vol

It's becoming clear to me that flashlights are an excellent substitute for bike headlight, lumens-wise and cost-wise. Is there a similar substitute for bike taillight? (How about covering a flashlight with a red transparent film?)

cehowardGS

Congrats on finding out the deal on flashlights. This morning I am the super dark fogging and a light drizzle. I got ONE 26650 flashlight working up front, didn't even have my helmet light. Cars were giving me lots of way. Could see all that far, but one car waited and I was half block away for me to pass. BTW, the light up front cost $20!!

For the red flashlight, they do have them. You can check with Dealextrem.com, manafont.com and ebay. It will be a little tricking mounting them. For my rear, I use cheap alternatives too. I use a Planet bike superflash clone, and another $2.50 light off ebay.. Another great deal in lighting for little money..

Lastly, on the flashlights, a lot of people say the run time is not as good. The runtime is good on the flashlights if you use good cells. The cheaper cells don't have a long runtime. I used the cheaper cells sometimes, but I know how long they will last and I am ready for it. Other than that, the flashlights, IMO, give up the best lum-per-dollar going..

black_box 

A red transparent film will really cut down the brightness. I think you are better off using an LED that is specifically designed to generate red light.

vol

LMAO

cehowardGS

Yup, that was funny..

maxperkins

Fenix, for one, manufactures a commercial red filter. Here it is:

https://www.amazon.com/Fenix-Filter-A...ix+accessories

Athens80

Ultrafire WF-501B Philips Luxeon K2 Red LED Flashlight (1*18650/2*CR123A) with a Two Fish Lock Block and a Minoura SG-200 "Swing Grip" accessory holder (or similar) mounted from the seatpost

no1mad 

Ain't had the chance to pick one of those up, but I've heard from a good source that light is possibly too bright to be mounted that high. You could mount it down low and it will still be noticeable without blinding.

bud16415

All auto parts stores sell a roll of lens repair tape that works perfect for this. I have covered several LED white lamps with this and used as a flashing rear light.

https://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...er=500372_0_0_

cehowardGS

Thanks, that's a good tip/find!!

Going to try it out on a rear facing small light on my helmet.

1nterceptor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qVXRuTyGBk&feature=plcp

bud16415

I had a battery powered work light that had 32 white LED’s and a flash mode. The lens was just a little wider than the auto light tape I had so I put two strips across it and then with a hobby knife trimmed around the lens circle. I don’t know if the tape shrunk a little or if I didn’t get the seam perfectly tight but I ended up with a sliver of white light down the center. I had several people tell me that they saw me so far back because that white caught their eye first at a distance. It seemed to cut thru fog without being a distracting white. Just another observation on the subject.

Glad I could help I think you will like the results. Hope you post back with results.

unterhausen

plenty of red led flashlights out there, no reason to go with a filter

bjorke

plate of beans + cigarette lighter

just a theory, not tested

ItsJustMe

Since I already had a MagicShine headlight, the MagicShine taillight at $30 is pretty much impossible to beat. I don't think you can get anything else with that much output and that much side visibility for anything like that price.

wphamilton

Red LED clearance light from an auto parts store, which you can power with a 9V radio battery. They'll run from $6-$10.

Burton

How about a Zebralight H51r or H51Fr flashlight. Here's how it stacks up against a Radbot 1000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca--d...e_gdata_player

dougmc

9v batteries don't carry much energy. Either this light will not be very bright, or it'll have a relatively short runtime. Or both. And 9v batteries are kind of pricey to replace.

As I see it, for taillights it's hard to beat a number of these, two or four or whatever your budget and space permits. You could get a flashlight that's brighter, of course, but as long as the car can see you within a block or two it's all good, and some of the flashlights do have a fairly tightly focused beam which would make it difficult to see unless one is directly behind you. Get two or more of these at various angles and nobody's going to miss you from anything even close to behind you.

zacster

Just be prepared to wait for a long time to get it. Mine took a full month to arrive. I wouldn't say it was DX's fault either, just slow untracked shipping.

wphamilton

It's true that it won't light up the road, but you'd be surprised at the run-time and brightness for clearance lights with the 9V batteries. I want to be clear, if you use the cheap auto clearance lights you have rig up your own battery pack and switch - they come with only a hot wire to connect to 12V. But you can use any battery pack you can rig up.

noglider 

Bike tail lights are cheap enough that it doesn't make sense to skimp on them. The Planet Bike Superflash is about $30 and is excellent. The Cygolight is said to be noticeably better and doesn't cost much more.

Using flashlights as headlights, however, can save a lot of money. Unfortunately, my 18650 headlight isn't visible from the sides. In the end, I think a purpose-built headlight is best. Also, I think the ideal beam is produced when the light is mounted slightly above or slightly below the tire (when you have a 700c wheel).

Burton

I'm guessing you're misreading the post. 9V and 12V batteries (battery packs might be a better description) are available for radios. Alternatively battery holders are available that will let you build your own using AA cells. So that works out to about 2.8Ah which should run any 2-4W light for hours. Mine cost $10 and I used rechargable Aa cells already in-house.

dougmc

Perhaps I am, but when somebody says "which you can power with a 9V radio battery", they're almost always talking about one of these, which don't carry much energy and are kind of pricey for any application that doesn't have very low current draw.

A pack made of 8xAAA or 8xAA cells, especially if rechargeable would work nicely for that application. What people usually call a 9v battery, not so much.

Though the clearance lights he was mentioning do have pretty low current draw, lower than I realized -- 60-180 mA seems typical, so an alkaline 9v battery could last 3-8 hours, possibly more if the current draw is lower at 7-9 volts than at the 12.0-13.8 volts they're designed for, possibly less if the light cuts out once the voltage drops much.

Of course, consider that a PBSF or clone is 1) likely to be far more visible, and 2) lasts around 100 hours on two AAA cells (significantly cheaper than one 9v battery, and AAA rechargeables are far more practical than the pathetic 110-150 mAh 9v rechargeables they sell) in flash mode, and I think about six hours in steady mode?

wphamilton

Mine lasted for months, daily use. YMMV

willtsmith_nwi

With great options like Planet Bike Superflash Turbo, Portland Design Works Radbot 1000, Blackburn Mars 4.0, and Cygolites new 2W rechargeable all available for below $35 with mount .... why?