I recently (last week) got back into cycling after a long absence. I changed jobs, and now my commute is 4 miles away on a non-suicidal route.
I was looking at lights, and of course saw the offerings at REI and the other cycle stores. I found a pair of products on Ebay, and they arrived today. A road test this evening was very pleasing.
Ebay numbers: 191005523792 for the tail light, and 181201202951 for the headlight.
I have no relationship with the sellers, I am just a pleased customer.
For about $50 for the pair, including shipping, I think these are pretty nice.
No fancy brand names, but they are bright, and well built. I don't think the battery pack for the headlamp is waterproof, but I'm sure I can come up with something.
The headlight uses four Li-Ion cells in a pouch. The cable connector is a barrel connector with a water resistant (at least) screw together connector. The battery pack is small, a bit bigger than four AA cells. The tail light runs on AAA cells. The headlight on low was roughly as bright as the car headlights passing me, and I was careful to keep it aimed so that it wasn't blinding oncoming traffic. The pattern isn't ideal but it does light up well close in and far away. One note: The ad for the headlight says 5000 Lumens, and that's just not possible. The emitters aren't that powerful. Assuming they really are the stated LEDs (a gamble in China) then here is the spec sheet: http://www.cree.com/LED-Components-and-Modules/Products/XLamp/Discrete-Directional/XLamp-XML So about 2000 lumens is achievable through the optics. It's not as bright as my 4000 lumen flashlight, but that would be pretty crazy on a bike, and it tends to ignite black things that get too close.
I knew the lumen numbers were bogus when I bought it, kind of like stun gun voltage numbers. They are stuck in a bad position, if they tell the truth they will loose sales. Sanity check on brightness: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?145-how-many-lumens-do-car-headlights-output "What headlamp? Not all headlamps are equal! The 9006 for example gives 1000lm. A D2S Xenon metal halide arc has about 3000lm. All that are the outputs of the lamps only. The optics do not have 100% efficiency, so the actual output is rather lower. But the outputs quoted by SureFire are also lamp outputs."
Time will tell on build quality, but for the price, I think these are hard to beat.
So for what it's worth, that's my experience so far with these lights.
I was looking at lights, and of course saw the offerings at REI and the other cycle stores. I found a pair of products on Ebay, and they arrived today. A road test this evening was very pleasing.
Ebay numbers: 191005523792 for the tail light, and 181201202951 for the headlight.
I have no relationship with the sellers, I am just a pleased customer.
For about $50 for the pair, including shipping, I think these are pretty nice.
No fancy brand names, but they are bright, and well built. I don't think the battery pack for the headlamp is waterproof, but I'm sure I can come up with something.
The headlight uses four Li-Ion cells in a pouch. The cable connector is a barrel connector with a water resistant (at least) screw together connector. The battery pack is small, a bit bigger than four AA cells. The tail light runs on AAA cells. The headlight on low was roughly as bright as the car headlights passing me, and I was careful to keep it aimed so that it wasn't blinding oncoming traffic. The pattern isn't ideal but it does light up well close in and far away. One note: The ad for the headlight says 5000 Lumens, and that's just not possible. The emitters aren't that powerful. Assuming they really are the stated LEDs (a gamble in China) then here is the spec sheet: http://www.cree.com/LED-Components-and-Modules/Products/XLamp/Discrete-Directional/XLamp-XML So about 2000 lumens is achievable through the optics. It's not as bright as my 4000 lumen flashlight, but that would be pretty crazy on a bike, and it tends to ignite black things that get too close.
I knew the lumen numbers were bogus when I bought it, kind of like stun gun voltage numbers. They are stuck in a bad position, if they tell the truth they will loose sales. Sanity check on brightness: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?145-how-many-lumens-do-car-headlights-output "What headlamp? Not all headlamps are equal! The 9006 for example gives 1000lm. A D2S Xenon metal halide arc has about 3000lm. All that are the outputs of the lamps only. The optics do not have 100% efficiency, so the actual output is rather lower. But the outputs quoted by SureFire are also lamp outputs." Time will tell on build quality, but for the price, I think these are hard to beat.
So for what it's worth, that's my experience so far with these lights.
