Rear LED light effectiveness.

Driving home last night I overtook a cyclist with what from about 100m
away I thought was a very dim constant rear light. As I overtook him I
saw it was a Cateye LD600 on the chasing mode where each LED lights up
in turn but there is only one LED on at any time. So from the
perspective of a driver this mode would appear to be useless. IE only 1
fifth of the light put out compared to either the constant mode where
all LEDs are lit or the flashing mode where all LEDs flash
simultaneously. Plus from a distance the chasing mode loses the
flashing effect.
I use two LD600s on my commuter but don't use the chasing mode anyway.
But it made me wonder whether anyone knew of any side by side
comparisons of LED lights. Given sites like "Your Tube" and Google
Video it would be possible to post video clips of different lights "in
action" so to speak, perhaps side by side comparisons.
As a side issue the cyclist concerned had a poor rear light, no
reflectors and dark clothing. But he was wearing a helmet so
everything would be OK right?

Iain

I've made the same point many times i.e. that flashing. flickering or
otherwise intermittent lights are bad news and reduce visibility. This
based mainly on my observation from a drivers point of view, and the
logical argument that less light = less visibility.
The counter argument is that flickering will more likely attract
attention, but I am not convinced at all.

cheers

Jacob

wrote:
I've made the same point many times i.e. that flashing. flickering or
otherwise intermittent lights are bad news and reduce visibility. This
based mainly on my observation from a drivers point of view, and the
logical argument that less light = less visibility.

But there's no reason to think that a flashing light will have much less
light. If the LED is off half the time, you can drive it twice as hard
for the flashes without overheating it, and keep the same battery life.

The argument that it is harder to judge the position and speed of a
flashing light seems much more convincing.

I've made the same point many times i.e. that flashing. flickering or
otherwise intermittent lights are bad news and reduce visibility. This
based mainly on my observation from a drivers point of view, and the
logical argument that less light = less visibility.
The counter argument is that flickering will more likely attract
attention, but I am not convinced at all.

cheers

Jacob

and the
logical argument that less light = less visibility.

Does this extend to more posts = more visibility (I got yours twice :-)

"Mark Thompson"
pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_t o_reply*.com wrote in
message .99...
and the
logical argument that less light = less visibility.

Does this extend to more posts = more visibility (I got yours twice :-)

You aren't the only one with double vision ;-)

Cheers, helen s

wafflycat wrote:
"Mark Thompson"
pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_t o_reply*.com wrote in
message .99...
and the
logical argument that less light = less visibility.

Does this extend to more posts = more visibility (I got yours twice :-)

You aren't the only one with double vision ;-)

Cheers, helen s

oops sorry. Deleted it from google groups.

cheers

jacob

oops sorry. Deleted it from google groups.

D'oh, I enjoyed reading usenet in stereo.

in message .com,
') wrote:

oops sorry. Deleted it from google groups.

Without wishing to be hostile, that does what good, precisely? Usenet is
a several-tens-of-million node store and forward network, of which
Google is just one (albeit significant) node.

Sorry if that's slightly tetchy. I do get irritated with people thinking
that the way /they/ access Usenet is the 'only' way, and that what works
on their client should work for everyone else.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; All in all you're just another nick in the ball
-- Think Droid

wrote:
Driving home last night I overtook a cyclist with what from about 100m
away I thought was a very dim constant rear light.

I have a cheapo rear LED light which I use in constant mode. One thing
I've noticed is that with freshly charged batteries, it is very bright
and hurts your eyes to look at it directly.

As the battery power dies though, the LEDs stay lit but appear dimmer
and this isn't always obvious as it it with a 'normal' bulb light.
Maybe this guy's batteries were also dying.

peter