yeah, alley f. can’t argue with the price right now
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They’re decent lights. I use one of the lower-end models (300, I think) and it’s fine.
What’s the best led with like 6 hours on medium? I hear cygolite Metro Pro 950 is gud?
Without asking battery/brightness/form factor preferences:
Lumintop B01 is right there - https://www.bmengineer.com/2019/08/lumintop-b01.html
up next on my flashlight review blog.
ok folks, school me on replacing lights
I’ve never personally done lighting on a bike, and my ebike’s lights it came with are either crapped out or not strong enough for what I want. does anyone have a guide they could point me to as far as wiring properly and whatnot?
Any opinions on battery lights these days? City riding. Cygolite?
any opinions?
I’ve got a Lezyne Mega Drive that stopped working after it fell off someone’s bars years ago and I recently took it apart to try to fix it and I have no idea wtf is wrong.
I’m looking hard at the Outbound stuff
I have a lezyne infinity light thing. It’s fine but not awesome. I’m sure there are better lights out there.
i rock the bontrager because it’s what is cheapest for me.
i liked the cat eye volt tho- you could get spare batteries and swap them while riding
I can reccomend moon cob lights for flashy city use. small battery tho.
I haven’t been mad at my Bontrager stuff but also I haven’t tried anything else in the last 3 years
By “not mad” I mean the taillight is awesome and the headlight is meh. It is bright and lasts a long time, but it’s ugly and I hate standard beams now that I’m spoiled by a dyno on my commuter
Hey, here it is.
Currently testing this light:
Has a pretty use-case specific reflector design that aims to be conformant to StVZO regulations. Not sure it’s received any actual evaluation along those lines, but by my subjective assessment the cutoff on it is very sharp. Theres’ a flat-topped hot spot way out in front with a gradient down to a null area and a second hot spot with a crescent shaped beam right in front of the tire. Not sure if anyone here cares about tint, but flashlight nerds definitely do, I’d estimate this one around 3500k, definitely warmish.
Comes with a 2.6AH protected 18650 (9.6Wh) for an expected runtime of 150 minutes at 450 lumens. There’s a turbo mode for 850 lumens, but that’ll get thermally regulated down to 450 after about 30 seconds. Dude here does an extensive review inclusive of testing the output and runtime which are on spec:
I threw an unprotected Samsung 50E 5AH (18.5Wh) in mine and would expect about 5 hours of runtime. The light has a low voltage cutoff at 3V and will freak out if driven beyond that, so I’m not really worried about using an unprotected cell. The onboard charger is incapable of exceeding the current capacity of this particular cell, so I’m not worried about that either.
Quality is reflective of the price and the fact that this originates from a very well-regarded Chinese flashlight manufacturer who targets the flashlight nerd community. Basically, pretty good. Machining is good, anodizing is good, the reflector does the job really well, but it’s not a fancy light by any stretch.
Only complaint is that the 21700 rattles in the case, which I’ll need to fix. I suspect the 18650 in a little plastic sleeve that comes with it doesn’t have this problem. Comes with a really nice handlebar mount, though I’m using it in a gopro style mount on the bottom side of my K-edge computer mount.
Definitely not bad for forty bucks.
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So that replacement battery you expect to have no negative effects, and you should be able to plug the light in and charge normally as if the stock battery were fitted? (I assume charge time may be longer?)
I like the idea of slightly warmer color.
i will probably try this for $40- third dyno bike not in the cards so much now because of other stupid great purchases. what’s the go to way to charge said cells? carrying spares is enticing. seems like it can charge em but maybe charging more than one at a time is a good idea
also- where you get your cells?
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Correct. Micro-USB is pretty limited on charge current, but it charges fine. The link I posted shows 3.5 hours for a full charge, I 'spect twice that for the 21700. Samsung 50E charge is spec’d at 2.5A for a normal charge, and 5A for a quick charge, so the onboard charger on this guy is nowhere near maximally optimal for the larger cell. The Olight/Magicshine RN1500, which I’ll review later, has the same cell I think and a USB-C charging port and will top 'er up in a couple hours. It’s twice the price, though, worse tint, and maybe not as good an optic if you like a cutoff. It’s still a good optic, though.
I get my cells from IMR Batteries and when I charge cells I usually use an ISDT Q6 which is a badass little guy. Needs a power supply and a battery holder though. I also have some generic 18650 4 cell charger that’s pretty slow, but that guy won’t do 21700.
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I want to be clear that the light comes with an onboard micro-usb charger and a protected cell. Works out of the box with no additional anything needed. I’m just a dumb nerd with a bunch of lithium ion doodads at my disposal.
Oh, hey, the light can also be powered off a micro-usb, so it can be run off a dyno as well.
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That’s cool, there are definitely times (like a a flat fix in the dark) when I wished my dynolight was detachable to use like a flashlight.
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