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#11
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
Clive George wrote:
"SMS" wrote in message ... Clive George wrote: With that in mind, why do you persist in advocating solutions which have wasteful lenses? What you don't understand is that all that light is not "wasted." You're falling into the trap of misunderstanding of how lights work as both "seeing" and "being seen" devices, as well as ignoring the advantages of the symmetrical beam. You need to realize how important it is to have not only a spot beam, but the light up the periphery as well. How is lighting up the sky anything but wasting light? There's nothing there to reflect back, there's nothing there which needs to see you. FWIW my well-focussed B+M front lamp has no trouble with illuminating road signs and "the periphery" - the sides need rather less light than the main beam. clive Obviously you don't ride off road where things exist "up in the sky". Dorfus |
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#12
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
"Dorfus Dippintush" wrote in message
... Clive George wrote: "SMS" wrote in message ... Clive George wrote: With that in mind, why do you persist in advocating solutions which have wasteful lenses? What you don't understand is that all that light is not "wasted." You're falling into the trap of misunderstanding of how lights work as both "seeing" and "being seen" devices, as well as ignoring the advantages of the symmetrical beam. You need to realize how important it is to have not only a spot beam, but the light up the periphery as well. How is lighting up the sky anything but wasting light? There's nothing there to reflect back, there's nothing there which needs to see you. FWIW my well-focussed B+M front lamp has no trouble with illuminating road signs and "the periphery" - the sides need rather less light than the main beam. Obviously you don't ride off road where things exist "up in the sky". You'll have missed the bit when I said I was talking about on-road riding. Take a look a couple of messages back in the thread - I was quite explicit about it. cheers, clive |
#13
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
Clive George wrote:
FWIW my well-focussed B+M front lamp has no trouble with illuminating road signs and "the periphery" - the sides need rather less light than the main beam. If it's aimed high enough to illuminate the signs, then it's not sufficiently illuminating the road. If it's aimed low enough to illuminate the road sufficiently far ahead then it's not sufficiently illuminating the signs. There's no free lunch here. |
#14
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
"SMS" wrote in message ... Clive George wrote: FWIW my well-focussed B+M front lamp has no trouble with illuminating road signs and "the periphery" - the sides need rather less light than the main beam. If it's aimed high enough to illuminate the signs, then it's not sufficiently illuminating the road. If it's aimed low enough to illuminate the road sufficiently far ahead then it's not sufficiently illuminating the signs. There's no free lunch here. You don't need much light to illuminate road signs. Well, not here anyway - they're properly reflective. clive |
#15
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
In article ,
SMS wrote: Tim McNamara wrote: In article , SMS wrote: Mike Jacoubowsky wrote: Are there really that many people buying $200-400 lights for their bicycles? I hope that this signals a trend to more night riding, and hopefully the prices will fall with all this competition. It's not a lack of competition that's keeping prices up; it's the relatively-small quantities being manufactured. No single manufacturer has captured a large-enough share of the market to bring down costs. Nobody's been willing to take the pluge (spending a whole lot of $$$) and really mass-produce a high quality lower-cost system. Not even Cat-Eye, which seems to not do well each time they come out with a higher-end system. I guess there's such a thing as too many players in the market. Not according to classical economics. Looked at the DVD player market? I was very impressed with the beam of the Fenix L2DCE, which has sufficient peripheral illumination off to the side, in addition to the powerful spot beam. You don't get that with most of the low-power bicycle lights which often have a beam that is a compromise to focus the limited output directly in front of the bicycle. Well, at least you're persistent in your apologism for the incompetent grasp of optics exhibited by most battery powered light makers. It seems that many of the bicycle lights are charging so much just because of the mount to the bicycle, there's nothing so special about the lights themselves. On this we agree. Most of the dynamo headlights are very big compromises as well. However with the low power battery powered headlights they make the mistake of trying to project a beam that provides both peripheral and spot illumination, without sufficient power. You end up with the worst of both worlds. With most of the dynamo lights they're smart enough to give up on peripheral illumination and just do a spot beam. Have you ever actually used a Lumotec headlight? There's a well defined central area which is lensed in such a way that the top of the beam- which illuminates the road farthest away- resulting in an evenly illuminated patch of road. And there is adequate light to the sides to see the edges of the road and a bit of the verge. Plenty of light in the right places. I have had lots of people with 10W battery lights following me because they can see better with my light than with theirs. |
#16
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
In article ,
Dorfus Dippintush wrote: Clive George wrote: "SMS" wrote in message ... Clive George wrote: With that in mind, why do you persist in advocating solutions which have wasteful lenses? What you don't understand is that all that light is not "wasted." You're falling into the trap of misunderstanding of how lights work as both "seeing" and "being seen" devices, as well as ignoring the advantages of the symmetrical beam. You need to realize how important it is to have not only a spot beam, but the light up the periphery as well. How is lighting up the sky anything but wasting light? There's nothing there to reflect back, there's nothing there which needs to see you. FWIW my well-focussed B+M front lamp has no trouble with illuminating road signs and "the periphery" - the sides need rather less light than the main beam. Obviously you don't ride off road where things exist "up in the sky". We have all, I think, stipulated that generator lights don't work well for off-road riding. The needs and conditions are much different than with road riding. |
#17
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
Tim McNamara wrote:
I have had lots of people with 10W battery lights following me because they can see better with my light than with theirs. Of course you have Frank. Are these the same people that spontaneously stop you to compliment you on your lights? |
#18
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
"SMS" wrote in message
... Tim McNamara wrote: I have had lots of people with 10W battery lights following me because they can see better with my light than with theirs. Of course you have Frank. Are these the same people that spontaneously stop you to compliment you on your lights? Can I be Frank too? (must admit wife and I had a mutual "gosh, aren't our lights good" session when we met each other coming home the other night. Both SON based 3W halogen, one lumotech, one a plain old union lamp.) clive |
#19
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
In article ,
SMS wrote: Tim McNamara wrote: I have had lots of people with 10W battery lights following me because they can see better with my light than with theirs. Of course you have Frank. Are these the same people that spontaneously stop you to compliment you on your lights? Pay attention, Steven. I'm not Frank. A downside of being contentious is losing track of to whom you are talking. But on that topic, I have also gotten spontaneous compliments on my lights from non-bicyclists several times- car drivers and pedestrians commenting on how bright my lights are. And I have gotten many comments from beginning randonneurs during the night portions of rides. On half a dozen or so brevets I have had riders ask to follow me because my lights worked so much better than their NightRiders and whatnot. I like the company so it works out OK. |
#20
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So many new lighting systems, who's buying them all?
"Tim McNamara" wrote in message ... In article , SMS wrote: But on that topic, I have also gotten spontaneous compliments on my lights from non-bicyclists several times- car drivers and pedestrians commenting on how bright my lights are. And I have gotten many comments from beginning randonneurs during the night portions of rides. On half a dozen or so brevets I have had riders ask to follow me because my lights worked so much better than their NightRiders and whatnot. I like the company so it works out OK. Sounds like a win for everyone! |
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