IQ-X vs Edelux II

On Tue, 9 Apr 2019 22:30:26 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 4/9/2019 6:21 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2019 06:53:45 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 11:36:39 PM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 8 Apr 2019 20:59:51 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

If someone wants to do it, it's easy. Choose an StVZO compliant
headlight. That's your low beam. Add a cheap high power headlamp with
kindergarten optics - there are dozens and dozens of choices. that's
your high beam.

If dynamo driven, you can wire them in series and both will illuminate.
To cut out the high beam, wire a switch across the high beam's
terminals, in parallel with the light. When the switch is closed, the
"high beam" lamp will be bypassed.

Easier than that one can buy a duel beam bicycle lights ranging from a
bit over $100 to almost any price you want to pay - the Supernova M99
Pure - Dual Beam Bike Light goes for 265 BP - about US$ 346 and Amazon
has the Nitecore BR35 1800 Lumen Dual Beam OLED Display Rechargeable
Bicycle Headlight with Remote Switch, Mount - Includes Lumen Tactical
Adapter for a mere $122.95.

Not quite. The Nitecore seems to have typical (i.e. crude) optics, with no
thought given to casting a well-designed beam on the road.

A proper low beam has graduated brightness on the road, "throw" just below the
horizon, and a cutoff. It's not just less lumens in the same crude round beam.
Check your car's headlights to see.

- Frank Krygowski

Frankly I think that you go overboard with the demands for shaped
patterns, etc. After all you are riding a machine that on the level
goes, perhaps, 20 miles per hour, but more likely less. Given that a
top runner ca average 12 mph for several hours does one really need
all these special light patterns for a bicycle?

My preference for properly shaped beams goes way back into the halogen
bulb era. I always preferred dynamo or generator lights for their
"always ready" practicality, but before about 1980 I felt they were too
weak for serious riding. They didn't illuminate the road well enough,
even though I knew by testing that they were plenty conspicuous enough.

I moaned about this to a bike shop owner friend. He said "You need one
of these" and sold me my first StVZO headlight. And I found he was
right. Same wattage (2.4 Watts) but much, much better illumination.

About that time, my best cycling friend bought a fancy rechargeable
halogen light, 10 Watts with an external lead acid battery. He invited
me over to compare with my puny 2.4 Watts. But my light blew his away -
although his would have been better as (say) a relaxing reading lamp
with a soft spread. Later, on nighttime club rides, I had a similar
experience with other club members who were using two 5 Watt lights.
Theirs, too, put out more lumens. They just didn't light the road as well.

During that time I too experimented with other battery lights, including
a home built MR light like some here tout. Some were certainly brighter
than my dyno lights, but hot spots and poor distribution meant they were
not as good at lighting the road, and never worth the fuss and bother of
battery maintenance. (That's despite getting free 12V ni-cad battery
packs, ex-defibrillator I think, from a hospital technician friend.)

For maybe the past 7 or 8 (?) years, I've used B&M lights, mostly Cyo
model, powered by various 3W dynamos. These are, of course, far better
than the halogen lamps I used to use. I've led nighttime club rides
where riders used a variety of lights. I've gotten compliments on my
Cyos - as in "I'm going to ride next to Frank. I can really _see_ with
his light!"

You can certainly get by with something else. But most people never try
a bike headlight with a properly shaped beam. They don't know what
they're missing. (They use them on their cars, of course, but don't
realize that the optics are very important.)

Yes, I understand what you are saying but one rides a bicycle
relatively slowly (for a highway vehicle) on a pretty narrow path,
unless, of course you are swooping back and forth across a road hands
off with your arms folded. Probably for most riders a 4 foot wide
corridor, whether a formal bike path or just the public highway is all
you actually use, even going very, very slowly, when many people tend
to "wobble" a bit.

So why all the special shaped beam requirement? At the speeds most non
professional cyclists travel how far ahead and how wide a path does
one really need to illuminate?
https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a20...e-pro-cyclist/
has it that the average recreational rider probably rides at about 17
- 18 mph. Use the high end and say 20 mph how far ahead do you need to
see at 29 ft/sec?
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 12:34:41 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
Snipped
So why all the special shaped beam requirement? At the speeds most non
professional cyclists travel how far ahead and how wide a path does
one really need to illuminate?
https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a20...e-pro-cyclist/
has it that the average recreational rider probably rides at about 17
- 18 mph. Use the high end and say 20 mph how far ahead do you need to
see at 29 ft/sec?
--
cheers,

John B.

When I'm riding at night out in the country (which I do a lot) I like a light that lights the entire 2 lane road so that I can see critters such as skunks BEFORE I startle them. I also like to be able to see a fair distance down the road in case there's a critter on the road. I use 2 lights. One is a CygoLite Rover II which does an excellent job of lighting a 2 lane road plus the shoulders. The other light is a Magic Shine knockoff that illuminates the road quite a distance ahead of the bicycle. The MS knockoff is like a high beam light and has a beam pattern that SMS used to laud. He used to guerrilla market flashlights as the ideal bicycle lights. Remember all those posts he made about them being the cats meow?

I've also ridden through forests at night and found that the best place to mount the light was on my helmet or head. That's because you need to be able to light where you're going and bicycle mounted lights shine off into the woods when you're making a turn.

Again, people have different needs and wants in bicycle lights. Thus they should make the choice as to what works best for then WITHIN their budget.

For me, I need/want a light with great range and a fairly wide beam patter especially when riding unpaved country roads at night. Others have different needs/wants. Also, I don't want to have to spend around $400 to meet my Needs/wants for a bicycle light.

Cheers

On Tue, 9 Apr 2019 21:16:18 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 4/8/2019 8:36 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

Easier than that one can buy a duel beam bicycle lights ranging from a
bit over $100 to almost any price you want to pay - the Supernova M99
Pure - Dual Beam Bike Light goes for 265 BP - about US$ 346 and Amazon
has the Nitecore BR35 1800 Lumen Dual Beam OLED Display Rechargeable
Bicycle Headlight with Remote Switch, Mount - Includes Lumen Tactical
Adapter for a mere $122.95.

Dual, not duel.

One key thing to look for in bicycle lights is the optics. Many bicycle
lights lack proper optics because they're designed to meet StVZO
standards rather than being designed to properly illuminate the road
sufficiently far ahead, as well as things like street signs. You
definitely want some side and upward spill but not so much that it
blinds oncoming cyclists. It looks like the Nitecore did a very good job
of using proper optics for each beam.

And what is "sufficiently far ahead"? What I see is bicycles traveling
at about 20 - 25 kph, on the average. That is 12 - 15 MPH with
occasional chap whizzing by at 30 kph - 18 MPH.

I am aware that many folks can ride faster than that but can they
average a much higher for, say a 3 - 4 hour ride.

But lets call it 20 mph which is 29 FPS... ( That just happens to be
the length of my living room ) so how many living rooms do you need to
see ahead of you? Two or three? More, lets say 5 seconds, that is 146
feet, or 48 yards which is 4.9 living rooms. Good Lord! People can run
that distance in about 5 seconds and you on a 11 speed bicycle?
--
cheers,

John B.

On Tue, 9 Apr 2019 22:00:14 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 12:34:41 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
Snipped
So why all the special shaped beam requirement? At the speeds most non
professional cyclists travel how far ahead and how wide a path does
one really need to illuminate?
https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a20...e-pro-cyclist/
has it that the average recreational rider probably rides at about 17
- 18 mph. Use the high end and say 20 mph how far ahead do you need to
see at 29 ft/sec?
--
cheers,

John B.

When I'm riding at night out in the country (which I do a lot) I like a light that lights the entire 2 lane road so that I can see critters such as skunks BEFORE I startle them. I also like to be able to see a fair distance down the road in case there's a critter on the road. I use 2 lights. One is a CygoLite Rover II which does an excellent job of lighting a 2 lane road plus the shoulders. The other light is a Magic Shine knockoff that illuminates the road quite a distance ahead of the bicycle. The MS knockoff is like a high beam light and has a beam pattern that SMS used to laud. He used to guerrilla market flashlights as the ideal bicycle lights. Remember all those posts he made about them being the cats meow?

I've also ridden through forests at night and found that the best place to mount the light was on my helmet or head. That's because you need to be able to light where you're going and bicycle mounted lights shine off into the woods when you're making a turn.

Again, people have different needs and wants in bicycle lights. Thus they should make the choice as to what works best for then WITHIN their budget.

For me, I need/want a light with great range and a fairly wide beam patter especially when riding unpaved country roads at night. Others have different needs/wants. Also, I don't want to have to spend around $400 to meet my Needs/wants for a bicycle light.

Cheers

I can't argue with your specialized needs, but how many folks are
riding around in the boonies in the dark?
--
cheers,

John B.

My fone is my computer now, and it often thinks it understands what word I'm trying to use better than I do. In one of my last posts, it decided "breaking" was what I meant when I wrote "braking". So I wouldn't assign too much significance to duel lights.

If I could get cheap, effective, voltage-versatile LED lights that had automotive quality beam shapes, I'd do that. But I use dumb Chinese lights with round beam patterns because they work in every other regard. I point the hot spots onto the road surface, where they do a better job revealing surface flaws than normal car low beams do.

If I could get lights that would automatically dip when a cyclist approached, but raise to windshield level and intensify to air-raid levels when a car approached, I'd go for that too. At least until the cops stop accepting "I didn't see him" as an excuse for negligent homicide.

On Wed, 10 Apr 2019 00:47:37 -0700 (PDT), Chalo
wrote:

If I could get lights that would automatically dip when a
cyclist approached, but raise to windshield level and intensify
to air-raid levels when a car approached, I'd go for that too.

Welcome back. About a year or two, I proposed something similar. The
general reaction was such a sophisticated lighting system was not
necessary and will probably be priced too high to see wide adoption.
The basic problem is mostly the lack of a market large enough to
justify such a light at a reasonable price.

I had originally wanted a gyro stabilized artificial horizon headlight
that controls a tilting headlight. It didn't take me long to discover
that such a scheme wouldn't work. For example, going up a steep hill
will result in the headlight illuminating the front tire and fender,
not the road. Going downhill would be worse because the light would
be directly in the face of oncoming drivers. I had some ideas, but
nothing I consider usable.

While it's difficult to control a tilting headlight, it's fairly easy
to implement. The dreaded StVZO light has an internal roof reflector
to convert a circular "flashlight" beam, into something that doesn't
blind the oncoming driver by reflecting much of this light downward
onto the road.
http://www.light-test.info/images/stories/stvzo/fenix_bt20_cut-off_marketing.jpg
This reflector could be made to tilt inside the headlight.

Variable intensity is also a possibility, but is not easily
accomplished with a single headlight. Multiple headlights, or
multiple beams and lenses, each covering a part of the road ahead,
might be better. Something like this:
https://magicshine.us/product/monteer-6500-mtb-headlight/

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 10 Apr 2019 14:20:45 +0700, John B.
wrote:

I can't argue with your specialized needs, but how many folks are
riding around in the boonies in the dark?

When marijuana was illegal in California, the local small drug growers
would drag water bottles up the hill to their crop in the state park
on mountain bikes. The most commonly used road goes past my house.
The majority were smart enough to do it during daylight hours, but a
few of the ultra paranoid would ride up the hill at night. The
results were unimpressive and usually resulted in a vacation at the
local emergency medical facility.

I have a near-IR image intensifier scope:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/AN-SAR-4B%20night%20vision/index.html
It's much too big and awkward for mounting on a bicycle. However, I
have tried (once) to drive my car at night on the local mountain roads
with IR filters over the headlights. It was white knuckle driving
both up and down the hills. I don't plan to repeat the experiment
unless I can obtain some better equipment.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 10 Apr 2019 08:53:11 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
I have a near-IR image intensifier scope:
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/AN-SAR-4B%20night%20vision/index.html
It's much too big and awkward for mounting on a bicycle. However, I
have tried (once) to drive my car at night on the local mountain roads
with IR filters over the headlights. It was white knuckle driving
both up and down the hills. I don't plan to repeat the experiment
unless I can obtain some better equipment.

"Mountain Biking at Midnight with Top Secret Night Vision Goggles"
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/mountain-biking-at-midnight-with-top-secret-night-vision-goggles/
...a German company called Lupine released the first truly
usable LED-based bike lighting system, and the number of
night riders exploded.

I was expecting night cycling to be the next big thing in ways to kill
oneself on a bicycle after the invention of downhill racing without
brakes. However, the high price of the necessary night vision or
illumination hardware seems to be a problem.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 4/10/2019 3:15 AM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 9 Apr 2019 21:16:18 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 4/8/2019 8:36 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

Easier than that one can buy a duel beam bicycle lights ranging from a
bit over $100 to almost any price you want to pay - the Supernova M99
Pure - Dual Beam Bike Light goes for 265 BP - about US$ 346 and Amazon
has the Nitecore BR35 1800 Lumen Dual Beam OLED Display Rechargeable
Bicycle Headlight with Remote Switch, Mount - Includes Lumen Tactical
Adapter for a mere $122.95.

Dual, not duel.

One key thing to look for in bicycle lights is the optics. Many bicycle
lights lack proper optics because they're designed to meet StVZO
standards rather than being designed to properly illuminate the road
sufficiently far ahead, as well as things like street signs. You
definitely want some side and upward spill but not so much that it
blinds oncoming cyclists. It looks like the Nitecore did a very good job
of using proper optics for each beam.

And what is "sufficiently far ahead"? What I see is bicycles traveling
at about 20 - 25 kph, on the average. That is 12 - 15 MPH with
occasional chap whizzing by at 30 kph - 18 MPH.

I am aware that many folks can ride faster than that but can they
average a much higher for, say a 3 - 4 hour ride.

But lets call it 20 mph which is 29 FPS... ( That just happens to be
the length of my living room ) so how many living rooms do you need to
see ahead of you? Two or three? More, lets say 5 seconds, that is 146
feet, or 48 yards which is 4.9 living rooms. Good Lord! People can run
that distance in about 5 seconds and you on a 11 speed bicycle?

As I recently mentioned: During the evening ride I took about two or
three days ago, I noticed again that my B&M Eyc (StVZO) headlight
powered by my bottle dynamo was brightly lighting up stop signs, etc.
almost a quarter mile from me. (Google maps shows it as a bit over 0.2
miles.) That means my light rays traveled 0.4 miles from my headlight to
the sign and back to my eye and were _very_ noticeable. For a motorist
0.2 miles away, those light rays would be far more noticeable. I've
confirmed this with the help of friends and family.

Please note that the Eyc headlight is tiny, much smaller than a Cyo. The
Cyo does an even better job.

Scharf has promulgated this myth that StVZO lights are invisible, or
inadequate, or whatever. Maybe there are some bad ones, but certainly
not the ones I own.

As to John's question about seeing [the road] ahead of you: While it's
probably more subjective, this light has been fine for me at 25 mph
downhill. That's as fast as I ever ride at night. The concentration of
light into a bright band just below the cutoff sends that light way down
the road. Just as with your car's headlights.

It's not rocket science. Motor vehicle manufacturers figured all this
out many decades ago. The problem with bicycling is the plethora of tiny
semi-amateur manufacturers, the lack of logical lighting standards, and
the huge "Danger! Danger!" mentality of most bicyclists.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Monday, April 8, 2019 at 3:37:20 PM UTC-7, James wrote:
On 9/4/19 1:55 am, jbeattie wrote:


It's not nutty at all. Cars have high beams which, of course, do not
have cut-off. Hard beam cut off is a bad thing in undulating terrain
with no ambient light sources, and reaching down to tilt up your
StVZO light and tilt it down doesn't make a lot of sense. There are
a lot of places I would like a high beam and a lot of places where
high beams should be outlawed, just like for motorists on the road.

Yes, there are times a high beam light would be handy, though not
perhaps essential. I can drive my car at night on unlit roads without
using high beam lights. I just drive slower. Sometimes I have to dip
my high beam lights on approach to corners and such where there are
highly reflective signs. I find the reflected light dazzles me.

--
JS

One of my headlight assemblies had yellowed out so much that I wanted to replace it. If I went to Ford I would have to buy both assemblies at once and it would cost $400. I bought the driver's side for $68 and it was made in China. What a pain in the ass!. First of all, there were a couple of metal clips for holding the wiring assembly into a particular position. These had to be broken to remove. Then the headlamp holding assembly turned out to be different and they didn't tell you until I noticed that there was an extra "nut" installed. Removing it I discovered I had to pull the headlight off of the wiring plug in order to remove the stock "nut" and then install the new one. Finally got that to work. Then there is a large cone shaped mechanism that makes the headlight a water-tight seal. That did not assemble correctly because it appears that the depth of the hook is slightly different. Finally got the damn thing figured out and test it and the headlight had been damaged on the removal-reinstallation process. I suppose they age harden the glass around the filament.

I drove up to the auto parts store and got a new headlight. Got home and installed it and now the turn signal didn't work - I had tested it when I tested the headlight and it was fine. So BACK up to the auto parts store and I bought a couple of new turn signal lights. These things, like the headlights, come in dozens of different sizes. Since they are all 12 VDC you'd think that they would have standardized them decades ago.

Back home, reassembled everything and since there were no more of those little harness clips I just placed the harness in about the correct position. All worked and it only took me 4 hours to do what a trained mechanic could have done in 30 minutes with Ford Parts for only 5 times what I paid.