Cree Bike Lights? Any Good?

Xommul

Hi Folks

just trawling ebay and came across the Cree lights. Tonnes of them for all sorts of prices but are they any good? Some are suggesting 11000 lumens, 8000 lumens, 4000 lumens.

You would need to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get that sort of power from a well known brand.

Im thinking that a company has just got hold of some LEDs and chucked them into a housing.

But does anyone have a set, are they worth the little money that they are going for?

Here is an example
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XM-L7xT6 ... 3f320d28fd

Xom

Ouija

Cree is the name of the emitter (LED manufacturer), not the light manufacturer. There is a big thread about it here....

The XM-L variants of Cree's emitters are currently the brightest LED's on the market (especially the T6, U2, U3 variants). Seven XM-L T6 running at 3 amps would give you around 7000 lumens. However, a battery pack capable of putting out that sort of ampage would be massive and the heat generated by the light would be excessive. It's more likely that the light in your link comes with a simple four or six cell pack and is running each emitter at 1 amp, so your probably looking at about 3/4000 lumen, which is still pretty bright.

bockers

There have been a lot of threads about this. The lights will be good and bright, probably not as good as the major brands but still well over what even the best lights could pump out 10 years ago. The difference will be in the quality.

That will mean the battery, chargers and connectors will not be up there with the best and may fail just when most needed. The dangerous bit could be the charging, so you may want to ensure they don't get too hot There is an argument for buying a set of cheapies on the basis that they are disposable after a year.

Like all thing in life you decide based on your own set of priorities.