Light rating comparisons - advice ?

andylav

Hi

Can anyone offer a conversion ratio to allow Cateye 'candle' ratings to be converted to other makes' more often 'lumen' quoted figures.

I'm looking at purchasing two distinct sets of lights - something like the Hope LED, Dinotte, Joystick, etc, for one purpose (one bike) and something like the Cateye Single Shot for dedicated commuter use but I wanted to try and get a guage of how bright it would be compared to the other brands mention, though not in direct competition - if you know what I mean....

alfablue

Unfortunately I don't think it is possible. Cateye are annoying in using Candlepower as it gives attractive / optimistic ratings that can't readily be compared with other manufacturers' lights that specify lumens.

There is a full discussion here.

I have a downer on Cateye because of this reason, plus poor and flimsy design and build quality (particularly brackets), made worse by poor to non-existant warranty support from the UK importers, Zyro. There are always better and / or cheaper and / or better made and designed and / or brighter lights elsewhere.

Why get the Single Shot? It is only 2w output, and its big and expensive and made of cheap plastics. The Dinotte is better in every respect, and will be ideal as a commuter light. It is only £15 more (plus the cost of rechargeables, but you can get 2800mah x 8 for a tenner on ebay).

andyp

I'd second what alfablue says.

In addition, the Dinotte is so simple to swap between bikes that it'd make more sense to get one as your only light and use it on both.

PHcp

Other lights that use the same LEDs as cateye claim around 40 lumens each. There are two new lights and a bit of confusion between them, the standard Single Shot uses one LED and costs around £50, the Plus? model uses two and costs around £80 (I think). IMO there are other factors at least as important as raw output, light spread and colour. I haven't seen the new Cateyes, the lens looks similar to the impressive Inoled dynamo light. It is apparently technically difficult to focus the light from LEDs in this way. I'd be interested to see how Cateye have done.

Another one for you high end shortlist - Nightrider Minewt X2

andylav

Thanks guys - saw the Single shot (£55) in the flesh and much more compact and robust than previous offerings.

Appreciate the comments though and I was sorely tempted by the Dinotte (Lithium Ion version though - not the AA model) and the Joystick Maxx so that they could be changed between bikes but my need for the brighter lights might be on the backburner now anyway so went with what I know I need and can use at the moment and I can take my time to look at other options if the need arises.