Tired of changing your Superflash batteries?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/



--
-Frank White

On Sep 12, 8:30*pm, Frank White wrote:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/


I'm OK with the runtime of four days, but they weren't ugly enough.
Good work. IMHO, however, the Blinky 7 is a better tail lamp. Annoying
brightness isn't a virtue, but side visibility is.

On 2011-09-15, landotter wrote:
On Sep 12, 8:30?pm, Frank White wrote:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/

I'm OK with the runtime of four days, but they weren't ugly enough.
Good work. IMHO, however, the Blinky 7 is a better tail lamp. Annoying
brightness isn't a virtue, but side visibility is.

Hear, hear. I hate following riders who use Superflash taillights.

I'm not a big fan of the Blinky 7, though. While I have a bunch
of Blinky 7s, I've found them to be less reliable than my favorite
taillight, the Blackburn Mars 3.0. Several of my Blinky 7s have
gained the bad habit of changing their mode when I go over a bump,
such that if it was blinking, it may now be solid or off. Not a good
characteristic for a safety taillight.

--
Gregory S. Sutter "How do I read this file?"
"You uudecode it."
http://zer0.org/~gsutter/ "I I I decode it?"

On Sep 15, 6:45*pm, Gregory Sutter wrote:
On 2011-09-15, landotter wrote:

On Sep 12, 8:30?pm, Frank White wrote:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/

I'm OK with the runtime of four days, but they weren't ugly enough.
Good work. IMHO, however, the Blinky 7 is a better tail lamp. Annoying
brightness isn't a virtue, but side visibility is.

Hear, hear. *I hate following riders who use Superflash taillights.

I'm not a big fan of the Blinky 7, though. *While I have a bunch
of Blinky 7s, I've found them to be less reliable than my favorite
taillight, the Blackburn Mars 3.0. *Several of my Blinky 7s have
gained the bad habit of changing their mode when I go over a bump,
such that if it was blinking, it may now be solid or off. *Not a good
characteristic for a safety taillight.

Obviously, you need to run higher volume and softer tires if this is
happening!

On Sep 15, 4:45 pm, Gregory Sutter wrote:
On 2011-09-15, landotter wrote:

On Sep 12, 8:30?pm, Frank White wrote:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/

I'm OK with the runtime of four days, but they weren't ugly enough.
Good work. IMHO, however, the Blinky 7 is a better tail lamp. Annoying
brightness isn't a virtue, but side visibility is.

Hear, hear. I hate following riders who use Superflash taillights.

I'm not a big fan of the Blinky 7, though. While I have a bunch
of Blinky 7s, I've found them to be less reliable than my favorite
taillight, the Blackburn Mars 3.0. Several of my Blinky 7s have
gained the bad habit of changing their mode when I go over a bump,
such that if it was blinking, it may now be solid or off. Not a good
characteristic for a safety taillight.


I run a PB blinkie 5 (rack mounted) tail light, and PB Superflash 2-
watt headlight. I use disposable alkaline batteries in the tail
light, because it's a bit of a pain to change batteries, and they last
a long time anyway. I use NiMH rechargables in the headlight, which
work really well for my purposes.

I carry a Superflash tail light in my messenger bag, which I can clip
on my back (bag tab) for poor visibility conditions like dense fog or
dark and rainy. The Superflash tail light will also slip into the
rack mount as backup for the Blinkie 5. It is very convenient to
carry due to it's small size, and also serves as a pair of spare
batteries for the main tail light.

On Sep 16, 6:51 am, landotter wrote:
On Sep 15, 6:45 pm, Gregory Sutter wrote:



On 2011-09-15, landotter wrote:

On Sep 12, 8:30?pm, Frank White wrote:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/

I'm OK with the runtime of four days, but they weren't ugly enough.
Good work. IMHO, however, the Blinky 7 is a better tail lamp. Annoying
brightness isn't a virtue, but side visibility is.

Hear, hear. I hate following riders who use Superflash taillights.

I'm not a big fan of the Blinky 7, though. While I have a bunch
of Blinky 7s, I've found them to be less reliable than my favorite
taillight, the Blackburn Mars 3.0. Several of my Blinky 7s have
gained the bad habit of changing their mode when I go over a bump,
such that if it was blinking, it may now be solid or off. Not a good
characteristic for a safety taillight.

Obviously, you need to run higher volume and softer tires if this is
happening!

I might quit riding if I could never do anything jarring. Wham, bam,
thank you, ma'am.

That said, a safety taillight *should, indeed, be extremely reliable.

Gregory Sutter wrote:

I'm not a big fan of the Blinky 7, though. *While I have a bunch
of Blinky 7s, I've found them to be less reliable than my favorite
taillight, the Blackburn Mars 3.0. *Several of my Blinky 7s have
gained the bad habit of changing their mode when I go over a bump,
such that if it was blinking, it may now be solid or off. *Not a good
characteristic for a safety taillight.

That's an unfortunate characteristic of lights that position their
batteries vertically, like the Blinky 7 and Superflash. Shock and
vibration hammers the batteries against the spring contacts until
eventually they lack enough tension to keep the circuit closed.
That's why I have favored the Blinky 3, with its horizontal batteries,
for a decade.

However, one of my customers recently pointed out that the clip on the
back of his Superflash had been pried out of place by accident, and he
discovered that it could be replaced at 90 degrees from its original
orientation. That's worth noting, because it cures the intermittency
problem. It does not allow the Blinky 7 to have its usual amount of
side lighting, though.

Chalo

On Sep 15, 6:20 am, landotter wrote:
On Sep 12, 8:30 pm, Frank White wrote:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/

I'm OK with the runtime of four days, but they weren't ugly enough.
Good work. IMHO, however, the Blinky 7 is a better tail lamp. Annoying
brightness isn't a virtue, but side visibility is.

http://ecom1.planetbike.com/3019.html

That does sound pretty good. I suppose it might be an upgrade from my
Superflash tail light, but my Rack Blinky 5 has an integrated
reflector (required by law here in the dark), and the Superflash *is*
impressive (and I already have a couple of them).

As the light of summer wanes and I'm riding in more darkness every
morning, I have been very impressed by the light to *see* by (not just
to be seen) that the PB 2-watt Superflash headlight provides.

Chalo wrote:

However, one of my customers recently pointed out that the clip on the
back of his Superflash had been pried out of place by accident, and he
discovered that it could be replaced at 90 degrees from its original
orientation. *That's worth noting, because it cures the intermittency
problem. *It does not allow the Blinky 7 to have its usual amount of
side lighting, though.

My customer was wrong, at least for the Superflash I tried to reorient
tonight. The clip could be rotated 180 degrees, but not 90 degrees.
And it was a real ******* to dislodge in the first place.

Chalo

Op 13-9-2011 3:30, Frank White schreef:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6012629...7627638553474/



--
-Frank White

Still batteries, no? I too got tired of those rearlight batteries so I
throw that rearlight in the dumpster and bought a rearlight which I
could mount to my rearrack and wire to my dynohub. Much more elegant
solution, no tape needed.

Lou