was an okay light, but the beam was too narrow and concentrated for my tastes. I ended up giving it to a friend.
If you're looking for the same basic light setup, check out the Mako series from NiteRider. I have the 200 (NON-USB) and I'm pleased with it. I think I paid $40ish on sale.

Curiously, I wasn't aware that they came not recharchable in that form factor. Most of the ones I've seen are Lithium Ion.

There are some high powered, compact, and lightweight 18650 flashlights out there which make excellent bike lights. Some key things to be aware of however:

• You want to get protected 18650s, not unprotected. Protected cells have a built in circuit to protect against under or overvoltage conditions, which can damage the battery or even cause a thermal runaway condition. Protected cells are much safer.
  
• Stay away from the cheap Chinese knockoff 18650s which advertise impossible capacities. There's no such thing as a 4000 mAH 18650, but you'll find some batteries advertised that way, which often barely provide 10% of their rated capacity. Stick to the better brands.

These flashlights can make wonderful bike lights, and can serve as good flashlights for camping or other purposes when off the bike.

There may be reasons to stay away from the Chinese batteries but you are wrong about the capacity. 18650 Li ion batteries are readily avaliable in capacities of up to 2.8 Ah. Placed in a 2 serial/2 parallel battery pack, you end up with a 7.4 volt pack with a 5.6 Ah capacity.

As an owner of several 2s/2p battery packs and a long time light user, I can tell you that claiming the battery packs to provide only 10% of their rated capacity is incorrect. Ten percent of the capacity of a 5.6 Ah pack would be only 0.6 Ah which wouldn't power any kind of light for more than a few minutes.

Well... respectfully... I don't think I'm wrong :). I said there's no such thing as a 4 or 5 AH 18650, and that's true - there isn't! Just because you can combine many of them in series or parallel doesn't make that untrue. When speaking of 18650's (or AA batteries, or whatever), it's customary to talk about the capacity for just one. You don't say "An AA battery can be 28 AH!" just because I can combine 10 AA's in parallel each with 2.8 AH. The false claims of those knockoff vendors are also talking about one 18650. They claim some fairly absurd capacities, like 4 or even 5 AH per individual 18650, which is a good sign to stay away from that brand! The best 18650's I'm aware of at the moment are 3400 mAH, and those are new and fairly expensive.

True, but you might be surprised how bogus some of the claims are! Lights that run on high for 2 hours on a good, name brand 3.1AH 18650 have been tested to get 20 or 30 minutes of runtime on some of the knockoff batteries, which is in line with 10% of their "rated" (i.e, totally bogus) capacity. Obviously some do better than 10% of course, but you never know what you're going to get. Some of the less scrupulous vendors sell take-offs from other products with a new label stuck on. Li-ion batteries lose overall capacity with time (as a function of temperature and state of charge), so if the cell is already a few years old and has been stored in a high state of charge in warm temperatures, it can easily be in pretty bad shape. A few years of shelf life under those conditions can put it at 50% of its original capacity, which may have been 2.1AH, so it may be effectively a 1 AH battery being sold as a 5 AH battery. The worst cases seen are indeed in the 10% range.

Generally, it's better to get a high quality battery of lower marked capacity, than one of the ones making utterly impossible claims like 5AH per 18650.

Here's my old post on this:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...=#post14043976

At the time the whole kit was about $34, but it's down well below $30 now.

Or go to eBay and type in 1600 lumen bicycle light - and get a magicshine clone for around $30. Upside, very bright (about 1000 lumens actual output) and longer runtime. Downsides, wires need to be treated with care and battery pack as shipped is not waterproof.

It is not customary to talk about the capacity of an individual cell when talking about the capacity of a battery pack. It would really be absurd to do so. If you combined two individual cells to series to make a 7.4 V battery pack, you wouldn't say that the pack was 3.7 V because the cells are 3.7 volts. If you took two 3.7V 2.8 Ah 18650 cells to make the pack, the pack's charge capacity would be 2.8 Ah. If you put take 4 batteries (the most common configuration for bicycle battery packs) and put two in series and then put the two halves of the pack in parallel, you now have a 5.8 Ah pack made of 4 individual cells of 2.8 Ah charge capacity each.

I haven't seen any individual cells that are advertised as being 4 Ah each but there are lots and lots of packs with that kind of charge rating.

I have 8 battery packs at home from various manufacturers and various ages. I've had as many as 10. Some came with lights and some were purchased from other vendors. Even the ones that came with the lights came from a variety of vendors Generally speaking, they have all had consistent run times. I even number them and cycle through them to keep from having any jus sitting around. I have yet to run across a battery pack that give only 20 to 30 minutes of charge time unless I did some thing wrong and didn't charge the battery. I'd expect, if the problem were wide spread, that I would have run across a stinker by now.

My post was directly in reply to, and quoted the text of someone asking about handlebar mounted 18650 flashlights, which almost always take a single 18650 cell, AND I specifically said I was talking about ONE cell -> "There's no such thing as a 4000 mAH 18650". "A 18650" means one, just like "no such thing as a 5AH AA" doesn't mean a whole pack of AA's, it means one AA. The question I replied to was specifically asking about 18650 flashlights with handlebar mounts. Yes, there are some flashlights that accept multiple 18650's, but they are not generally handlebar mounted due to their size, where single 18650 lights such as this, for example are by far the most commonly used style of handlebar mounted flashlight. The question I replied to was not about arbitrary bike lights with separately mounted packs of multiple 18650s, it was about handlebar mounted, 18650 based, flashlights.

Then have a look - that one is advertised as 5, even, which is even more absurd. That's what I was talking about. These things abound, even on reputable sites like Amazon. Their claimed capacity is stamped on EACH CELL (not pack - there is no pack), and that's what I was trying to warn the person I was replying to about, as they often test at or below 50% of their rated capacity (which can be fine, as long as you realize you aren't getting what was advertised). I was attempting to be helpful by pointing out these false claims. I made an accurate statement that there are no 4 or 5 Ah 18650s (NOT packs thereof), and you claimed that my statement was wrong. It wasn't. I don't mind being corrected, but it helps if I'm actually wrong, which I wasn't here :). I tried to be friendly when pointing this out initially, but for some reason you keep pushing on it. It isn't helpful, and only adds confusion.

Anyway, peace - I admit to a bit of irritation when I wrote the above, so trying to end on a better note. Nothing against you - let's chalk it up to a mutually different view of the thread of conversation? Hope you enjoy whatever lights you run!

Not waterproof is a deal breaker for me. I'm in the Pacific Northwest! Also, anything that isn't quickly detachable from the bike is a deal breaker for me right now, as I am back in college 9 months of the year. I have a couple of flash light holders that are sufficiently quick to get a light in and out of, but I'm not interested in anything that has to be wired in. It'll probably just get stolen.

My solution to that was to put the battery inside an old water bottle, and run the cable out the spout. I could remove the light from the handlebar, and throw the whole package in my backpack in seconds. It was extremely waterproof, quick and convenient. The downside is you lose space for a water bottle.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...rCommie1-1.jpg

I take it this helped with the lack of it being waterproof?

Wouldn't help with the theft issue, I actually had a water bottle stolen yesterday! All three of my water bottle cages are spoken for too! One for the Airzoundz vessel, one for a coffee mug, and the third actually for water! :lol:

21 miles through a tropical storm. I'd say it was waterproof enough. ;)
It helped me with the theft issue because it was easy for ME to remove and take inside with me.
Do you leave the airzoundz attached to the bike, or take it with you?