I don't mean a rig that uses both packs at once, but rather, for long rides, using high levels on your front light, do any of you ever use (or bring along) an extra battery pack? If so, does it have a negative effect on the light itself if used for long periods of time? In other words, should the light "rest" after the battery is complete or is it fine to be on high (if needed) for up to 3 hours a day? I mean I get that the more you use something, the shorter its lifespan, but I wonder whether using two packs one after the other with no break in between is overload or not. Thoughts?

Depends on how well it dissapates heat

^This.^

Also, if I'm going for a night ride (or when I'm out riding in the winter), I usually bring two lights along and alternate between them throughout the ride.

Is there a limited amount of space on your handle bars? I do what others have already posted. I have two lights, I burn one on LO in the flats and climbs and bump it up to HI for the descents. When the first is empty I kick on the second with the same configs. I haven't ridden more than 3 hours after dark/before sunup so I have never run out of those two lights yet.

I do have a huge 1800 Lumen lamp with an external battery and an aluminium casing. I have run it on full blast till dead (decades down as it loses power) and I would have no hesitation in plugging in another battery if I had one, but it's a huge battery too, so I get hours of use out of it too.

The lights I use (fenix and dinotte) don't overheat when cycling, so long run times doesn't seem to be an issue.

My light is USB chargeable, and I have one of these gems:

Veho Website - Product Detail

I can use it to charge my Garmin or phone on the fly as well. Fits nicely in a jersey pocket.

Battery capacity is related to discharge rates. I think Panasonic publishes data.

I bring two sets of batteries and two lamps on overnight rides. On little local training rides where I know the roads, I usually just have one set on the bike.

If on unfamiliar roads or when going briskly on said overnight rides, I keep one of the lights on low power (100 lumens) and the other I switch between various power levels (200 lumens or 400). You have not lived until you had lights go out on a moonless night on mountainous descent. 100% redundancy is my fix. My two setups weigh less than most generator setups and I do not consider it overkill. I know I will have light because I have two of everything.

Thanks, guys.

The one I just bought is 1800 lumens as well (Niterider Pro), but judging by the pictures I've seen online, I really like how it spreads the light out (in low, medium and high settings), so I think I'd rather not get something else and just use that alone.

Modenrbike has batteries for $127.49, which isn't bad, I suppose. I mean I can use it not only for riding purposes, but on the off chance that I forget to charge one, I wont' miss out on any night rides. Which, by the way, is usually only an hour and a half ride (which isn't much) one way and then the trek back. Good to know that you wouldn't be hesitant to use another battery. Thanks for the insight.

Whoa. That thing is awesome. So it gives your light battery a full charge? Either way, I'm definitely picking one up for my phone. Thanks for the link.

Quick question, though. Seeing as how this is my first bike light, do you know if batteries have a "charged" indicator light of some sort? If not, how is one to know (on the road, at least) whether or not it's fully charged?

Yea', I'm not going on any super long journeys, but I'd still like to spend some time outside without worry. That descent story will keep me at least a few hundred miles away from any hills at night, though.

I like having a light on the bars and a light on the helmet. The helmet light illumiates the corners so you can see whats in them and you can aim the light at drivers who you think might not notice you. Blink is helpful also.

I mtn bike at night and I run the cheapo $20 chinese lights so yeah I always bring two . I usually run my bar light on high and my helmet on low so that if my bar light does die I still have plenty of battery left in my helmet light plus that is usually way more than enough light.

Anyway it is better to be safe than sorry. My cheapo lights get pretty hot on high with no air movement but even going slow on the mtn bike is enough to keep them from over heating. I really doubt it would even be warm on a road bike. When I have used them on the road bike I rarely run them on high as not to blind drivers anyway.

Having one on the helmet is a pretty good idea. Does the heat affect you guys (i.e. makes the helmet/your head warmer/hot) at all during summer? Or is it not noticeable when you're riding?

And if I can thread-crap by own thread for a second: do you guys usually angle the light downwards? There aren't many riders or passers-by on my path (at night, I mean), but on the off chance that some are still around, I really don't want to blind or bother them. What do you guys do to circumvent this issue?

One of the problems I have with the Chinese CREE lamps is that they tend to go from 100% to 0% with very little warning. So, a spare battery pack is handy. I also got one of my battery packs wet once. I had a long ride home on my dim backup light. The battery pack eventually dried out and became OK once again, but since then I have wrapped my battery packs in a plastic bag before inserting into the carrying case. I've been wanting to try handle dip to seal them.

As far as heat. Say a battery pack lasts for 2 hours. The lamp will reach its heat equilibrium long before that 2 hrs, and so using one pack after another shouldn't be a problem.

I have a Black and Decker battery powered chainsaw. I've acquired some battery packs that have about double the Ah as stock. The voltage is the same, but perhaps the current is also held near maximum. Anyway, I can barely chew through one battery pack before the saw overheats. I have no doubt that I would smoke it if I went constant through 2 or 3 battery packs.

But, the lights are smaller, and not quite so high of peak power usage as the chainsaw.

Light heads (since LEDs) are solid state electronics and it's completely a non-issue. Any overheating concerns would happen in around the first 15 minutes of the light being on, 1.5 hours vs 3 hours isn't going to make a difference. If it's a brand name light it's designed to work that way, specifically designed to be able to swap battery packs in overnight races and keep on going.

Um...

There's sort of 3 categories of lights.
1. Shaped beam lights with a sharp cutoff, like a car's low beam headlight, specifically designed to keep the light out of oncoming people's eyes.
2. Medium power bikes lights with a relatively narrow beam but no cutoff. The most common kind of light.
3. Mountain biking specific bike lights that are specifically designed to have a wide beam, for wooded trails where everyone is going the same direction. These are are pretty much impossible to keep from hitting people in the face with the beam, as the beam is specifically designed to light up around corners, trees, branches, uphill, downhill as much as possible - the beam shape is designed in such a way as to hit oncoming traffic right in the face.

So...

The Nightrider Pro 1800 is in category #3 . It's specifically designed to be a mountainbiking light with a wide beam. These lights are meant to light up where you're going when you're going uphill, around a corner, and in a second you'll be going downhill straight. The design is specifically done to light up everywhere.

Only thing I could suggest is turning the light output down if you see someone else on the trail.

I have a Seca 1400 that's similar - meant for mountain biking, extremely wide beam, very nice even light output. Unfortunately using it on a trail resulted in several other trail users being extremely upset, a few of them yelled at me, most of them just cleared completely off the trail and I felt kinda bad (the trail I was on is frequented pretty heavily at night). I don't use it on trails any more, just for mountain biking where there's no oncoming traffic.

My #1 combination of lights to ride with is the Seca 1400 (wide beam) and Seca 900 (narrower punchier beam). But there's no way to ride anywhere with oncoming traffic with those without blinding other people. I use a Phillips Saferide for trail riding, because it's in category #1 with a cutoff. If I was only going to come across 1 person all night I knew for sure...I'd be torn. Well, I might still ride with the Phillps because on low my night vision outside the beam is ok. But they're both fun lights.

I don't get the need for 1800 L on a road bike. I ride at night all the time using a Nightrider 700 I tend to use the lowest setting on known trails and roads and bump it up to high only when needed which is rare for me. For night rides over 4 hours I will often bring a second Nightrider 700. Small and easy to slide onto the H bar mount if the first one knocks out. I will sometimes road ride 7 hours or more at night and the lights Provide well enough light and duration.

For gods sake when riding on bike paths where there is oncoming traffic turn the flame thrower down or put you hand over it when there is an oncoming rider. Your Death Star blasting away burns in sunspots and causes genuine issues for other riders. My other pet peve is flashing headlights on the MUPs and bike trails. Flashing does more harm than good. It makes it harder to tell speed and direction than a steady light. Save the flash for the tail light win on roads.

Something so obvious that I'm sure I would have overlooked. Glad you mentioned that. Thanks.

Good to hear. That's pretty much all I wanted to know. Thanks, guys.

Oh, boy. That's not good. Thanks for sharing the story, though. It'll definitely help to remind me almost never to use the highest setting. In the 3 hours that I ride, I may see 4 people tops (including riders), but still, if it's ever absolutely necessary, I'll be sure to either cover up or turn it down when I see someone walking or riding by.

If you're getting by on only 150 lumens, then I'm probably severely underestimating 1800 lumens. The lowest setting sounds like it'll be more than enough and, like you, will go higher if needed.

Very helpful tips. Definitely won't ever do the front flash thing, but I wonder: would you personally say that 600-700 lumens is enough to warrant covering up when someone passes me by?

Sorry, I meant tool handle DIP.

Not quite obvious until your light doesn't work and you have none.

The Lithim packs have electronics in them which are very susceptible to water, whereas simple batteries would be less susceptible to water.

Sorry to sound like my comments were directed at you. They were not and are in general only.

1800 lumens is massive light for road bike type riding. Yes 2 bikes passing side by side you should turn down or cover I like that the Night riders have a side to side swivel built in. I just turn the light mostly to the right. This keeps the hot spot out of the other riders eyes but does not black out me or the path in front of me On the road I don't turn or cover the light.

600 or 700 lumens is far more than you want shining at you.
I run full power or both when riding fast on roads I don't know well

To be fair though, a quality lith-ion battery pack is usually already sealed against water. I know the Dinotte and Light and Motion ones are, probably the Niterider ones to.

I knew it was a typo, but assumed you meant that you'd use some kind of adhesive to simply seal the bags up. You're saying you want to actually dip the battery in that goop? Wouldn't that cause damage somehow? Or maybe cause the battery to retain heat, which I would assume isn't a good thing?

Even if you were directing that comment at me, I didn't for a moment feel that your tone was ill-willed. So no apology needed.

That's a good idea. I'll try that. Thanks.

I snagged a can of the dip, but everything says it may dry up once opened so I wanted to get all my ducks in a row before opening it.

Since the battery packs come covered, but in a non-waterproof casing, I think the dip should be fine assuming it has reasonably high viscosity to prevent it from flooding the batteries. Still, it should dry out even if some gets through to the circuit board.

As mentioned when I got my battery pack wet, the water did dry out after a week or so. The pack I had problems with had a plastic wrap and paper ends. Other packs have plastic on the ends of the pack.

If the susceptible part is the circuit board, it may not be bad to just intentionally waterproof the board.

The battery packs for my B&D chainsaw do get warm with heavy use, but at least the external part isn't hot.

I don't think the drain or the charging on the bike light Lithium battery packs is high enough to make them problematic with heat dissipation at the batteries. At least I've noticed the lights (and charger) getting hot, but not the battery packs.

As you mentioned, unless one tinkers around with the number of cells or cell capacity, then the charging/discharging is also finite before the next battery pack is switched in.

One other thought.
I've been carrying 2 or 3 battery packs with me... what a pain

Hopefully by next winter I'll have a wheel with a dynamo/generator built up.
I still need to pick out a headlight, and decide if I wish to run a battery powered lamp using the dynamo for recharging.

I wish you luck, using a beam like that on the trails I ride where you pass someone about once every minute would be being a total ass. But if I never passed anyone, it would be a tossup.

The one thing I'd add is - try using a light a time or two while you still have the packaging and could still return it.

Lol, trying to describe how bike lights work on the internet is...difficult.

No Ambient Light - you need very little light. A 200 lumen front light was enough for me.
Mixed Lighting with bright sources of light - like oncoming cars, streetlights, oncoming bike lights, etc. You need the most light for this, your eyes adjust to the brightest source of light in your field of vision.
Fully Lit paths that are 100% covered - now you're back to not needing much light at all, just enough so other people can see you

Then you have the light itself. The worst are lights with bright hotspots in the beam, which again, your eyes adjust to the brightest point. The best are perfectly smooth beams.

Then you get into how much total light the light is putting on the ground affecting your vision...ugh, lol. It's very annoyingly complicated.

Fyi, front flashing on a high powered light is meant for daytime use. When the sun it out, a front flashing bright light is fine. They're the worst coming at you on a trail though.

As to whether 600-700 lumens is enough to need to cover the light up - it's very dependent on just as many factors. If you have a narrow beam light riding through downtown where there's light everywhere - you probably don't need to. On the other hand on an unlight trail, with a light with a pointedly wide beam designed to light up the trees around you it can be blinding.

At the same time, nothing is perfect. Even a well designed shaped beam light can be annoying on the eyes if there's no other light around.

Best advice I can give is to try to look at the reaction of the people hit by the light. If they don't seem to notice it's probably ok, if they're jumping off the trail it's probably a problem.

I ride most of the time with my light on dim. Bright is nice for the occasional moment when a bit of extra lighting is appropriate such as a fast descent or a particularly dark path.

I always point it down when passing other cyclists and pedestrians, and try to do it for cars too. Dimming should be a sign that I see them. Although I have had a problem on a bike path where I saw one person, dimmed my light, and almost didn't see the cyclist behind them.

Until 100% of the cyclists, pedestrians, dogs, and other MUP users have lights and reflectors, I have no problem with using a light that lets me see them.

Sometime I'll spring for a light with an engineered beam.

-------

I flash on the lowest setting at dusk, and one well-lit center island MUP with low lamp posts. I haven't found a need for the bright flash yet.

I would personally suggest against doing that. My understanding is that lith-ion batteries are sometimes designed to vent and covering up the vent could cause problems.

Also, the next worst thing other than time past since manufactured (which you can't do anything about), and discharging them past a certain point (you don't have to worry about it because the light turns off before that point) with lith-ion batteries is getting them hot. A lith-ion battery that's kept hot degrades sooner than one that's kept cool.

Niterider says -
NiteRider Lighting Systems - Frequently Asked Questions

Are NiteRider systems waterproof?
NiteRider systems are water-resistant and will perform in wet weather conditions, but submerging them in water will cause damage.


They also noted some of the things I was saying my other post -
However, battery cells have a shelf-life of between 3-5 years and they degrade despite how much or how little use they undergo.