On 2018-02-11 07:59, sms wrote:
On 2/8/2018 12:08 PM, Joerg wrote:

Ye olde 2.4W + 0.6W with a dynamo? When riding at a good clip, meaning
north of 15mph, those never lasted much longer than a month for me.
Even if they didn't blow their filament right away the bulbs turned
black inside and became dimmer than they were already to begin with.
When I was a teenager I started equipping my bikes with what the
automotive industry already understood over 100 years ago, brighter
lights, a battery and charging system. Soon the German police wanted
to give me a ticket for "non-standard" lighting. Luckily by that time
I was a Dutch resident and they had to let me go.

LOL, in the U.S. I think the police are so thrilled that a cyclist has a
light at all that the last thing they worry about is if it's as bright
as a vehicle light. ...


Though I am waiting until I get stopped because from a distance one of
my rear lights (there are two) looks like the flashing lights on a
police cruiser or fire engine.


... However, a couple of months ago my son was home from
college and driving my car and he got pulled over. I had replaced my
7443 incandescent brake light bulbs with these
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/tail-brake-turn/7443-led-bulb-w-brake-flasher-dual-function-1-high-power-led-wedge-retrofit-car/925/
which flash prior to going solid. They were not illegal so he didn't get
a ticket. I don't know what the real reason they pulled him over was.

Those 2.4W bulbs were a joke. My bikes (after my teenage years) always
had better lighting than that. Now it's all LED on my bikes but the
real stuff with more than 500 lumens.

I recall that the lights back then came with a clip to hold a spare
bulb.


The ones I knew didn't but many riders had spare bulbs wadded in tissue
stuffed into the empty space of the shell. Both 2.4W and 0.6W because
when the front blew at high speed the rear was usually gone a second later.


Then people began coming out with home-brew protection circuits.


Or in my case real electrical systems such as cars had them for decades.
Though I was surprised how few cyclists do this and that still holds
true today. Most just have blinkers with some tiny AAA cells in there.
The designers of those things usually weren't even smart enough to
integrate a low-battery warning so I often see riders where the rear
light has fizzled to the power of a glowing cigarette tip.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/