high powered LED's

[Katharine & Paul]

ANyone used them at all?

How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).

ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?

 

[Michael Warner]

On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:59:37 +1000, Katharine & Paul wrote:

> ANyone used them at all?
>
> How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).
>
> ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?

LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
yourself visible.

--
Home page: http://members.westnet.com.au/mvw

 

[zog]

Michael Warner wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:59:37 +1000, Katharine & Paul wrote:
>
>
>>ANyone used them at all?
>>
>>How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).
>>
>>ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?
>
>
> LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
> from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
> yourself visible.
>

I have a 24led torch that is pretty bright, and yes anything reflective
like signs, etc really stand out.

but I still prefer my dual beam Cygolite to see and be seen

 

[robalert]

Michael Warner wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:59:37 +1000, Katharine & Paul wrote:
>
>
>>ANyone used them at all?
>>
>>How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).
>>
>>ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?
>
>
> LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
> from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
> yourself visible.
>

I have a 24led torch that is pretty bright, and yes anything reflective
like signs, etc really stand out.

but I still prefer my dual beam Cygolite to see and be seen

cateye have some serious LEDs... the double and triple shot

exxy though!

www.cateye.com

i think there are some more compact versions but they are alot more expensive than the equivalently bright halogen

 

[Michael Warner]

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:58:58 +1100, zog wrote:

> I have a 24led torch that is pretty bright, and yes anything reflective
> like signs, etc really stand out.

I assumed the OP was talking about LED-based lights you'd want to
stick on a road bike

--
Home page: http://members.westnet.com.au/mvw

 

[Random Data]

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:16:43 +1030, Michael Warner wrote:

> LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
> from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
> yourself visible.

So you've used *high-powered* LEDs have you? Or was I imagining using a 5W
LED as my primary light 2 years ago in an Enduro MTB race?

I've not used the commercial ones, but have run 1W, 3W and 5W Luxeons. 1s
will light up the road a tad - good for up to 15-20km/h off road. 5s are
good for everything up to "ohmigod what am I doing?".

--
Dave Hughes | [email protected]
Remember Jeebus loves you. Or maybe he's just sucking up to get your old
bike bits. - Phil Las Gourgues

 

[Bleve]

Random Data wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:16:43 +1030, Michael Warner wrote:
>
> > LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
> > from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
> > yourself visible.
>
> So you've used *high-powered* LEDs have you? Or was I imagining using a 5W
> LED as my primary light 2 years ago in an Enduro MTB race?
>
> I've not used the commercial ones, but have run 1W, 3W and 5W Luxeons. 1s
> will light up the road a tad - good for up to 15-20km/h off road. 5s are
> good for everything up to "ohmigod what am I doing?".

We used luxeons, not sure of the wattage, for a 24 hr recumbant race
last year. Plenty bright enough. Additionally, I've used LED lights
to do a very early morning (dark) ascent of Falls Ck on my roady. They
work. They're good, and the light that comes from them is from the
same electromagnetic spectrum as incandescant lamps, not some
mysterious version of light that only reflects from road signs. If
Michael is referring to frogs and the like, sure, they're just "be
seen" lights, but there's plenty of very useful lights using LEDs as
the light source that work just fine. I've felt quite safe riding up
the Koonung trail at night using an S-Sun 3 LED light (until the damn
thing stopped working, but that's not the LED's fault, that's bodgey
circuitry and battery connections!)

 

[peterlip]

ANyone used them at all?

How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).

ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?

Last winter I bought a Cateye EL500 (http://www.cateye.com/en/products/viewProduct.php?modelId=17&catId=7&subCatId=2). My commute involved unlit bike paths, ie. total darkness, and I found the light sufficient for up to around 25 km/h. Above that, I found it not quite bright enough. Mind you, I don't have the best eyesight in the world. The other issue is that it has quite a narrow beam, so I had to slow for the occasional corner.
On the plus side, I found the battery life excellent, I used rechargeable AAs, and it was much cheaper than other lighting systems.
It is available in Australia, but I bought mine from the US on Ebay.

 

[Marty]

Katharine & Paul wrote:
> ANyone used them at all?
>
> How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).
>
> ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?
>
>

This is my latest twin 5 watt Luxeon setup. I've also just started using
a Litium Polymer battery which is super light. I could never go back to
incandescent lamps.

http://www.hyperactive.oz.nf/Lights3/Luxeon3.htm

Marty

 

[Resound]

"Bleve" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Random Data wrote:
>> On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 21:16:43 +1030, Michael Warner wrote:
>>
>> > LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a
>> > little
>> > from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
>> > yourself visible.
>>
>> So you've used *high-powered* LEDs have you? Or was I imagining using a
>> 5W
>> LED as my primary light 2 years ago in an Enduro MTB race?
>>
>> I've not used the commercial ones, but have run 1W, 3W and 5W Luxeons. 1s
>> will light up the road a tad - good for up to 15-20km/h off road. 5s are
>> good for everything up to "ohmigod what am I doing?".
>
> We used luxeons, not sure of the wattage, for a 24 hr recumbant race
> last year. Plenty bright enough. Additionally, I've used LED lights
> to do a very early morning (dark) ascent of Falls Ck on my roady. They
> work. They're good, and the light that comes from them is from the
> same electromagnetic spectrum as incandescant lamps, not some
> mysterious version of light that only reflects from road signs.

I do wonder about that, actually. They're certainly a more bluish light than
incandescents, even halogens which makes me wonder how they are distributed
in the visible light spectrum. This isn't a for or against remark with
regards to LEDs, merely a comment.

>If Michael is referring to frogs and the like, sure, they're just "be
> seen" lights, but there's plenty of very useful lights using LEDs as
> the light source that work just fine. I've felt quite safe riding up
> the Koonung trail at night using an S-Sun 3 LED light (until the damn
> thing stopped working, but that's not the LED's fault, that's bodgey
> circuitry and battery connections!)
>

 

[ghostgum]

This is my latest twin 5 watt Luxeon setup. I've also just started using
a Litium Polymer battery which is super light. I could never go back to
incandescent lamps.

http://www.hyperactive.oz.nf/Lights3/Luxeon3.htm

Marty

Someone else also uses a Tweety battery!
I use a 20W halogen which uses a little too much power.
On one of my bikes this runs off a 3.5AH NiMH Tweety battery
which gives 2 hours of running time, and I only need 0.5 hours
per day. If I was commuting further, I would probably try a
3W+ LED.

If you really want efficiency, you could try High Intensity Discharge
(arc) lamps.
http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1332
http://www.halcyon.net/lights/hid-faq.shtml
No idea whether these could handle the vibration of being mounted
on a bike.

For an efficiency table:
http://lists.meer.net/pipermail/junk-l/2005-August/000208.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/incandescent-light-bulb
http://www.aps.com/images/pdf/Lighting.pdf

In general the efficiency order is, Incandescent < LED < Fluorescent
< Discharge. There is overlap between these classes.

 

[suzyj]

Michael Warner wrote:

> LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
> from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
> yourself visible.

You've clearly had your head in a bucket the last few years. There are heaps of high wattage LEDs aavailable now that outshine all but the brightest halogen lamps.

Have a look at http://www.littlefishbicycles.com/bikelight/ for an example. This one is homemade, but you can buy similar ones.

Regards,

Suzy

 

[Poiter]

This is my latest twin 5 watt Luxeon setup. I've also just started using
a Litium Polymer battery which is super light. I could never go back to
incandescent lamps.

http://www.hyperactive.oz.nf/Lights3/Luxeon3.htm

Marty

What does the extra thumb shifter do?

A 3watt luxeon is enuff for a nightime Audax ride and runs up to 18 hours on 3 x "C" cell alkalines with no electronics require (very KISS).
http://users.cyberone.com.au/heal/LUXEONLEDS.htm

Pete

 

[Flying Echidna]

On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:59:37 +1000, "Katharine & Paul"
<[email protected]> wrote in aus.bicycle:

>ANyone used them at all?
>
>How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).
>
>ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?
>

I use a Cateye with 3 bright LEDs and my commute includes about 1 km
of unlit highway in open countryside with no dwellings etc The LED
light provides sufficient illumination to safely negotiate that even
in flashing mode. The light is no worse than the light from the Cateye
2 C cell light it replaced.

I had originally anticapted going from flashing to steady light for
this section but it really wasn't necessary.

I am very pleased with the light and am still on the first set of 4 AA
cells my old light would have gone through 20 pairs of C cells by now
(at least) - I have only ever used flashing mode after the first day
of trying steady and flashing modes

I bought mine from Phantom Cycles as they were much cheaper than the
LBS though postage might be a killer if that was all you bought.

http://www.phantomcycles.com.au/


Regards
Prickles

This message only uses recycled electrons

 

[Bleve]

Resound wrote:

> > work. They're good, and the light that comes from them is from the
> > same electromagnetic spectrum as incandescant lamps, not some
> > mysterious version of light that only reflects from road signs.
>
> I do wonder about that, actually. They're certainly a more bluish light than
> incandescents, even halogens which makes me wonder how they are distributed
> in the visible light spectrum. This isn't a for or against remark with
> regards to LEDs, merely a comment.

I didn't write "frequency", I wrote "spectrum"

 

[TimC]

On 2006-01-04, ghostgum (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> For an efficiency table:
> http://lists.meer.net/pipermail/junk-l/2005-August/000208.html
> http://www.answers.com/topic/incandescent-light-bulb
> http://www.aps.com/images/pdf/Lighting.pdf
>
> In general the efficiency order is, Incandescent < LED < Fluorescent
> < Discharge. There is overlap between these classes.

I was thinking of going the flourescent route at some stage. Orders
of magnitude cheaper than HID, but I was wondering about reliablility
on a vibrating bike. Get a 12V, 15W compact flouro, hook up to a
battery, and off you go. I don't know how fragile the heating
elements are. And I have shattered compact flouros just by squeezing
the tubes (hope I didn't get any mercury on my hands!) rather than
pulling on the base.

Anyone want to do the dirty work of experimentation for me?

--
TimC
"The application did not fail successfully because of an error"

 

[TimC]

On 2006-01-05, Flying Echidna (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:59:37 +1000, "Katharine & Paul"
> <[email protected]> wrote in aus.bicycle:
>
>>ANyone used them at all?
>>
>>How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being visible).
>>
>>ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?
>>
>
> I use a Cateye with 3 bright LEDs and my commute includes about 1 km
> of unlit highway in open countryside with no dwellings etc The LED
> light provides sufficient illumination to safely negotiate that even
> in flashing mode. The light is no worse than the light from the Cateye
> 2 C cell light it replaced.

It's all well and good in the dark without moonlight. Even 7 year old
LED lights did fine there (OK, I wasn't going above 20km/h either).

Where anything that I have ever seen, other than halogen, falls down,
is in streetlit areas. I still want to be seen amongst all the din of
the suburbs. I still want to see the potholes that are hidden by the
streetlights (no shadows from something lit vertically).

Streetlights ruin your night vision, and actually make visibility
worse. So you need something to be brighter than the streetlight in
the direction of the beam that your light emits. And the only thing I
have found to do this well, is my 15W niteflux helmet light -- the 5W
is barely adequate -- I only use that in leafy suburbs at night, and
prefer the 15W when going through places like the richmond shopping
strip.

It doesn't help that the bluish spectrum of a LED doesn't highlight
well against the bluish tinge of road pavement.

--
TimC
It's the _target_ that supposed to go "F00F", not the processor.
-- Mike Andrews, on Pentiums in missiles

 

[Bleve]

ghostgum wrote:
> Marty Wrote:
> >
> > This is my latest twin 5 watt Luxeon setup. I've also just started
> > using
> > a Litium Polymer battery which is super light. I could never go back
> > to
> > incandescent lamps.
> >
> > http://www.hyperactive.oz.nf/Lights3/Luxeon3.htm
> >
> > Marty
>
>
> Someone else also uses a Tweety battery!
> I use a 20W halogen which uses a little too much power.
> On one of my bikes this runs off a 3.5AH NiMH Tweety battery
> which gives 2 hours of running time, and I only need 0.5 hours
> per day. If I was commuting further, I would probably try a
> 3W+ LED.
>
> If you really want efficiency, you could try High Intensity Discharge
> (arc) lamps.
>
> http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1332
> http://www.halcyon.net/lights/hid-faq.shtml
> No idea whether these could handle the vibration of being mounted
> on a bike.

HIDs on bikes are *fantastic* but very expensive. We use them MTBing at
night. Vibration? "uhuh"

 

[L'acrobat]

"Michael Warner" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:59:37 +1000, Katharine & Paul wrote:
>
>> ANyone used them at all?
>>
>> How do they go at lighting up the road (as opposed to just being
>> visible).
>>
>> ANyone in Aus, or any website sell them?
>
> LEDs don't usefully light up the road, although they do reflect a little
> from things designed to reflect light. They're really just for making
> yourself visible.

I routinely cycle in the dark (no streetlights) in winter using an LED
headlight (Cateye HL-EL 500), it throws around 1000 candlepower.

The main problem with this light is that the case is fragile, if you drop it
it will shatter and, over time, the case will crack anyway.

But the delivered light is plenty to ride by and it runs on 4 x AAs.

 

[Bleve]

TimC wrote:


> Streetlights ruin your night vision, and actually make visibility
> worse.


Any bright light will (temporarily, up to 5 mins or so?) badly affect
your night vision. This is probably compounded by dirty glasses etc.
Don't look at the light The same problem manifests itself when
driving cars at night too, never look into the lights of an oncoming
car, look at the left gutter.

When we did the Wonth HPV GP, there was a floodlight around the footy
oval, and it was the most dangerous part of the course because of that
light. The dark sections were much safer as you could see things other
than the halo of the floodlight in the windscreen. Urgh ...