Magic shine lights - any good?

rodgers73

Looking for a high powered front light for under £100 for long distance night rides. These seem to do the trick but wondered if they were ok?

Seeing them on ebay for £70.

Any other recommendations considered!

Thanks

Wirral_paul

I've got one (an MJ808E) and am more than happy with. I did however change the lens for a wide angle one from ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MagicShine-Wide-Angle-Lens-for-MJ808-MJ808E-/140686193236?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c18cf254#ht_500wt_1287

I bought mine from DealExtreme and then bought a UK charger. Cost me around £62 all in overall - about 8 months ago

Dave_P1

Excellent lights for the money and plenty bright enough for any road riding

warrerj

Been using a magic shine for night MTB rides for 2 years or more. You won't fine better value for money if you get them direct form DealExtreme.

ukmkh

Have the magic shine 872 on my MTB - used it all winter for commuting and it's brilliant. Only used it at 25% brightness - its that good. On that setting I only needed to charge every 7 days (50 minutes use per day ) with the normal battery.

Only irritating thing is the battery fixing strap - battery used to slide down - but then I just wrapped the cable in a different way. Now I want to get te rear one...

petemadoc

Ey?

It's June?

I've had 2 eBay magic shine jobs for 2 years. One is superb and the other has some issues. Great lights and amazing power.

redvee

I've got the full kit, MJ808E & MJ818. I was getting 3x 40 minutes commutes on full power. The cable length is just about long enough for a road bike with the rear light on the seatpost, other than that you'll need the extension cable.

FSR_XC

http://www.dealextreme.com/c/bike-light ... =relevance

Great lights. I bought from these - great service.

They have a big spread of light, which is great for offroad or unlit streets, but not great for oncoming traffic though.

rodgers73

Good stuff - sounds like they're worth the investment

Giraffoto

Also consider a Twofish Lockblock (or similar) holder for torches from LED Lenser, Ultrafire or Fenix: they've done the trick for me, on- and off-road all Winter

andyrr

If you do a search then you may see a number of less positive comments.
I currently have one and have gone through a few.
Gone through meaning they have failed and I have had to get them replaced or buy another myself.
Commonly the failure is with the battery pack, possibly due to poor waterproofing of the multi-cell pack.
For the money I don't think any other light can touch them for brightness.
I've a Deal Extreme supplied 82150 light at present, bought August 2011 and this ran through the winter - just charged it up in the garage and it still works fine.
Previously I had a very similar DX light which lasted maybe a year then it failed (battery would not charge)
That was replaced by DX (took a while with carriage to/from H-K which I think I had to pay at elast one way IIRC), then the battery failed again after a few months and I bought just a battery pack, that failed and I then bought the light I currently have.
Overall they are great value BUT they have QC issues and the batteries don't appear to be the best.
Very bright but the beam pattern is not as good for road riding as more (read much more) expensive lights.

unixnerd

I do a lot of night biking in the winter. I have a Magicshine MJ-836 and it's excellent. It has a newer battery pack that much more waterproof and has a charge inidcator - massive upgrade over the old battery pack. Very good light.

But it's been superceded by the Cree XML-T6 torches I now use. They seem to do almost as well with one internal cell (of the same type) as the four pack used by the MJ-836. I use two, one pointing into the distance and the other closer in. If one dies I still have light :-) I get around 2 hours on high beam and can pedal at full speed with confidence, happy to do 30+ mph downhill in pitch darkness. Just carry a few spare batteries for longer rides.

Some batteries are much better than others, look around for some reviews (Panasonic are best I think?) and store them in a cold place over summer.

I'd also recommend a small head torch. I use an old lightweight AA Maglite with a surprisingly bright LED upgrade and a Nite-Ize head band. Perfect for cross country skiing too.

prawny

+1 one to the XML T6 torches.

I've got a magic shine and another similar thing from dealextreme but I got an Ultrafire torch over the winter and that gets the most use now. Lasts as long as the magicshine, is a smidge brighter and I can carry spare batteries. Going to get another one or two before this winter so I can have a few on the go.

daxplusplus

unixnerd wrote:

But it's been superceded by the Cree XML-T6 torches I now use. They seem to do almost as well with one internal cell (of the same type) as the four pack used by the MJ-836. I use two, one pointing into the distance and the other closer in. If one dies I still have light :-)

I do the same .. one as a dip that I leave on all the time and the other I use as a full beam - I switch this one off when there's oncoming traffic. This works for me cos I see maybe 1 car per mile on my country commute. These torches are so bright that cars know I'm coming around blind corners (they dip their headlights before the've even seen me).

Always having two working lights is a great idea for riding on unlit roads - you have a complete backup just in case. I'm sure there are other lights that are better but the cost of buying two of them is just not an option for me.

Mettan

Similar to Prawny, if you decide to go the torch route, get a C8 host with an xml-t6 emitter - the basic Ultrafire C8 XML-T6 is an excellent light (I've got a couple and some xml-t6 P60's) - if you want a better C8, go for something like the XinTD C8. For batteries, the Panasonic 3100 maH are great if you've got a multimeter - if not, the Xtar 3100 maH protected's are excellent.

prawny

I stole my torch batteries from my old laptop and bought a multimeter with the money I saved