|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
On Friday, August 29, 2014 7:51:05 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/29/2014 7:01 PM, Joerg wrote: Frank Krygowski wrote: The problem is that (at least in the U.S.) few people ride at night. People think it's hideously dangerous. And of course they all have cars. So the market is small. And most of those who do ride at night tend to do it pretty rarely, only in near-ideal conditions, because they're doing it only for fun. So they tend to be pretty easy on their equipment. If it lasts only 50 hours, they'll get perhaps ten years use out of it. That is because hardly anyone commutes anymore which is sad. Oh, but that's not true! Everyone knows that bike use is surging! Why, as this article states, http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...t_popular.html "Bicycle Commuting Rates Rocket From 0.5 Percent to 0.6 Percent in Only 32 Years!" According to the League of American Bicyclist's usual modus operandi, that should be trumpeted as a 20% increase!!! ;-) Serious commuting means including winter and then one or both trips will require lights. So 50 hours would be gone in a month or two. I run through batteries as if it was popcorn. Environmentally not so cool. Luckily the front one on the MTB is Li-Ion but one of them already starts to fade. Yep. Another couple reasons to love generators or dynamos. They last damned near forever, and low temperatures don't bother them. Also, regarding one of your specific complaints, most people don't see a need to run wires from a central battery to a taillight. AA or AAA batteries in taillights last a long, long time and are easy to buy and change. You cannot get any serious light out of AAA and that's all you normally find. A 2W LED will suck AAA dry in very few hours. Do you really need 2 Watts into a rear red LED? Even bog standard red LEDs are pretty efficient, in terms of lumens per watt. And since you're moving with traffic, motorists generally have plenty of time to spot you. Everyone else has heard this from me before, but: I heartily recommend enlisting a helper, and observing your bike and it's nighttime equipment in your normal traffic conditions. Have your helper ride the bike, and drive past him from various directions. I've done this every once in a while since about 1978 or so. (Actually, in '78, I did the riding, my wife did the driving, and my son did the note taking.) I've also done it several times with bike club members, a couple times as a formal "night lighting workshop." I mention this because people have invariably learned that it doesn't require huge outputs of dollars or lumens to make a cyclist very conspicuous at night. Except for my now modern headlights, most of my night equipment is very ordinary, and there have been many times (at least six) that I've gotten spontaneous compliments from motorists, pedestrians, and other cyclists on how well my lights and reflectors show up. (And don't forget, reflectors and reflective tape can work very well - especially low on the bike, and on moving parts.) You should try testing your bike's lights that way. It may give you peace of mind. -- - Frank Krygowski Joerg has often lamented tthe breakages of lights he's tried. In the severely rough usage he subjects them to I think and exposed wire from a dynamo would be very quickly snagged and broken or ripped out of the hunit or dynamo. Many AA or AAA tail lights are quite bright especially on trails and some are too bright for a following rider. I bought two very bright high-beam type headlights. I wanted an extra battery for my long overnight rides. I use one of the lights in conjunction withmy Cygo Lite Rover II light. One of the high-beam type headlights developed a break in the cable where it plugs into the battery. After repairing the cable the light only operates in the blinking mode. Ah well all is not lost since i painted the lense amber and mounted it as a rear light Quite bright, blinking and amber = something motorists know should be avoided by them. A cheap red reflector on the rear of the seat post makes the bike night legal under Ontario, Canada law. Cheers |
Ads |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Friday, August 29, 2014 7:51:05 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/29/2014 7:01 PM, Joerg wrote: Frank Krygowski wrote: The problem is that (at least in the U.S.) few people ride at night. People think it's hideously dangerous. And of course they all have cars. So the market is small. And most of those who do ride at night tend to do it pretty rarely, only in near-ideal conditions, because they're doing it only for fun. So they tend to be pretty easy on their equipment. If it lasts only 50 hours, they'll get perhaps ten years use out of it. That is because hardly anyone commutes anymore which is sad. Oh, but that's not true! Everyone knows that bike use is surging! Why, as this article states, http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...t_popular.html "Bicycle Commuting Rates Rocket From 0.5 Percent to 0.6 Percent in Only 32 Years!" According to the League of American Bicyclist's usual modus operandi, that should be trumpeted as a 20% increase!!! ;-) Serious commuting means including winter and then one or both trips will require lights. So 50 hours would be gone in a month or two. I run through batteries as if it was popcorn. Environmentally not so cool. Luckily the front one on the MTB is Li-Ion but one of them already starts to fade. Yep. Another couple reasons to love generators or dynamos. They last damned near forever, and low temperatures don't bother them. Also, regarding one of your specific complaints, most people don't see a need to run wires from a central battery to a taillight. AA or AAA batteries in taillights last a long, long time and are easy to buy and change. You cannot get any serious light out of AAA and that's all you normally find. A 2W LED will suck AAA dry in very few hours. Do you really need 2 Watts into a rear red LED? Even bog standard red LEDs are pretty efficient, in terms of lumens per watt. And since you're moving with traffic, motorists generally have plenty of time to spot you. Everyone else has heard this from me before, but: I heartily recommend enlisting a helper, and observing your bike and it's nighttime equipment in your normal traffic conditions. Have your helper ride the bike, and drive past him from various directions. I've done this every once in a while since about 1978 or so. (Actually, in '78, I did the riding, my wife did the driving, and my son did the note taking.) I've also done it several times with bike club members, a couple times as a formal "night lighting workshop." I mention this because people have invariably learned that it doesn't require huge outputs of dollars or lumens to make a cyclist very conspicuous at night. Except for my now modern headlights, most of my night equipment is very ordinary, and there have been many times (at least six) that I've gotten spontaneous compliments from motorists, pedestrians, and other cyclists on how well my lights and reflectors show up. (And don't forget, reflectors and reflective tape can work very well - especially low on the bike, and on moving parts.) You should try testing your bike's lights that way. It may give you peace of mind. -- - Frank Krygowski Joerg has often lamented tthe breakages of lights he's tried. In the severely rough usage he subjects them to I think and exposed wire from a dynamo would be very quickly snagged and broken or ripped out of the hunit or dynamo. Actually, no, provided it's done right. I have used wires on my road bike that was extensively used on trails and dirt roads in the 80's and early 90's. Stuff never failed back then, the quality of bicycle gear seemed to have been better. For cables in rough turf there is a very simple solution. Run then in conduit. Look at the hydraulic brake likes of the shifter cables. Do they ever tear off or get crushed by a rock hit? Many AA or AAA tail lights are quite bright especially on trails and some are too bright for a following rider. But you never know when they run out of juice because the manufacturer's engineers can't get it into their heads that there should be a charge level indicator. Technically a piece of cake, you measure the voltage sag upon pulsing and when that exceeds the 80% or whatever discharge mark let the light flash a bit more irregular than usual. Then the rider would still have time to get homes safely but would know that a fresh set of batteries or a Li-Ion recharge is required soon. When do they wake up? I've had it happen twice that my front light faded out during a ride. That is not cool at all. And fully avoidable. Because of this I use two independent tail lights on my mountain bike and while on roads during the night both are turned on. On rural roads a tail light that has gone dark is almost a guarantee to get hit by a car from behind. [...] -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
On Saturday, August 30, 2014 12:39:24 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, August 29, 2014 7:51:05 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/29/2014 7:01 PM, Joerg wrote: Frank Krygowski wrote: The problem is that (at least in the U.S.) few people ride at night. People think it's hideously dangerous. And of course they all have cars. So the market is small. And most of those who do ride at night tend to do it pretty rarely, only in near-ideal conditions, because they're doing it only for fun. So they tend to be pretty easy on their equipment. If it lasts only 50 hours, they'll get perhaps ten years use out of it. That is because hardly anyone commutes anymore which is sad. Oh, but that's not true! Everyone knows that bike use is surging! Why, as this article states, http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...t_popular.html "Bicycle Commuting Rates Rocket From 0.5 Percent to 0.6 Percent in Only 32 Years!" According to the League of American Bicyclist's usual modus operandi, that should be trumpeted as a 20% increase!!! ;-) Serious commuting means including winter and then one or both trips will require lights. So 50 hours would be gone in a month or two. I run through batteries as if it was popcorn. Environmentally not so cool. Luckily the front one on the MTB is Li-Ion but one of them already starts to fade. Yep. Another couple reasons to love generators or dynamos. They last damned near forever, and low temperatures don't bother them. Also, regarding one of your specific complaints, most people don't see a need to run wires from a central battery to a taillight. AA or AAA batteries in taillights last a long, long time and are easy to buy and change. You cannot get any serious light out of AAA and that's all you normally find. A 2W LED will suck AAA dry in very few hours. Do you really need 2 Watts into a rear red LED? Even bog standard red LEDs are pretty efficient, in terms of lumens per watt. And since you're moving with traffic, motorists generally have plenty of time to spot you. Everyone else has heard this from me before, but: I heartily recommend enlisting a helper, and observing your bike and it's nighttime equipment in your normal traffic conditions. Have your helper ride the bike, and drive past him from various directions. I've done this every once in a while since about 1978 or so. (Actually, in '78, I did the riding, my wife did the driving, and my son did the note taking.) I've also done it several times with bike club members, a couple times as a formal "night lighting workshop." I mention this because people have invariably learned that it doesn't require huge outputs of dollars or lumens to make a cyclist very conspicuous at night. Except for my now modern headlights, most of my night equipment is very ordinary, and there have been many times (at least six) that I've gotten spontaneous compliments from motorists, pedestrians, and other cyclists on how well my lights and reflectors show up. (And don't forget, reflectors and reflective tape can work very well - especially low on the bike, and on moving parts.) You should try testing your bike's lights that way. It may give you peace of mind. -- - Frank Krygowski Joerg has often lamented tthe breakages of lights he's tried. In the severely rough usage he subjects them to I think and exposed wire from a dynamo would be very quickly snagged and broken or ripped out of the hunit or dynamo. Actually, no, provided it's done right. I have used wires on my road bike that was extensively used on trails and dirt roads in the 80's and early 90's. Stuff never failed back then, the quality of bicycle gear seemed to have been better. For cables in rough turf there is a very simple solution. Run then in conduit. Look at the hydraulic brake likes of the shifter cables. Do they ever tear off or get crushed by a rock hit? Many AA or AAA tail lights are quite bright especially on trails and some are too bright for a following rider. But you never know when they run out of juice because the manufacturer's engineers can't get it into their heads that there should be a charge level indicator. Technically a piece of cake, you measure the voltage sag upon pulsing and when that exceeds the 80% or whatever discharge mark let the light flash a bit more irregular than usual. Then the rider would still have time to get homes safely but would know that a fresh set of batteries or a Li-Ion recharge is required soon. When do they wake up? I've had it happen twice that my front light faded out during a ride. That is not cool at all. And fully avoidable. Because of this I use two independent tail lights on my mountain bike and while on roads during the night both are turned on. On rural roads a tail light that has gone dark is almost a guarantee to get hit by a car from behind. [...] -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ My Cygo Lite Rover II has a indicator on top of the headlight housing and tthat indicator glows red when the battery is running low. Cheers |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, August 30, 2014 12:39:24 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote: Sir Ridesalot wrote: [...] Many AA or AAA tail lights are quite bright especially on trails and some are too bright for a following rider. But you never know when they run out of juice because the manufacturer's engineers can't get it into their heads that there should be a charge level indicator. Technically a piece of cake, you measure the voltage sag upon pulsing and when that exceeds the 80% or whatever discharge mark let the light flash a bit more irregular than usual. Then the rider would still have time to get homes safely but would know that a fresh set of batteries or a Li-Ion recharge is required soon. When do they wake up? I've had it happen twice that my front light faded out during a ride. That is not cool at all. And fully avoidable. Because of this I use two independent tail lights on my mountain bike and while on roads during the night both are turned on. On rural roads a tail light that has gone dark is almost a guarantee to get hit by a car from behind. [...] -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ My Cygo Lite Rover II has a indicator on top of the headlight housing and tthat indicator glows red when the battery is running low. Some of the better front lights have that. But the problem is with tail lights. You can always see when a front light dims away. Happened to me twice and is very annoying but at least I can adjust my riding to it or stop riding. When the tail light goes out this will be unnoticed by the riders and unless you get warnings by honking car drivers you run the risk of being rear-ended or side-swiped. On my road bike I often bend down and look under the seat. On my MTB I can't see the tail light because it's aluminum-encapsulated against rock hits and stuff. So I have two tail lights. That is only necessary because they failed to put in a low-bat warning. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
$13 ?
eheheyayayyaya.....awcomon Dude $13 http://goo.gl/F09v8p the Canadian has the answer: facing a headlamp backwards with red lens coloration. I'm this after lunch with a small Hella for backup with yellow bulb. beep beep beep beep with a voice sez: atención atención el camión se está moviendo hacia atrás |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
I have mild success fogging a light mist of candy apple red lacquer over lexan
|
#17
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
On 8/30/2014 1:33 PM, Joerg wrote:
Some of the better front lights have that. But the problem is with tail lights. You can always see when a front light dims away. Happened to me twice and is very annoying but at least I can adjust my riding to it or stop riding. When the tail light goes out this will be unnoticed by the riders and unless you get warnings by honking car drivers you run the risk of being rear-ended or side-swiped. On my road bike I often bend down and look under the seat. On my MTB I can't see the tail light because it's aluminum-encapsulated against rock hits and stuff. So I have two tail lights. That is only necessary because they failed to put in a low-bat warning. I've thought about running a bit of fiber-optic cable to give me confirmation of my lights working. So far, I haven't decided it was worth the trouble. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
On Saturday, August 30, 2014 10:52:36 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2014 1:33 PM, Joerg wrote: Some of the better front lights have that. But the problem is with tail lights. You can always see when a front light dims away. Happened to me twice and is very annoying but at least I can adjust my riding to it or stop riding. When the tail light goes out this will be unnoticed by the riders and unless you get warnings by honking car drivers you run the risk of being rear-ended or side-swiped. On my road bike I often bend down and look under the seat. On my MTB I can't see the tail light because it's aluminum-encapsulated against rock hits and stuff. So I have two tail lights. That is only necessary because they failed to put in a low-bat warning. I've thought about running a bit of fiber-optic cable to give me confirmation of my lights working. So far, I haven't decided it was worth the trouble. -- - Frank Krygowski ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^EIR http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a...-alerts/1.html |
#19
|
|||
|
|||
Cheap bright tail light
Phil W Lee wrote:
Joerg considered Fri, 29 Aug 2014 17:37:38 -0700 the perfect time to write: Frank Krygowski wrote: On 8/29/2014 7:01 PM, Joerg wrote: Frank Krygowski wrote: The problem is that (at least in the U.S.) few people ride at night. People think it's hideously dangerous. And of course they all have cars. So the market is small. And most of those who do ride at night tend to do it pretty rarely, only in near-ideal conditions, because they're doing it only for fun. So they tend to be pretty easy on their equipment. If it lasts only 50 hours, they'll get perhaps ten years use out of it. That is because hardly anyone commutes anymore which is sad. Oh, but that's not true! Everyone knows that bike use is surging! Why, as this article states, http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...t_popular.html "Bicycle Commuting Rates Rocket From 0.5 Percent to 0.6 Percent in Only 32 Years!" According to the League of American Bicyclist's usual modus operandi, that should be trumpeted as a 20% increase!!! ;-) :-) But I do have to say that since they started putting in more bike paths and bike lanes it has picked up more than that here in the last 7-8 years. To the point where new bike dealers are opening while until 2005 they were dying left and right. I also see some more longhaul commuters in road bikes. What is sad is that some beautiful trails out here are barely used. When I see another montain biker there we great each other enthusiastically because that happens maybe once a month and I ride them 2-3 times a week. I don't find it all that surprising that few people commute on mountain bike trails, particularly ones which (by your own evidence) are so brutal on the bike. But they are fun :-) Serious commuting means including winter and then one or both trips will require lights. So 50 hours would be gone in a month or two. I run through batteries as if it was popcorn. Environmentally not so cool. Luckily the front one on the MTB is Li-Ion but one of them already starts to fade. Yep. Another couple reasons to love generators or dynamos. They last damned near forever, and low temperatures don't bother them. Only as long as there is also a sizeable rechargeable battery. Sizeable enough for the whole half hour that you are moving slow enough to need it? With a dynamo, yes. But ... I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to bleed off the spare power when you are going over 15kmh to recharge it ready for the next hill. You need to rectify it for an LED anyway. It's so easy that B&M have already done it - the Ixon IQ has a pack of four NiMH AAs and a charge socket on the bottom, into which you can plug the ride & charge cable from a hub dynamo. That would give you 5 hours of use at full power without any input from the dynamo at all, and any time you are doing more than 15kmh, it's charging, even with the light on full power. That is good, four NiMH are ok. However, dynamos pretty much zonk out around 4-5W. If you want a 2W tail light (and I do) and in order to see enough trail a 5-10W front light, that's going to be a challenge. So I'll be going the Li-Ion route and no dynamo, or maybe a small bottle dynamo for emergency like I have on the road bike. Also, regarding one of your specific complaints, most people don't see a need to run wires from a central battery to a taillight. AA or AAA batteries in taillights last a long, long time and are easy to buy and change. You cannot get any serious light out of AAA and that's all you normally find. A 2W LED will suck AAA dry in very few hours. Do you really need 2 Watts into a rear red LED? Oh yeah. Why? In Germany it is standardised on 0.6w even for filament bulbs, and they don't seem to have any serious problems with rear-end collisions. They do. One of my former class mates ended up losing a kidney, the other landed in the hospital with a ruptured spleen. And I personally witnessed a side swipe accident in Germany. But I live in the US so I am not bound by this stupid 3W total dynamo power law. Mind you, the design is fairly tightly controlled, so light output is well distributed in the areas where it is needed, instead of projected down a narrow beam. Well, in the bush you need a bit more, including a good overhead illumination to spot branches that could snap your helmet. On the road I'd turn that off. Some lights have that feature but it's often implemented crudely via 3-4 LEDs instead of just one, and so far I only found cheap Chinese lights like that. Possibly I'll have to buy one and try to ruggedize it like I did with my current light. ... Even bog standard red LEDs are pretty efficient, in terms of lumens per watt. And since you're moving with traffic, motorists generally have plenty of time to spot you. Everyone else has heard this from me before, but: I heartily recommend enlisting a helper, and observing your bike and it's nighttime equipment in your normal traffic conditions. Have your helper ride the bike, and drive past him from various directions. I've done this every once in a while since about 1978 or so. (Actually, in '78, I did the riding, my wife did the driving, and my son did the note taking.) I've also done it several times with bike club members, a couple times as a formal "night lighting workshop." I mention this because people have invariably learned that it doesn't require huge outputs of dollars or lumens to make a cyclist very conspicuous at night. Except for my now modern headlights, most of my night equipment is very ordinary, and there have been many times (at least six) that I've gotten spontaneous compliments from motorists, pedestrians, and other cyclists on how well my lights and reflectors show up. (And don't forget, reflectors and reflective tape can work very well - especially low on the bike, and on moving parts.) You should try testing your bike's lights that way. It may give you peace of mind. On my road bike that's true. It is hugely decked out with reflectors and I don't need lots of lumens and the light does not have to be full metal or very sturdy. On the front I need something better though because I need to see farther out for top speed. On the MTB that's all different. No space for reflectors, everything I tried flew off. A small light gives inattentive drivers the impression that something is far away and I had a few close calls. I mostly like to be seen also during the day and I want my tail light to stand out from the crowd. So that despite it's small size people wake up and think "Whoa, there's something weird up there". I see that on county roads where bikers with really bright lights stand out. You see them from half a mile away and can easily prepare for the time you have to pass them. Anything more than a couple of hundred yards is counterproductive, a it gives drivers time to forget you. Light output is over-rated - what helps most is the area of the illuminated part of the light, as that is what clues drivers in to the rate of closure ("it's getting bigger, it must be closer", instead of "it's still so far off it's only a point source"). I've seen different. There is a long rural road out here and with a few bike riders you think a locomotive is coming. Theyr tail lights are equally impressive and care drivers give them a lot of room. As if they wee afraid they'd bite or maybe think it's police. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Bright tail light | somebody[_2_] | Techniques | 0 | July 20th 09 12:51 AM |
Bright up your advertising with a slim light box !----11 mm LED light box in China! | Gabe Vanrenen | UK | 0 | June 29th 07 05:08 AM |
Brief note: modification to create super-bright tail light | [email protected] | Techniques | 11 | January 25th 05 02:06 AM |
Looking for BRIGHT and LIGHT helmet | Jeff Potter | Techniques | 12 | November 19th 04 02:06 AM |
Daylight Bright Bicycle Tail Light | Laurence Dodd | Australia | 0 | September 17th 03 04:36 AM |