emman123

could probably be as powerful or maybe even more than the venerable DesignShine DS-500


https://store.dinottelighting.com/day...ount-p188.aspx



from the description of it on the website:

".... TOO BRIGHT TO USE AT NIGHT. ..."
"...something over 2X as bright as the 400R..."


wow! what a way to be seen and increase conspicuity!
now its time to wait for some video reviews of it online....

unterhausen

that's a weird marketing decision. I can't imagine that there is any design that can't be turned down to the point that it's suitable for night use

cplager

Huh.

It says lower down that it has medium and low levels (in addition to high). I can't believe that the "low" level is really to bright for night. And if it is, then WTF.

emman123

I actually spoke to them about it, the reason they advertise it as such (as far as I understood) is that its such a powerful daylight light that if someone is going to use it at night and an accident might result from it (by blinding the drivers) they will have to carry the responsibility for it at least legally, it must be sold as a light only for DAYLIGHT for legal reasons, also one has to tick a box there on the website prior to purchasing (I believe for taking responsibility- legally- over using it for its daylight purpose...)

cplager

I've been living in the US too long. This makes a sick sort of sense to me...

Looigi

Dumb, IMO. But one good way of putting that excess light to use at night would be to include a prismatic diffuser so that the angle of visibility is increased while decreasing the intensity.

christo930

The average brakelight/taillight on a car puts out far more light than this thing. Each of your taillights on a car is like 60 watts and there are at least 2 of them, now add in a brake lights.....

Come to think of it, I'd like to actually have a brake light. I suppose you could install a small switch that is open when compressed and closed when uncompressed, so that when you pull the lever, the light would come on. Most drivers don't know that pointing down is a braking warning and I have to use my left hand to do it, which is my front brake hand.

Gojohnnygo.

I need this new 400R so I can run it at night with my old 400R

cehowardGS

Sheesh, I don't think you can go too bright at night. I would have it don't be for the price. People don't realized that riding at night in traffic, mainly fast moving traffic is a crap shoot, and if you lose, you lose big time. The more I think of it, I would strap two of them suckers on my bike if I had the dough!!

unterhausen

Brakelights are pretty blinding, so i don't think a taillight should be that bright. Not sure that the Dinotte is that bright though

I have a taillight that signals that I'm slowing, the B&M Toplight Line Brake Plus. It is a dyno light and senses that the waveform from the dyno is slowing

tdister

Seriously?

Automotive taillight bulbs are generally less than 10 watts, the brake lights having less than 30 each. They are also regular incandescent vs halogen. High beams are often in the 60 watt range and are halogen.

I have no idea what the newer Automotive LED tail lights are running but they are nowhere near what this Dinotte is putting out in it's relatively tiny point of light vs the spread out beam and overall true area of the cars taillight.

Include the facts that the LEDs almost aways used for bikes are much more efficient at turning that wattage into light, auto brake/tail lights have the majority of their lumens filtered by the colored lens and that they aren't anywhere near as directional as the average bicycle light means your argument is way off base.

christo930

I just went out and put my brake light on a multimeter and it was drawing 4.5amps, that's 54 watts. I also know this because I have an air-pump that also has a light that is the same as the one in my tail-light and I have hooked to a car battery charger that shows the amperage draw, which in this pump (without the pump running) was 5amps or 60 watts(that's why I said 60 watts in the first place). Don't forget that these lights are behind very thick red plastic and need to compensate for that. It might look like 10 watts after passing through 1/4 colored plastic.

Chris

Edit: What you are saying is true about the light being more spread out. Headlights tend to be far more efficient than taillights which is why they are so much brighter. Either way, especially in the city, the brighter the better. This light might be too bright for a country road, but when you are competing with the road lights, other people's brakelights and the lights of on-coming heavy traffic, it's easy to get missed.

unterhausen

I refuse to allow actual data to interfere with opinions formed from subjective observations

Interesting about the wattage of car brake lights. I'm generally less worried about the light levels of taillights since most motorists don't sit behind cyclists for very long.

tdister

4.5 amps sounds about right for 2 brake light bulbs. You can type in brake light part numbers and find the wattages. the common ones of 1157 3157 etc are all under 30 watts each...

I have only seen one of the newer Dinottes one time and everyone agreed it was way too bright to use like a regular taillight. The owner only used it aimed down at the ground. Having it aimed directly back made a "wall" of light that couldn't really be seen around which seems like it's at least bordering on too much of a good thing. I didn't drive up from behind it in a car so maybe my/our assumptions are unfounded.

I can understand the logic of having the super bright light and aiming it down...at the same time it seems kinda silly in many ways.

I see people with .5 watt tail lights all the time and find they stand out pretty well in city traffic even if they aren't awe worthy.

Dunbar

When they say blinding at night I assume they mean in flashing mode. In steady mode it would probably be no more obnoxious than the newest LED taillights on cars (at least on the low setting). If you have a Dinotte rear light go stand 50ft. back in strobe mode in the dark and imagine something 2-3X as bright. I definitely think that would be dangerously blinding to drivers behind you at night. I can see the benefit of a 400-500 lumen rear light in direct sunlight but for my road bike I prefer the built-in battery on my 300R.

kdgrills

Thanks for the heads up.
I bought the previous version last spring (specifically for day use).
I'm hoping they might be able to update it with the newer optics.
Sent 'em an email, fingers crossed.

Shimagnolo

While night riding, I once chased a cyclist down at night just to find out what tail light he was running, because it was brighter than any of the cars passing us. It was a Dinotte 140R running on high. I can't imagine needing more than that at night.

kdgrills

To each his own. Come ride my commute, your perception may change.

01 CAt Man Do

Kudo's to DiNotte for making these. Make no mistake, people will buy and use these at night. Hopefully in the lowest mode.

If the lamp is currently too bright in the lowest mode for night use than DiNotte needs to add a secondary sub-menu suitable for night use. Looking forward to the Youtube video's.

cehowardGS

When I was younger and not married, other guys were telling me, after seeing that I had 3 to 4 girlfriends at the sametime, that they can't imagine needing more than one woman at a time!! I told them, to each their own!!

daredevil

I chased down a couple as well one time to compliment them on their Dinotte. From the second I saw it, that's what I figured it was but wanted to confirm it. Fantastic lights.

kdgrills

Well, the fine folks at Dinotte offered me a discount on a complete
new light, or to upgrade my existing light for somewhat less.

Although really more $ than I'd like to put into lighting, I took them
up on the new light.

smasha

i've got a red-zone-8 on order - https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...lux-red-zone-8

the RZ8 claims 400lm on the high flashing mode @ 8W (with a 4 hour run-time).

i once had my old RZ4 next to a 400r, and the 400r was brighter, but not by much. certainly not twice-the-price much, and IMO the RZ4 had a more attention-grabbing flash-pattern (using the default pattern). the farther off-axis they're viewed from, the more the RZ4 looked like a better deal than the 400r.

if anyone in NZ has one of these new 400r lights and wants to do a side-by-side comparison or video... i suspect the new 400r will compare to the RZ8 the same as the old 400r compared to the "original" RZ4... the 400r will likely win on on-axis brightness, but overall i think the RZ8 will be the better light, at about half the price.

OTOH, if i rode mainly on long straight country roads, maybe i'd want that light to be a little more focused into a beam...?

Burton

LOL -NOT a fair comparison! Most lights are less maintenaince!

Burton

Sounds like marketing to me. Do their regular lights contain a disclaimer or cautionary notes about mounting two or more of them on the same bike?