Exposure Strada
earth
Posts: 934
I had a Mk4 until recently when it along with my bikes went missing. I liked it so much I decided to get another so I just got the 800 Mk7. The Mk4 was 800 lumens as well and I felt it was plenty but this one just doesn't seem as bright. It is not dim by any estimate but it doesn't have the same impact as the Mk4. I used to be able to shine that all the way down the road and it was still bright enough or reach the back of the garden with it. Not so any more. Has anyone else compared the two?
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That brings me to something else I noticed. Mode 1 has High, medium and low beam settings. On the Mk4 these different settings gave noticeably different beam brightnesses. On the Mk7 M and L give the same brightness beam. The display on the Mk7 indicates the estimated burn time for each setting and it displays 10 hours for medium and 24 hours for low despite the beam brightness being the same. One the one hand I like having the same beam brightness with more than twice the burn time of the low setting but sometimes I set it to low so it does not dazzle anyone - that does not work now because the brightness does not change. It seems suspicious to me that the low setting has over twice the burn time yet the same brightness as medium - physics doesn't give you anything for free. So I suspect one of the two setting just doesn't exist except in the display.
As an example, I ride fast at night and a ride will typically last 2-3 hours. Looking at all the settings on my Diablo I see I can get 3 hours from a M setting on Programme 1, with the odd boost from a H setting where needed. This will give me the most light for my time (obviously any setting of a 10 hour duration will be less bright than a 3 hour setting as a trade off). One could easily work out something similar that suits them, e.g., someone might typically ride for 5 hours and Programme 4 might give a duration of 3 hours for H, 6 hours for M, so that would do nicely.
Decide on a programme and remember the number.
Then, the key thing with Exposure is the switch on, 2 clicks to switch the torch on, 1 click to set the programme.
To set the programme then, 1 click (leaving the button depressed) until the light flashes and then observe the back LED as it scrolls through the programmes with a flash for each programme number. Programme 4 is the 4th flash so take one's finger off after the 4th flash. As simple as that, programme 4 is selected.
Then switch the torch on with a double click, once on, just tap the rear button to toggle through various modes of programme 4.
Hope that helps. The downside of Exposure lights is that they do not really suit rides with a hugely variable duration particularly when the variation occurs in transit. However, if you know what you want before you head out and allow a small margin of error then they are great as they will give you exactly what it says on the tin, time after time.
Also, despite regular use, I am still getting roughly the same run times which is quite impressive and I haven't noticed any light fade. I keep thinking that someday soon the battery life will fade away but it just keeps going (must be some clever control technology that helps the torch adjust to battery life so that the user doesn't notice it).
So today from a full charge, I used it on the L setting of PGM 1 - listed at 24 hours. The remaining estimate on the display was only just over 20 hours when I started and reduced to below 17 hours by the time I completed my 50 minute commute. Strangely the charge % is still showing as 100%. Also the remaining time has since gone back up to just under 18 hours but that is still some way short of where I'd expect/like it to be after less than an hours use from full charge.
Early days for me - I have only just started using the light and have not used any other settings/programs as yet. I appreciate it must be difficult to estimate remaining burn time precisely but so far I am a little disappointed with what I have seen.
A quick google suggest that at freezing, battery capacity is reduced by around 20%.
I had the same issue as yourself until I found that bit of information on the exposure website somewhere!
The only issue I have now is that whilst my total burn time is pretty accurate (if it says 3 hours that's roughly what it'll do), the time read out it gives along the way isn't accurate at all, and shows way under what the light can do.