Bill B

I'd like a really bright light for bicycling when it's dark out. I mean I'd personally be happy with car-headlight bright (actually, I'd prefer the lights they use on those helicopters in "Cops", but I can settle). Anyways, I'd like something that takes a little 9-volt or 2 C batteries or something like that that I can buy rechargeable batteries for. I'd like to get 2 hours of light on a charge.

Any suggestions, or am I asking for the impossible?

Thanks,

Bill

Hunter

There are LED lights available now that ae much brighter than halogen. These run up to 200 hours (some models). If you were to run two of those it would be bright. Cateye, Sigma Sport, Planet Bike are three that I know of right off the bat.

steveknight

do you want something to be seen by or to see with? thats the big question. LEDS are bright but they don't put out much light. to see with you need lots of light. my 35watt mr16 homemade light is so bright you can't really look at it at night and it lights up a whole lane (G)

Bill B

I want to see the road ahead, rather than be seen. I just bought one of those 3-LED lights that last a long time, but after using it last night, I was very underwhelmed. I want something that really lights up the lane. But I want it to be rechargeable or a least take rechargeable batteries. And removable during the day of course. I was thinking of hiring someone to drive behind me very slowly with their highbeams on, but that seems impractical.

Bill

Juha

If you need absolutely the brightest, you should consider HID lights.

Many manufacturers make these: Lupine, Lumicycle, Lume, Cateye, Niterider, Light & Motion etc. They are all expensive, ranging from about USD280 (Lume Strada) to about USD900 (Lupine Edison 10). Search these forums for HID and you will find several threads on the subject.

If the price is too high, you should consider a good halogen. That can be costly too, and complete systems often come with a "dumb" charger. See the Total Geekiness -thread below to see how you can make your own halogen with less money and better components.

LEDs are bright and have outstanding burn times, but are not yet up to lighting the "whole lane". For a nice simulation on HID light vs. halogen vs. LED go to Lupine's site at https://www.lupine.de and click the "Light test" link.

--J

RainmanP

If you have $400 to spend get an HID light. If you don't, see the thread "Total Geekiness" for some of our adventures in nice bright homemade systems. I love my homemade system. It is practically as bright as HID, can cost less than $50, and can be built and repaired with parts from an auto parts or electronics store.

vrkelley

What seems to kill the store boughts is the road vibration and rain. I built mine with the help of folks from this site. We're talking an "all-thumbs operation". I'm sure you'll be able to build your light faster than I did. Just go down to the parts store and tell them what you want and they usually will help you get the parts needed. Mine are working great.

Referencing: "Total Geekiness" https://www.bikeforums.net/electronics-lighting-gadgets/42629-total-geekiness.html

steveknight

HID's are not as bright as you think. they have a blue tint to them and that makes them look bright. a overvolted halogen light will be brighter and cost far less. a 20 watt halogen overvolted to say 16 volts will blow away a HID light. but you do sacrifice run time and bulb life but the price difference is pretty big.
my mr16 35 watt light will blow away any HID for brightness and amount of light. but with 19v of good subc cells I get about 1.5 hours of run time. I could live with less light but it is kind of cool to have so much. no car can miss my light.

dobber

I recently finished a buildup/conversion.

Bought a NiteRider Nomad off Nashbar for like $17 after discount. It was a 6v / 5 watt unit that uses 4 D batteries. Not exactly a blazer. But I had a plan.....

Bought a 12v / 20 watt bulb. And another 12v rechargable battery for my Black and Decker drill.

Scavanged some wiring harness connectors from an old PC. A little elbow grease and solder, I've got a nice bright long life lighting unit. Total cost less than $50. The $17 for the Nomad was worth it just to have the light housing, bar mount and battery bag.

And I've got two honkin rechargable batteries, for either the drill or riding (not that I intend to ride all night). The wiring harness lets me swap back to the original D cell configuration pretty easily too.

I'll probably try a 35 watt bulb one of these days, just for giggles.

ruirui

bill.. check my sig.. the cateye i use for headlight is very bight. or here is the link.. Cateye Opticube

It's uses 3 AAA battery, and it's very bright at night. for pitch black nights, i use two of those.. one facing forward, and another aiming at a slight angle downwards to the road. there are two modes: flashing, or full light. plus it's very lightweight and waterproof!

rui

chuckfox

There are a lot of good bright lights out there, but the really bright ones require a separate battery that generally mounts in a water bottle cage. The nice thing is that they are fully rechargable. I use a Jet Lite: https://www.jetlites.com/

There are many popular lights, but few are better engineered than the Jet. They are popular with the EPIC moutain bike crowd--see mtbreview.com for reviews.

Jim at Jet is an absolute pleasure to work with. He is patient and will answer you questions and make suggestions as to what would work best for you. Mine is a 20watt model with a 13.5V Nicad battery. To give you a sense of brightness, most car headlights are 50watts on low beam.

Chuck

chuckfox

Oh, my Jet light ran about $225 as I remember and has a 2hr run time at full power and much longer at low. I've used it up many times on night rides and the numbers shown for battery life on the Jet web site are pretty accurate.

Urbanmonk

Try the Cygo with rechargeable battery (in the water bottle). This light is also plenty bright--it lights up the entire lane when it's very, very dark. I ride around 45 minutes a day, and a charge will last me 5 days. I've had it for an entire fall and winter season, and it's been spectacular. It cost me $49--worth every penny.

Cheers

madpogue 

Yeah, but if you're riding at night and operating the drill at the same time, and both batteries run out, you're stuck!

slvoid

If you're absolutely positively obsessed with having the brightest light avaliable, the supernova dual HID might be for you.
https://www.supernova-lights.com/supe...p99-d_USA.html
It's only $850.
Or for 1500 you can get a set of motorcycle HID lights running at 150W ea. You should get the equivalent of about 800 watts of light, important if you're going to be bombing down a mountain at 100 mph.

Otherwise for something a little more down to earth, it really depends on where you're going to be using that light.

LittleBigMan

I made my own. More bang for the buck.

ollo_ollo

If you can put up with their size & weight, there are several hand held rechargeable 12 volt torches available . Harbor Freight has about the cheapest (sometimes on sale $9.99 with charger) & Initially they had a run time of about 2 hours. I bought 1 last year & was so impressed with the light output that I bought a second one several months later. The new one died within 6 weeks, while the original is still taking a charge & giving about 55 minutes of run time. Mine were 500,000 candlepower & give a beam similar to an auto headlight. I find them helpful keeping track of my hunting dogs at night. They put out an impressive beam but my few trials on my 4 mile commute found them to large & awkward to successfully mount on my road bike. I had to supplement my jury rig mount with lots of duct tape & took quite a ribbing from the people in my office. If you have a mountain bike with some kind of front rack or better mounting skills you might check them out. Don

LittleBigMan

Funny you mention it, Don, but Monday I stopped in at Big Lots and found a plug-in, hand-held 12V spotlight (might have been 35W or 50W H3 bulb) for $2.99 (probably more like $9.99 somewhere else.) Very light, needed only a 12V lead acid battery w/plug-in receptacle. Might pick one up just for testing.

slvoid

Here's an option by niterider.

ollo_ollo

LBM, slvoid: That's what I'm Talkin about! only mine was yellow with a larger battery compartment behind the lens. How did they get that puppy up there W/O duct tape? Don

slvoid

Looks like they clamped it on. And extended the housing. If you look closely, the battery compartment looks like it's almost 6ft long

Juha

True. But I find the bluish tint of a HID looks better in rainy conditions, for example. Wet surfaces seem to absorb more light from a yellowish halogen. I even prefer my small LED backup in rain, it has the same kind of "cold" hue light. Also, one should not compare HID and halogen lights watt per watt, as HIDs put out up to three times the amount of light with the same wattage.



Never underestimate the ignorance of a cager concentrating on car stereo / cell phone / map / junk food.

--J

Bill B

Thanks, lots of great suggestions. I just bought my bike last Sunday after not bicycling much for about 20 years. It's a new, but 2003 model, Specialized Crossroads that I bought for $199. So I feel funny about spending several times that amount on a light. (I could see me chasing bike thieves down the road, yelling "take the bike, but leave the light!")

One thing I'm thinking about is just buying a 2 D cell Maglite flashlight and getting a clip to go on my handlebars. I could then just buy reusable NiMh batteries and a quick battery charger at home. But I don't know how this would compare to other lighting systems.

Bill

steveknight

here is my setup. it uses a 19v waterbottle battery I had made. this is a bit too bright it uses a 12v 35 watt 4700k bulb. it extreamly bright. but I only get about 1.25 horus run time. a smaller bulb overvolted would do the same but I really like the beam angle adn I can't find a lower wattage bulb with the same angle.

https://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...id=12176&stc=1

Merriwether

No way! A *20 watt* halogen light? No. (and "overvolting" simply increases the wattage actually used by the halogen bulb, w = Amp*vlt, as you may already know.)

HID are very bright per watt of power they consume, in lumens they are roughly comparable to a halogen light of three times their wattage. (Notice that if you were right, high end cars would have halogen lights, not HID.)

The Nite Rider and Light and Motion HID bike lights are about 14 watts real power, and thus put out lumens comparable to a halogen light of x>40 watts. I've got the L & M light, and it is certainly *much* brighter than a 20 watt halogen light. (NR probably is too, but I've not seen one in person.)

HID are clearly the best bike lights in my opinion. I wouldn't go back to halogen again. However, they are pricey, as others have noted.

As Juha says, there are several threads on HID lights. Check them out for detailed discussion of HID lights.

For more on lighting more generally, see candlepowerforums.com