MrCjolsen

My came with 2450 mAh AA batteries.

They make rechargeable lithium AA batteries? The only one's I've seen are 3.7 volts.

Will regular lithium's work in the light? How long would it run?

ItsJustMe

Again, if they really are LiIon cells, they're 3.7 volts each, not 1.2 volts. It would be odd for some to be equipped with cells that put out 3 times the voltage. Can you post a photo of the cells?

Are they rechargeables or just lithium primary cells.

MileHighMark

Here's a shot of the ones that came in mine.

PaulRivers

Fyi, I ran across this, I think what you're looking for is the New for fall, 2013 - "Ixon IQ Premium without (AA) batteries and charger, 80 lux, Part # B&M1922QM, Price: $ 106.00 " -
https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/b&m.asp

It's supposed to have a similar beam pattern to the "Schmidt Edelux II prototype" light here -
https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/headlights.asp

It's B&M's latest LED and beam pattern combination for their dynamo lights, which all have cutoffs like you're looking for.

ItsJustMe

That still uses NiMH batteries or I would have bought it already. I was thinking about the Ixon IQ Speed Premium, which uses an external battery pack, but for some unfathomable reason, B&M STILL uses NiMH batteries even with a proprietary external pack. They need to get out of the 1990s.

I did wind up picking up a Philips Saferide earlier this week. I used it for one day and returned it. The NiMH batteries degrade badly at low temps - it is rated 2 hours on high, I was riding at -19C and I got 20 minutes on high. Just not going to cut it. I've decided that LiIon is a must.

tarwheel 

FWIW, this thread provides a lot of good reasons why I chose to buy a Light & Motion Taz 1000. It has a self-contained lithium rechargeable battery with long run times. Although it costs twice as much as the SafeRide, you get what you pay for. The L&M Taz is brighter, lighter in weight, has longer run times, is easy to install and remove, and can be easily charged from your computer or a plug with adaptor. Like the SafeRide, it has a shaped beam that is not supposed to get in the eyes of car drivers if properly mounted. This will my fourth L&M light, and if it performs like the other ones, it will be trouble free and long-lasting. I've previously owned a Stella 300 and still own an Urban 500 and Vis 360. All of them have been great lights. The Urban 500 had some firmware problems after I first bought it, but L&M fixed the problems and sent me a free taillight for my troubles.

MrCjolsen

I think the whole AA vs proprietary Lithium issue is clearly a matter of personal preference. With AA batteries, the run times are shorter. But you are only limited by how many spare batteries you can carry in your pack. I find it comforting to know that if I forget to charge my lights and batteries at work, I can open up a drawer and get some fresh alkalines and have enough power to get me home on a dark night. My USB rechargeable lithium powered lights are great, but only as long as I remember to charge them.

ItsJustMe

From what I can see of that light, it does not have a shaped beam, or at least, not very shaped. The beam shots that I see in reviews show that it's possibly the least shaped beam I can imagine - it has a huge flood of light over the horizon when in flood mode, and the "shaped" isn't "shaped" it's just a spot.

If you can look straight into the light and see the LED element looking right back at you, it's not a shaped beam.

ItsJustMe

Not really with the Philips. Even in the comfort of my house, it took me probably 15 minutes to get the cover back on - the screw requires an allen key which is super easy to drop and lose on the road, and fiddly enough that I'd have to take my gloves off to do it. The screw really wanted to cross thread - I had to wiggle it all over to get it to go in properly - it took probably 20 tries. The battery holder also would require me to take my gloves off, and by the time I got done screwing with this thing, I doubt I could even move my fingers anymore. Also the case is aluminum which sucks the heat right out of the batteries, ensuring the shortest possible run time.

Also, it's not really that the run times with NiMH are short, it's that NiMH is a bad chemistry to use in the cold - it degrades badly, much faster than LiIon does.

MrCjolsen

I'll admit the cold would be an issue. Where I live, the coldest it gets is the mid-20's and that's only a few times a year and always in the morning when light is only an issue the first 20 or 30 minutes of the ride.

MrCjolsen

I wish they made a light like the Philips but that came with an external AA pack and an option to use C or D packs. With four rechargeable D batteries strapped to the frame, you could run it on high practically until the sun came up. Or get a bunch of smaller AA packs and make them swappable.

mrbubbles

This thread is a good example of why battery lights just blow in some respects. I've just finished adding a dynamo setup to another bike with a light that's much brighter than the Philips. So much better than fumbling around with battery lights.

PaulRivers

The Saferide batteries (especially if you charge them in the light) do have a reputation for being short lived, regardless of the temp. Even if you go with better batteries though, I still got the impression you only got a little over an hour in runtime from the light. (Vs...I think it's supposed to be 6 hours on the B&M model?).

If you riding in those kind of temps, and you're looking for a shaped beam, I wonder why you don't get a dynamo light? It solves *all* of your problems - shaped beam, no drop in performance at all in the cold, and battery life is a complete non-issue because you just don't need to charge the batteries. That's what I have on my winter bike, and I live in Minnesota - it's the only thing I'll use for winter riding.

ItsJustMe

Well, my $30 ebay light solves almost all my problems anyway, and doesn't require me to spend 4 hours and a couple hundred bucks for each of my three bikes as a dyno would. It also doesn't require me to carry around an extra couple of pounds even when I'm riding in the daytime and don't need a light.

The beam on the ebay light is really pretty darned good. Not perfect but really not bad at all. And the batteries last quite a long time.

I dunno, I just don't like the idea of making the lights a permanent part of my bike. I really like to take the lights completely off in the summer.

rekmeyata

Paul, I don't know where your getting this crap about poor battery performance, because I went and read reviews and no one even mentions that except some felt it should run longer than 2 hours on high, but the box clearly states it runs for 2 hours on high so no surprise there, you can read the review on Amazon.

It'sJustMe claimed that at 66 degrees his only ran for 20 minutes, I've ridden mine down to 43 degrees and noticed no reduction in run time.

PaulRivers

Gee, that took about 30 seconds to find on amazon -

https://www.amazon.com/Philips-BF48L2...#R8D9UW2MORCXV
"The a few of the AA batteries that came with my light were not real good, and the first time it didn't run very long. But once I had good batteries, I got an hour and a half on high before it switched to low."

https://www.amazon.com/Philips-BF48L2...R13CGJ7ICARG6O
"Owned it for about a month and the only gripe is the batteries are kinda junk, its December now, and I use it for my commutes home at night, with the dropping temperatures this headlight's ability to stay on in the high power mode is terrible. I get maybe 30-40 mins at below freezing. At around -15 (without windchill ) the light lasted less than 5 minutes, it was at two bars of charge, and next thing I know it just turned off mid commute!"


You went and read all the reviews, and "no one even mentions that", huh? Idiot.

PaulRivers

Ah, the multiple bike dilemma. I didn't realize you had multiple bikes - I definitely understand. It's definitely more money.

For me it was worth it. I own 4 bikes. My winter bike came with a dynamo hub and a terrible dynamo front (something cheap from Shimano that didn't have a standlight), so it happened to be kind of a no brainer there. I just personally enjoyed the beam pattern so much - and also the need to no longer hassle with batteries - that I bought a front dynamo wheel for my commuter bike to (at the time it was more like $130 for a front wheel). I actually swap the light back and forth between the winter bike and the summer bike depending on the season.

I don't have a dynamo on my high end full carbon bike, that was to far. But I personally figured that for my commuter bike, any miniscule time lost due to drag was made up for by time saved not having to charge batteries when I got home. At that's not mentioning the number of battery failures, "oops I forgot my light and now I wish I had it" moments, etc etc that I had before.

I wish you luck, I just don't know of anything else with a shaped beam. Supernova made a shaped beam light, but it looked like they didn't do a great job with the beam shape despite being "shaped". Only other thing I could think of is that with the external battery pack, you could possibly find another one that's lith-ion and hook it up - but that would probably get pretty expensive. Wish I had better advice!

ItsJustMe

I don't know where you read 66 degrees in my posts, if you did it was a typo. I was at -1 degrees F, -19C. At 43 I wouldn't expect any significant reduction in runtime, but most of my riding where I need a light is well below freezing, often below zero F, and I just can't have a light that only lasts 20 minutes on high.

Anything that uses NiMH batteries is going to have very bad battery life, dropping as the temp goes below about 20*F and getting severely impacted at lower temps.

I understand why they think using AA cells is good, you can swap batteries from a store. However, on the Philips it's a little bit of a mystery since the batteries are a huge pain in the rump to change, AND it says specifically and categorically in the instructions to NOT EVER use non-rechargeable batteries in it, so the "buy emergency batteries from the store" thing isn't a factor. On the B&M IQ Speed it's also weird since it's a proprietary external pack and they still use NiMH.

LiIon is the way to go in any case, at any temp. They're lighter, they perform far better in cold temps, and they pack more power per cubic cm. Charging and discharging safely is a solved problem, the chips to manage LiIon are common and cheap as dirt. I just don't understand why a company would introduce a new light these days that doesn't use LiIon.

ItsJustMe

Meh, I have so much other stuff to keep charged, the battery is not even worth mentioning. I have to haul at least my helmet in at least every other day to charge the cameras and the rear light, I have to pull the tail light off the seat post about every 3 or 4 days and bring that in for charging. The headlight battery comes off with just a pull on a velcro strap, so it adds perhaps 15 seconds of fiddling every 3 or 4 days.

rekmeyata

BOTH of those reviews are not bad whatsoever!!! The first one is a 5 star rating, a few of the bats were not good so he could have warrantied the light as I did and got good bats, but he still gave it 5 stars. The second one had issues with the bats in MINUS 15 DEGREES!!! Li Ion AA batteries have a standard temperature range of about 32 degrees to 113 degrees according to Panasonic to operate at full discharge, any temp below that will dramatically shorten the use time as the temps fall.

You have some sort of agenda against Phillips, it's all over your posts. While I'm not saying Phillips is the greatest light ever made, but for the price a person looking for a light that will last at least 2 hours running time it's a great light. If someone wants a longer run time then they need to look at a light with a larger stand alone battery; personally I rarely run the Phillips on high because it's an overkill in most situations therefore 8 hours of runtime on low is more than good enough for me.

PaulRivers

Fair enough, my situation is different - only other thing I need to charge is the blinky rear lights (which only needs to be done like twice a year, as they don't get used really during the summer), so it saves me personally a lot of hassle to not have to mess with charging the front light on a daily basis.

But as your situation is a little different, you should definitely do whatever's the least hassle for you. :-)

PaulRivers

You're just fanboying the Phillips light, and changing the subject, mostly you're trying to turn this into a debate about how "good" the Phillips light is, which it isn't.

The only subject I'm talking about is the battery life. It's been discussed, debated, etc, many times on these boards, and there's a ton of reviews on amazon about the poor battery life even with different batteries, and the poor quality of the stock batteries. The conclusions have basically come down to -
1. The stock batteries are pretty crappy.
2. Charging the batteries in the light, unfortunately, is also pretty crappy.
3. If you buy good recharge AA batteries and an external charger, runtime is somewhere between 1-2 hours on high.

I have nothing else against the light other than it's crappy battery life. If it ran for 3 hours, I would own one already for my full carbon road bike where I don't want to run a dyno hub. But it's battery life is to short for someone who wants their light to run for "at least" 2 hours.

ItsJustMe

There's no such thing as a LiIon AA battery. Please point to a product page for one. The Philips light comes with NiMH batteries. Mine did, others have posted photos of them. I've checked multiple review sites and vendor sites. The only place LiIon ever shows up is on the Philips product page. I think it's a typo.

LiIon chemistry delivers 3.7 volts per cell. If you used the AA sized 14500 cells in the Philips, I do not doubt that you would fry the electronics immediately. It would be 15 volts instead of 5 volts for the pack.

Not working effectively below 32 degrees is a deal killer for me - apart from a few weeks in the spring and fall, the primary time when I need lights is below 32 degrees, and I don't think I'm alone. I still don't know why Philips is using NiMH - it's senseless. LiIon is better in every way and is not expensive anymore.

rekmeyata

And you're trying to slam Phillips for being a bad light which it isn't even Amazon reviews you provided proved you're wrong. And I did discuss the battery issue proved from Panasonic that Li Ion will run far less shorter run times as the temps drop below 32 F and continues downward, proved to you that the run time for the batteries in the Phillips is 2 hours on high which all the reviews say is true except two where one got a bad cell and another ran it in -19 degrees far below the recommended 32 degrees even for Li-Ion bats. You've been proven wrong on ALL points and is obvious an attempt by you to discourage people from buying that light which means you do have an agenda; so this ends my debate with you. You can make all the rebuttals you want but their all bad and have no evidence to support your made up BS, and I'm not going to stop you because anyone reading any of this will know you're wrong.

MrCjolsen

So I've been using the onboard charger, and I've been getting around 28 minutes before the first little blue light goes out, and about 55 minutes for the second. I've been using year-old Duracell "stay-charged" batteries that I've recently tested at over 2000 mAh. My ride is not long enough to take it down to eco mode, so for my purposes, the run time is fine.

Today, it was right around 32 degrees, and I saw no decrease in run time. One morning it was colder, and the light cut out rather early, but that could have been due to some sketchy batteries in my collection.

I also got a LaCrosse smart charger, and have been testing a lot of the Nimh batteries I've been using. The ones that came with the light had two that were only about 1300-1500 mAh. I'm going to try refreshing those and see what they come up to.