The big LIGHTS thread 2011-2014

jairaj

I've already tired leaving it plugged into the charger for a day hoping the trickle charge will bring it back but didn't work.

thanks all any ways for the help. It's a simple job just replacing the battery anyway so I'll give that a go next.

Big dave 3

If anyone is after a straight forward bracket, I received these today:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/R1B1-New ... 15855.html

They are 61p & grip a 502/501 nice and tight. I havent actually mounted one on handlebars yet though but should be ok. I bought 5 as they're 61p I thought why not.

Ouija

Those don't work on oversize bars if you want the lights close to the stem, you have to mount them out by the grips. Due to the slight back slope of most bars, if you do put them out by the grips they aren't pointing forwards but out to the sides of the road (really depends on the type of bar). Try mounting them further up the bar and the thread of the screw on the bottom of the bracket scratches up the bar.

johnmcl7

Those are the ones I use for my handlebars, as mentioned above they are restrictive where you can position them although I don't find it an issue on the mountain bike as the helmet light fills in the gap in the middle. It's more of an issue on the road bike as there's no space fit one there, I've been looking for something similar that can tolerate a larger bar.

John

wishitwasallflat

Big dave 3 wrote:

If anyone is after a straight forward bracket, I received these today:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/R1B1-New ... 15855.html

They are 61p & grip a 502/501 nice and tight. I havent actually mounted one on handlebars yet though but should be ok. I bought 5 as they're 61p I thought why not.

I use these for 501s on my road bikes bars just took the screw out and replaced it with a cable tie and it works great (got that tip of here actually but can't remember from whom so can't give the credit where it's due!).

Big dave 3

now that is a useful tip! cheers. I know what you mean, each light points slightly away from centre and there is a gap in the middle. I'll try the cable tie tip tomorrow

Big dave 3

my ultra fire charger packed up today, the lights just dimmed and then wouldn't light up at all. has anyone got any recommendations? must be a UK source though, I need it quick

diy

jairaj wrote:

I've already tired leaving it plugged into the charger for a day hoping the trickle charge will bring it back but didn't work.

thanks all any ways for the help. It's a simple job just replacing the battery anyway so I'll give that a go next.

Charge a healthy cell and extend the circuit using some wire to loop the dead cell in parallel. Be careful and keep an eye on it. after about 5-10 mins it should have enough back in take a normal charge. Might still be pooped tho.

just a thought I assume its not protected? of course it could be a break in the cell 0.3v is pretty much zero, even a dead cell I'd expect to show 1v.

Big dave 3

I went on a night ride with a C8 & one of the 501Bs I received from KaiDomain yesterday. They worked very well together apart from the C8 draining the battery & needing to change it.

I am now thinking of a dedicated bike light wth a battery pack.

ANy opinions on these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171227741047? ... 1423.l2648

Or these from Kai Domain:

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S021882

http://kaidomain.com/product/details.S021404

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S022922

Big dave 3

Also with the battery packs that come with them, could I take the old cells out & put decent Panasonic ones in? How would i connect them? ARe they in series / parallel?

apreading

If you are looking at Kaidomain then I got one of these@ http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S022573 which is awesome and also comes with a better battery pack than most (properly sealed rubber and the cells seem OK in it).

You can get battery packs there like this: http://www.kaidomain.com/product/Details.S022419 which let you change the cells.

I just got a set of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271333396797? ... 1439.l2649 to try - arrived in about 2 days so I think the seller must have had some in the UK despite the ad saying they ship from Hong Kong. Interested to try the one with the diffuser on it...

Big dave 3

OK cheers for the tip! THat battery box looks good. id probably go with something like that if they did it without the pack , then I could get my own pack & put premium cells in.

ARent those Lustefire type lights supposed to leak in the vent holes?

apreading

Someone on here had a similar one leak through the vents. The trouble is with these cheapo chinese lights is that there is alot of sample variation in terms of quality and also you get clones of originals which look the same but arent, then clones of the clones... These ones have Lustefire printed on them, unlike a similar one that someone on here had from Deal Extreme (I think) - so may be originals and may (or may not) be better. Only trial and error will establish that!

I think if you try enough of these, sooner or later you get one that isnt screwed together properly - I am hoping it is just that and that mine will be OK...

Ouija

Big dave 3 wrote:

I went on a night ride with a C8 & one of the 501Bs I received from KaiDomain yesterday. They worked very well together apart from the C8 draining the battery & needing to change it.

I am now thinking of a dedicated bike light wth a battery pack.

ANy opinions on these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171227741047? ... 1423.l2648

Or these from Kai Domain:

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S021882

http://kaidomain.com/product/details.S021404

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S022922

Noticed a theme in those links. Namely going for triple emitters in one head unit. Not bad but the batteries that come with these tend to be quite bad unless you get one that allows you to use your own cells. Tend to run hot as well and all three emitters will pretty much drain a reasonably good pack in under and hour which means you'll probably spend the majority of the time running it on just one or two emitters. In which case it might be better to simply buy a one/two emitter light that isn't too consumptive on batteries and allows variable brightness modes that don't depend on simply switching an emitter on or off (as with most of those triple head units).

I've previously recommended the Trustfire TR-D002 light as it's plenty bright at 2000 lumens, comes with a battery pack that can drive it on full for 2.5/3.0 hours (rare) and comes with a nice remote switch you can clamp around your grips (just above the shifter levers to give full control of the light without having to remove your hand from the grip) and has a proper bar mount rather than those silly rubber o rings that cause the light to shimmy forwards and point at the ground through vibration or jabbing the button on the back of it with your finger. Less than £30 and arrived in under two weeks (i've had two from Manafont and delivery was quite fast despite including a battery).

i did a review of one on page 104

Big dave 3

ok thats all good info thats intersting to know. I thought 3 emitters would be best as I want something bright but without the head being too big. I cant find a 3 emitter light without the battery pack. BUt I was thinking of going that route & putting my own NCR cells in it, I wouldnt want to be carrying more than 4 ideally.

THe review is intersting to read. I thought these multi emitter lights with packs were much much better than using torch/es? How would these cycling lights with packs compare with a c8 & 501b with good xm-l2s on each side of the bars compare?

apreading

A twin emitter light will be about the same as two torches with the same emitters, albeit that depends on the drivers and how many amps they are pushing the emitters at. What the bike lights with separate battery packs do is allow you to run twice as many batteries simultaneously compared to your two torches, they also move the weight to somewhere that it might be more convenient. Also, having a multiple battery pack running at a higher voltage might be useful. But they arent necessarily going to be better than separate torches - they are using the same technology, just packaged differently... Personally, I always carry a small and light single cell torch as a backup anyway - never rely on just one light/battery as that can lead to disaster in the middle of nowhere!

Ouija

+1

It's pretty much like apreading says, it's mainly convenience. A XM-L torch is going to get about 1.5hr's out of a 18650 battery. Closer to 3hr's on two batteries. Double the number of torches and your looking at four batteries for a three hour run time. So no different than the Trustfire TR-D002 mentioned above. It's simply that the Trustfire saves the hassle of having to stop and faff about with batteries in the dark and takes up less space on the bar as well as giving a better indication of how drained your cells are. You'd need a six cell pack or better for a 3 head unit light if you wanted to run them for the same sort of time period. Even four Panasonic NCR's would struggle to get you over 2 hours with a three emitter setup running at any reasonable ampage.

Either way you look at it, the more emitters you have the more battery your going to have to lug about with you to get decent run times. It's just a case of deciding if you prefer seperate lights running off individual batteries or multi emitter units running of multi-packs.

Oh! And on a side note. The 502 torch with the XM-L U2 i was comparing the Trustfire against back on page 104 was a uber bright 2.4amp version, rather than the typical 1 amp version that a lot of these torches come as.

Big dave 3

I received my second order from Kai Domain on Friday. It was a KD C8 which I already had & 2 x 501Bs with UF XM-L2:

http://www.kaidomain.com/Product/Details.S021228

ANd I am impressed! These are not far off the C8 from Kai Domain. I went on a ride with a C8 & a 501b from KD & the C8 battery drained but I was still ok with just the 501b.

I did some current readings.

The KD C8 with a fresh 3.4Ah NCR cell is puilling 3.2A.

THe KD 501B with a fresh 3.4Ah NCR cell is pulling 2.76A. With a fresh 3.4Ah Torchy cell it is 2.66A. So Torchy & NCR cells seem pretty similar.

I am happy with Kai DOmain, their delivery time has been reasonable & theit torches are consistently good.

UNlike Light Malls, where my 40 dollar order has been lost & Paypal have refused my claim as Light Malls have given them a tracking number

porlyworly

Still no sign of my lightmalls order, with any luck it will turn up by winter 2014

The secret rider

Anyone tried these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Twin-Cree-Q5- ... 4ac8fa0902

The secret rider

Or

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-Ultrafire ... 3f2b83eb6c

Ouija

The secret rider wrote:

Anyone tried these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Twin-Cree-Q5- ... 4ac8fa0902

Everyone looks at those but they aren't that good (zoomable, AAA batteries and an old q5 emitter).

Better off with non zommables, XM-L emitters running off Li-Ion (18650/26650) style batteries which put out more light and run for much longer.

fossyant

apreading wrote:

If you are looking at Kaidomain then I got one of these@ http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S022573 which is awesome and also comes with a better battery pack than most (properly sealed rubber and the cells seem OK in it).

You can get battery packs there like this: http://www.kaidomain.com/product/Details.S022419 which let you change the cells.

I just got a set of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271333396797? ... 1439.l2649 to try - arrived in about 2 days so I think the seller must have had some in the UK despite the ad saying they ship from Hong Kong. Interested to try the one with the diffuser on it...

Don't take those lights out in the rain, they leak badly. The rain gets in the vents, soaks towards the front and shorts out the Halo ring.

The secret rider

My lights all arrived today

diy

Ideal set up for me is a 3 - 4 light option. 2 on the bars and 1 or 2 on the lid. Advantage of torches over fixed head is I can get the lights quite far apart, minimising shadow, I can also have them pointing in different locations. e.g. dipped-left for road, near and far etc.

On endurance rides I go for 4 on the bars 1 on the lid and just run them low. But its a 10 second job to change the cells, so could easily get way with less. there really isn't much difference weight wise between 4 torches and a twin head and pack.

Ouija

diy wrote:

Advantage of torches over fixed head is I can get the lights quite far apart, minimising shadow, I can also have them pointing in different locations. e.g. dipped-left for road, near and far etc.

Just ordered one of these to play with as the three beams appear to be pointing in different directions instead of parallel to each other. The upper one points straight ahead and the other two look like they point either parallel to each other into the middle distance or even slightly to the left and right (hard to say until it arrives).

kevinharley

From? Price? Link?

Ouija wrote:

diy wrote:

Advantage of torches over fixed head is I can get the lights quite far apart, minimising shadow, I can also have them pointing in different locations. e.g. dipped-left for road, near and far etc.

Just ordered one of these to play with as the three beams appear to be pointing in different directions instead of parallel to each other. The upper one points straight ahead and the other two look like they point either parallel to each other into the middle distance or even slightly to the left and right (hard to say until it arrives).

Ouija

From Kaidomain without battery (got loads of batteries, don't need any more). About £20. Just started a new job so i though i'd treat myself to something.

The two bottom lights look like they are parallel to each other and pointing downwards. And since there are three modes (one, two or three lights on) i imagine you can have only one or both of the lower two lights on. If that's how it works i may put a frosted coat on one of the lower ones (or get an OP reflector, if possible) so that you can have a mid distance flood or flood with spot.

diy

Certainly an improvement, but you may well have a problem of the top light being a dazzler, while the bottom 2 point at your feet.

I think troutie had it right with a combo of focused leds and diffused leds giving both distance and flood.

@£20 you've almost got yourself 3 torches.

Ouija

Got six XM-L torches but find strapping them to the bars and constantly having to change batteries or fiddle with individual buttons everytime you want to make an adjustment kind of annoying. Especially offroad (which i was mainly treating myself to this light for). Running everthing off one battery certainly has it's advantages if your lazy. The only time i use my XM-L torches these days is when i go to work as i can stuff one in my pocket, use it to find my bike in the dark parking lot when i get out and strap it on in seconds. Wouldn't leave a battery pack and light strapped to it when i'm in work as it would get nicked and be a faff to mount in the dark.

Came across this one the other day that made me smile...