are the sinewave cycles beacon and Luxos U still the lights to get if you want a USB connection? or are there better dynamo lights to go after?
Picked up an Allty 2000 from Olight just coz. I’ve a RN1500 as well. Lessee
RN1500 is awesome. The one from Olight comes with what I presume is a Samsung 50e 21700 5000mah battery, which is the difference, I think between it and the MagicShine RN1200 which comes with a 3500mah 21700. I think Olight bumps the output a little as well.
RN1500 has a really nice soft cutoff lens and USB-C PD-style charging and discharging. I haven’t checked the current, but it charges fast relative to my other 21700 light.
IMHO, this is one of the best battery powered lights on the market. It’d be my main one, but I can’t get it mounted how I like. It’s got a the soft cutoff lens and a spill light that comes out the bottom that makes running it upside-down a bad idea.
Allty 2000. This is not as good as I’d hoped. Definitely more light, likely great for MTB use. There’s no soft cutoff and it would blind motorists if run on the highest setting. Comes with 2x3500mah 18650s, so runtime is very good. Has a DRL (yay?) and two Cree XM-L2 emitters one with a spot optic and the other with a flood optic.
There’s an OLED display which is okay, I guess. I want stuff to have an easy UI and not need a display to distract me. Runtimes are really good. There’s a million modes, but this is the only light I’m aware of that’ll put out 1000 lumens for 2 hours, which is about the length of my morning rides and will provide usable illumination on lower outputs for well over 8 hours.
RN1500 is fully submersible and the Allty 2000 is IPX5, resistant to water spray. RN1500 comes with USB-C charge and discharge. Allty 2000 comes with an older micro-usb charger. RN1500 has a nicer full aluminum housing. Allty 2000 is plastic and aluminum.
Anyway, somewhat disappoint with something that’s just a little older generation than the RN-series lights.
how many lights do you have? not even poking fun
Never do the math.
fair.
I have some ebike specific german lights, a cyo premium and a less premium rear thing. If i don’t have enough $ to do ebike conversion right away can i make something cheap and safe like out of 18650s that will power this rig for the time being?`I know fuckall about electricity and dont want to either waste money or make a huge blue spark that burns my xtracycle luggage. I don’t even understand the difference between watts and amps so please feel free to explain everythign in detail.
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/busch-muller-iq-cyo-premium-e-bike-front-light says it takes 6-42 volts so lots of room for error i guess.
@halbritt or @JUGE_FREDD can tell you what to buy
I was about to write that I don’t know of anything on the market… and then I remembered that Magicshine used to build external packs and they’re pretty good about selling parts, so:
There’ you go.
You’ll need a pack. IIRC, that light is 3 watts? That’ll be around 400ma plus whatever the rear light needs, let’s say 200ma at most, so, 600ma at 7.2v. The 10AH pack there should run for 16 hours at that current output.
The thing ain’t cheap, though. You’d have to adapt the Cyo to run off their round plug doohickey which would take a little soldering and heat shrink.
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Thanks for this. I wound up getting a cheaper thing though. It can work with the 18650s and charger i have lying around from previous tarck dithers.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B076GMLWSJ/
This isn’t supposed to be long term, just to tide us over til the grin battery is installed.
That’ll work!
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I did some dark riding on the mtb last night with just a bar mounted commuter light. Felt good but I think a helmet light would help a lot with trails/lines I’m not already familiar with.
Anyone have any recommendations? @Face i saw you consumed one of those gloworm jawns a while ago, how are you liking it?
It’s awesome.
I got the cheapest one and I wish I had spec’d up a bit tho.
Where do you put the battery? I don’t wear a back/hip pack and worry about having too much extra weight on my head
Also do you use it with another light or solo?
Light on my helmet, battery in my fanny pack. The battery has what I can only describe as a belt loop which I guess you could use to hang it off your waist. But you should have a fanny pack for snacks and weed/whiskey if you’re riding at night anyway.
I use it with a ~700 lumen light on the bars.
Ya it looks like I’ll need to try out a fannypack before considering this. I mostly just use a snack bag on the bars so will need to sort out the battery situation if I go this route. Thanks for the info!
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Alternately, you could run a big flood on the bars and use the smaller light on your hamlet. Provided your smaller light is reasonably bright, anyway.
The little glow worm light is hella tiny.
I have the Outbound Lights Hangover on my helmet and liked it well enough to get their new Evo for the bars. I’ve only ridden the Evo once so far, but it was in the snow, so…
I ran it on the lowest setting and it was the most light I’ve ever had. Many of their lights have built in batteries, but because they use pass-through charging you can extend your range with a usb brick. Their pricing seems fair, too.
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Nice! The hangover looks awesome, thanks for the tip.
No cord required, small weight penalty over the external battery types and pass through charging make this look promising.
Yeah, it’s pretty slick. They go on a bit about their optics, and they’re pretty good. Nice spread via simple tricks, slat lensing, frosted glass at the edges. I’m more impressed with what Busch & Mueller can do with a single led on a dyno rig, but that’s an entirely different game.
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