Halogen or LED?

2wheels4work

Hi everyone. I'm new here and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on lights.
Although I commute to work on an A road there is an unlit stretch of dual carriageway which is particularly tricky at this time of year.
My previous lights were Smart 10w/5w halogens with a rechargeable lead/acid battery. However, last year the battery didn't survive the summer recess
I was planning to replace these with an Electron 10w/5w with a NiMH battery, as I think the battery and charger will be more reliable. I ordered this system online and when it arrived there was a problem with the battery bottle (it was in 2 parts!). I'm about to return it but am now wondering whether I would be better off with a bright LED light.
My budget won't stretch much over £50 so I was wondering about the Cateye EL510 or EL320.
Does anyone have any experience of any of these?

fossyant

You thought about popping to maplin and picking up a new battery for cheap......

2wheels4work

Good suggestion. I did consider that a while ago.
Couldn't find an exact replacement on the internet so was a bit hesitant to order.
However, I see from Maplins website that they do a 6v 4.5Ah, which is approximately the right size, at £6.99. I could try my local store and see if the battery fits the casing that came with the lights.
Certainly a cheaper option, although, having had the lights for a few years I was interested to see if I could get anything a bit brighter in my price range.

ThatGuyOnABike

in my experience LEDs lacks penetration/depth in the dark. the light is good for being visible not visability, even on still mode which detracts from being visable cos flashing is better. it is the same with torches, never buy the maglite LED upgrade, it is a downgrade, LED is good however for close range i.e mechanics and lasts longer the halogen.

halfords had half price sale on just for lights last time i checked (yesterday)

alfablue

You can get an LED Q5 that outperforms a Dinotte, £37 see this thread

ademort

Hi i had a similar problem,. I posted a question about the Electron lights about a month ago and received a mixed response, Strangely all complaints were about the battery. I too, bought a set of Electron lights from the net and the battery would not hold a charge so i sent them back. However i now have another set of Electron5w/10w and they are super. They are an excellent set of lights for under 50quid. My commute consists of 16Km with about 12 Km of that on unlit country roads and these lights do an excellent job for me. I cannot compare dinotte or cateye or any other lights to these lighs as i have never had them. But i would say to you if you have the opportunity to purchase a new battery then g o with the Electron lights.Also if you look on the chain reaction cycles website and check out the Electron lights you will see that many people complain about the battery. so we are not alone. Whatever you decide hope it works in your favour Greetings Ademort Oh the suggestion by alphablue above is a good one, Fenix Q5 have been looking at that myself, but am not sure that i really need it

f1fan111

For past 2 weeks i have been communting to and from work sometimes at 8pm at night down a single carriageway. It is a 60MPH limit and has a cycle path on the road. I have 2 LEDs from wilkos on the front along with a Cateye EL450 which i found pretty good when no cars where around and when its set right was fine.

I would go to your LBS and see if they can show you the lights switched on so you can see what the beam spread is likeor if you prefer narrow but brighter beam, its what i did and why i decided on EL450.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ProductDetail.a ... nt%20Light

Cost me £29.99 but bit cheaper on wiggle

2wheels4work

Thanks for your input Ademort. I'll check out the batteries tomorrow, but bear in mind your comments about the Fenix Q5.

alfablue

This is the output you can get from the Fenix

2wheels4work

That's certainly impressive! 8)
(Nice snow too - very rarely see any in Bournemouth!)

PHcp

alfablue wrote:

This is the output you can get from the Fenix

LOL, white building and fresh snow... I think any light would look good in that scene.
That's not to say it isn't a good light, I wouldn't know, just that photo isn't a decent indication.

alfablue

Agreed, any photo can be misleading, not only because of the surface, but also camera exposure settings, however, the dark red door is well illuminated in the picture and may be a more relevant reference than the foreground.

alfablue

Just to give a comparison with the Dinotte, here is a quick beamshot I did (Nikon 5700, F3.5, 1/76s, ISO 100, about 1.5m from a matt magnolia painted wall). Fenix on Turbo (about 2hr run time, 2 x 2900mah NiMH) Dinotte on High (max, also about 2hr run time, 4 x AAA 2900mah NiMH - all batteries new and freshly charged).



NB: both lights are actually a lot brighter than the picture shows (just a characteristic of the exposure) however the relative difference in output is clear to see.

The new Dinotte 200L should get closer to the Fenix as it has a new emitter, however it is still 2.5 times the price and still takes 4 cells over the 2 of the Fenix.

Jake the Peg

Every night my wife and I cycle home from work, side-by-side down dark unlit bike path along the river. I have expensive £250 Schmidt dynohub (6v 3w) Solidlights LED system, she has the £30 Smart Halogen lead-acid 6v 10w/2.4w system (using both lights) with brand new Yuasa battery.

I have to say that I was expecting my system (very highly rated) to eclipse hers, but it doesn't. The LED is a powerful but diffuse system with no hard edges to the beam pattern so you don't see the contrast between lit and unlit regions so easily. It is quite good as can be seen by turning it off - you realise the light was doing more than you thought.

The main difference between the 2 types of system is that the Smart system penetrates far into the distance lighting up the path in front but not the bushes either side. This is better for fast riding on a straightish (normal) road.

The Solidlight system lights up the bushes either side as there is no focusing lens in front. My view is that there is a lot of good light being wasted putting it where you don't need it. Most LED systems do not focus the light effectively in my experience (with a couple of handlebar mounted lights as well) because the lack of lateral light from the LED means there is very litte for a traditional parabolic reflector to focus.

So buy a replacement battery for your Smart, put the charger on a timer plug so it only charges for 5 hrs a night, and you will have recycled what is actually a pretty good light system.

Jake

alfablue

I agree that the Smart system is worth resurrecting, a new battery only costs about £7, and I agree with the timer recommendation (which is what I used with my Smart), however I don't agree with the generalisation about beam patterns in LED's. You will see from the Fenix beam shot above that the light is well focused to project well up the path ahead. Different lights will have different characteristics, for example Ay-Ups come with three options for beam patterns, narrow, intermediate and medium. I would suggest that your Solidlight system has a comparatively broad beam.

2wheels4work

Thanks for your further comments. I did buy a new 6v lead acid battery at Maplins for £6.99 and was very pleased to find the old lights sprang into life again.
I've used the lights to good effect for about 20 mins each night this week ,with both lights on, and when I measured the battery voltage this morning it was still showing 6.22v.
I'm just hoping that when the time comes to recharge the battery, I don't find that it was the charger that had broken! (Maplins didn't seem to sell a cheap charger for this battery)
Thanks for the advice about limiting the charge period - I'll try that as well.