Another cheap Chinese rechargable light $6

On 12/18/2015 5:42 AM, AMuzi wrote:

snip

The world's a big place and people have their opinions but I agree that
any 1960s block dynamo was much brighter than concurrent battery lights.
They may have been better than acetylene lamps but not by much:

I had one of those Union dyname lights too. It was pretty poor, but I
suspect that it was better than the crappy battery powered lights at the
time, and better than the drugstore variety dynamo lights. I had a Sanyo
roller dynamo because my touring bike has internal wiring for it, and it
seems to add less resistance than a bottle dynamo.

Hooking it up to a 4W LED lamp made a difference, but by that time,
battery powered lights far exceeded dynamo lights in both power and optics.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Vintage-...AOSwo0JWP93 N

Heh, had one of those too.

And dismally unreliable besides ineffective when actually working. We
printed a handout page with a half dozen repair and maintenance tips for
that lamp. It was the industry standard and popular but by today's
standards a joke. And yet we sold hundreds of Wonder lamps for every
dynamo set, a ratio even more lopsided once we have the Matex Japanese
version with a design breakthrough - wait for it - velcro instead of a
cotton strap in a steel buckle. The 'good old days' were in many ways bad.

Even the cost of one of those dynamo sets was more than most people
wanted to spend on a bicycle light. And today you'd buy a new wheel and
a much more expensive headlight to get a light that is at the very low
end of what a battery powered light can provide in terms of illumination
and optics. It's a very small niche market, especially in the U.S. where
we are not constrained by ill-advised and poorly drafted regulations
like StVZO.

So I think we can all agree that 20 or so years ago, an StVZO compliant
dynamo light with a roller or bottle dynamo, was better than a 2 D cell
bike headlight, i.e. http://oi67.tinypic.com/anycms.jpg. Let's sing
kumbaya.

On 12/18/2015 7:52 AM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Two thumbs up to my SECA 1400 which I used to light my entire bedroom on low beam when the power went out yesterday afternoon and into this morning. It was awesome. Portland General wasn't too awesome. Maybe 400 users lost power -- people two doors away from me had power, but it took them ten hours to figure out the problem.

Probably a dynamo generator failed.

On 18/12/2015 15:22, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

The biggest drawback to dynamo lights comes to people who use different bikes. The dunamo light is not as easy to change from bike to bike as a battery light is.

Your drawback is my advantage - the permanent mounting is good, because
they don't get forgotten.

Nearly all our bikes have dynamo lights (hubs too nowadays), so no need
to change between them.

On 18/12/2015 15:52, jbeattie wrote:

Not the Wonder leg light -- the Wonder headlight. https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=OIP.M76...=0&w=300&h=300

That's the later incarnation too - the older one was metal. My father
had one.

On 18/12/2015 16:01, sms wrote:

Even the cost of one of those dynamo sets was more than most people
wanted to spend on a bicycle light.

I think I was about 13 years old when I first got a dynamo set. Union
side-roller. I think it was about 15 GBP, not much more than a pair of
never-readies. Early 80s. So it was never about the cost.

I used it and its descendants till about 1997-1999 when I started
replacing them with hubs. There was a brief fling with bottom-bracket
mounted ones, but they never lasted with my wet riding.

On 12/18/2015 11:52 AM, Clive George wrote:
On 18/12/2015 15:22, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

The biggest drawback to dynamo lights comes to people who use
different bikes. The dunamo light is not as easy to change from bike
to bike as a battery light is.

Your drawback is my advantage - the permanent mounting is good, because
they don't get forgotten.

Nearly all our bikes have dynamo lights (hubs too nowadays), so no need
to change between them.

Same here.

Coincidentally, our two cars and my one motorcycle also have permanently
mounted, always-ready headlights that have no battery worries. They
wouldn't be practical vehicles without them.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 12/18/2015 7:52 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, December 18, 2015 at 5:43:12 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/17/2015 10:59 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/17/2015 6:27 PM, jbeattie wrote:
What "day" are you talking about? My Wonder light
probably put out more light
than my Sanyo roller dynamo and headlight. I know that a
three D-cell flashlight
put out more light than my Schwinn bottle dynamo back in the
'60s. People also
didn't ride much at night back in the "day."

[...]
Not the Wonder leg light -- the Wonder headlight. https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=OIP.M76...=0&w=300&h=300

-- Jay Beattie.

Huh. My recollection of the Wonder headlight was that is was weak and
quickly became weaker. My impression was the run time was poor, and the
battery shelf life wasn't any great shakes either. Yes, I did buy one,
though I don't recall why.

I was a bit spoiled in the 70's with a 12V 6W bottle dynamo - Sanyo
brand, I believe, but I can check. Dragged like a sledge full of lead,
but my god was it bright for its time. (Fairly generic non-halogen
incandescent bulb). It blew bulbs fairly regularly too, so the
headlight had a snap-open front and a clip inside for a spare bulb. We
used to put up with a lot of stuff, didn't we.

I'm now using Shutter Precision dynohubs and Luxos headlamps on both my
commuter and randonneur bike. After advocating for battery lights for
the rando bike, I was seduced by the great beam pattern on the Luxos.
Wonderful for rural night rides. The dynamo still requires more power
from the cyclist than carrying batteries on any reasonable route, but
there it is. Not great when it's raining, but I doubt anything is (my
cars aren't).

Mark J., in rainy Western Oregon

On 12/18/2015 11:57 AM, Mark J. wrote:

I was a bit spoiled in the 70's with a 12V 6W bottle dynamo - Sanyo
brand, I believe, but I can check. Dragged like a sledge full of lead,
but my god was it bright for its time. (Fairly generic non-halogen
incandescent bulb). It blew bulbs fairly regularly too, so the
headlight had a snap-open front and a clip inside for a spare bulb. We
used to put up with a lot of stuff, didn't we.

There are still some 12V/6W bottle dynamos around.

But the hub dynamos can really put out more than 3W because with a
higher resistance load the voltage is greater than 6V.

I'm now using Shutter Precision dynohubs and Luxos headlamps on both my
commuter and randonneur bike. After advocating for battery lights for
the rando bike, I was seduced by the great beam pattern on the Luxos.
Wonderful for rural night rides. The dynamo still requires more power
from the cyclist than carrying batteries on any reasonable route, but
there it is. Not great when it's raining, but I doubt anything is (my
cars aren't).

The SP dynamos are awesome, and very well priced. As good or better than
the Schmidt dynamo hubs in terms of drag.

On Friday, December 18, 2015 at 11:57:09 AM UTC-8, Mark J. wrote:
On 12/18/2015 7:52 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, December 18, 2015 at 5:43:12 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/17/2015 10:59 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/17/2015 6:27 PM, jbeattie wrote:
What "day" are you talking about? My Wonder light
probably put out more light
than my Sanyo roller dynamo and headlight. I know that a
three D-cell flashlight
put out more light than my Schwinn bottle dynamo back in the
'60s. People also
didn't ride much at night back in the "day."

[...]
Not the Wonder leg light -- the Wonder headlight. https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?id=OIP.M76...=0&w=300&h=300

-- Jay Beattie.

Huh. My recollection of the Wonder headlight was that is was weak and
quickly became weaker. My impression was the run time was poor, and the
battery shelf life wasn't any great shakes either. Yes, I did buy one,
though I don't recall why.

I was a bit spoiled in the 70's with a 12V 6W bottle dynamo - Sanyo
brand, I believe, but I can check. Dragged like a sledge full of lead,
but my god was it bright for its time. (Fairly generic non-halogen
incandescent bulb). It blew bulbs fairly regularly too, so the
headlight had a snap-open front and a clip inside for a spare bulb. We
used to put up with a lot of stuff, didn't we.

I had a standard Sanyo roller dynamo: http://digitalhippie.net//wp-content...anyo-nh-t6.jpg 6v/3w. I don't even remember the brand of the headlamp.


I'm now using Shutter Precision dynohubs and Luxos headlamps on both my
commuter and randonneur bike. After advocating for battery lights for
the rando bike, I was seduced by the great beam pattern on the Luxos.
Wonderful for rural night rides. The dynamo still requires more power
from the cyclist than carrying batteries on any reasonable route, but
there it is. Not great when it's raining, but I doubt anything is (my
cars aren't).

Actually, my SECA 1400 is far better than my Luxos B/SP PD8 combo in the rain. On a dry night on an empty road at average speeds, the dyno-combo is fine. And my evaluation, of course, is based on my eyes -- and not average eyes or the eyes of other. I am coming to the conclusion that others can see better than me at night. I do take a multi-vitamin!

Oddly, I broke a spoke on my dyno wheel last night. I've got to take a look at the spoke hole to see if there is an issue. I also used old spokes and could have flipped the orientation. I was going to fix it when I got home, but there was no power.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Friday, December 18, 2015 at 11:52:47 AM UTC-5, Clive George wrote:
On 18/12/2015 15:22, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

The biggest drawback to dynamo lights comes to people who use different bikes. The dunamo light is not as easy to change from bike to bike as a battery light is.

Your drawback is my advantage - the permanent mounting is good, because
they don't get forgotten.

Nearly all our bikes have dynamo lights (hubs too nowadays), so no need
to change between them.

Well, with 6 different bicycles, putting a hub dynamo on all of them would be extremely expensive for me not to mention the added major expense of getting new spokes and either building up those 6 wheels or having them built.

Cheers