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New B&M 100lux headlight.



 
 
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  #61  
Old December 8th 17, 11:32 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On Wed, 6 Dec 2017 23:20:11 -0800, sms
wrote:
On 12/6/2017 7:00 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Wed, 6 Dec 2017 06:46:01 -0800, sms
wrote:
Yes. The trade-off needs to be made. I'm sure we'd all run out and
buy a dynamo light if it was possible to build one that was adequate
for the riding conditions we experience. Unfortunately it isn't yet
possible to build such a dynamo light.


Good grief, Steven. What bull**** you spout. There are people
around the world riding pefectly contentedly all night long on bikes
with dynamo lights- and have been for decades, even before the
advancements of LEDs and computer designed mirrors and lenses.

Now, for some reason *you* don't find those satisfactory. That's
fine. But that's about you and your preferences, not about the lights
themselves.


No, it's not about *me*. I don't pretend to know what's best for
everyone else, nor do I dismiss the needs of of others simply because
I don't have the same needs. By the same token, I do recognize that


Oh, Steven, really? You just posted, and I quote, the notion that:

I'm sure we'd all run out and buy a dynamo light if it was possible
to build one that was adequate for the riding conditions we
experience. Unfortunately it isn't yet possible to build such a
dynamo light.


Do you just not hear yourself?

"It isn't yet possible" to build an adequate dynamo light. This is not
a one-off. You have stated that sentiment possibly hundreds of times in
the past decade or so. You are rebutted alomst every time by people who
ride perfectly happy with dynamo lights (and consider them superior to
battery powered lights) and yet it never sinks in that your subjective
notion is not objective fact. It's puzzling, actually, that you are so
resistant to considering the possibility that dynamo driven lights *are*
already adequate.

What would be adequate for you? A 1000 lux lamp with 180 degree beam?
10,000 lux? A light that forces every other road user to come to a stop
and put their hands over their eyes to prevent blindness?

At some point it stops being about illumination and becomes aggression.

snip

I just came back from a meeting tonight, where we discussed a proposal
for new bicycle infrastructure that would be an east-west path through
most of our city, including linking the current and new Apple campuses


snip overly long URL because it aggravates my newsreader

The first question I asked was "will it be lit?" I received a somewhat
evasive answer. The route would run along Santa Clara County Water
District right-of-way, and they generally don't allow lighting in
riparian areas. However in this case, it's just a drainage ditch not a
stream or creek so they might allow it. It matters. This would be a
heavily used commute route that would definitely not be used just from
dawn to dusk.


Around here when those discussions occur it is usually about safety from
bad people hding in the shadows and less about seeing where one is
going. Most of our local off-street bike routes are on old rail ROWs,
which tend to go through the less safe and less affluent parts of town.
I suppose that's because the nicer and safer parts of town can afford to
buy the political influence to keep the rail ROWs away from them...
Ads
  #62  
Old December 8th 17, 11:48 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
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Posts: 6,945
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On Thu, 7 Dec 2017 06:38:54 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

I think everyone would agree that having a light you don't have to
charge is very convenient. How much light a person needs, however, is
subjective. My night vision sucks. There are times when I want more
than 500 lumens, which is about the maximum output of my Luxos B. No
light is enough it in a rain storm. OTOH, it takes very little light
to be seen in my opinion, and there is nothing worse than a mega-power
bike light pointing right at me. I'm not in NL, but I ride around a
lot of other cyclists for an American city, and the uber-bright lights
are not just annoying, they're dangerous. I've been blinded to the
point of not being able to see the road for a few seconds, and bright
flashing lights should be criminalized. Some tail lights are far too
bright. I was riding behind a woman last night (until I could get
around her) who had a rear flasher that was like a landing light. Mine
is bright, but it pulses. This was on a separate bike path, so it's
not like she was going to get hit by a car.


Also with LED car taillights. I have been behind new cars with those
and had afterimages on my retinas when behind them as a stoplight for a
minute or so. Holy smokes, they are so bright it is painful.

But, "if some is good then more is better" is the attitude of most
humans.

Badly aimed ultrabright headlights blind oncoming users, which is never
safe, and generally serve to impair night vision. My night vision has
worsened a bit as I get older, I have noticed, which may be why I am
wanting a bit brigher lamp than my old halogen. OTOH, there have been
changes to the lighting sitution locally- LED street lights, brighter
and whiter car headlights along wth increasing traffic from a growing
population, etc.

I am looking forward to retirement and moving the hell out of here. I
want some peace and quiet for my remaining years, if I can manage it-
not living in the center of nearly 4 million people.

On a two way cycle track with adjacent car traffic, a bright, solid
on-coming bike light also can be mistaken for a car light in the
adjacent MV traffic lane. In heavy bike traffic, I think the best
front light is a dyno light with cut-off (because it is distinctive
and non-blinding) or a light like the L&M that pulses but does not
flash, and if more light is needed (pulse mode is about 300 lumen on
my battery light), then perhaps something like the Oculus with
cut-off. Too much cut-off is a problem, but a spewing 1000 lumen
light is a huge problem in bicycle traffic and totally unnecessary. In
the middle of nowhere without traffic, it doesn't matter. Use whatever
you want.


Well, at 15-20 mph you don't need to illuminate 1 1/2 miles of road to
avoid overrunning your lights. You need 100 yards or so.

Finally, I think that in really dark environments with moonlight or
star light (like the PBP French countryside), you can get away with a
pretty dim light because your eyes can accommodate. The problem for me
is dark pavement and bright on-coming headlights (hills with car
lights angled up) or point source lights that don't illuminate the
pavement (house or business lights).


Yes, that is my experience. Big neon business signs and billboards too.
Southern Minesota farm country is pretty dark at night, as is most of
the terrain on PBP. A 3W halopgen with a decent beam shape is adequate.
That light gets a little washed out in the Twin Cities at night.

Speaking of Dark- it's 4:47 PM and late dusk now. I hate the short
days this time of year. But hey, the days start getting longer in about
two weeks!
  #63  
Old December 9th 17, 01:31 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,538
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On 12/8/2017 5:21 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Tim McNamara writes:

On Wed, 6 Dec 2017 23:22:35 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On 12/6/2017 9:44 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
I mentioned upthread using my B&M halogen headlight on dusk-to-dawn
brevets and PBP. I saw quite well with that light, but most of those
rides were far out on rural roads with very little ambient light or
light pollution. In town that light is washed out on the road by
street lights, car headlights, etc. Technically the road is just as
brightly illuminated by the lamp as in the country, but the greater
ambient light in town impairs night vision by comparison to a very
dark countryside. Thus the light seems less effective. And since
we're seeing with our eyeballs and not spot meters, it is less
effective in town.

I get good benefit out of a cycling cap with a brim, including at
night. Similarly, I use the visors in my car a lot, including at dusk.
It really helps my night vision to shade my eyes from street lights,
the brighter night sky due to the last bits of sunlight or light
pollution. And of course, if some idiot refuses to dim his high beams,
these things are godsends.


I have never thought of doing that and will try it out.

(About idiots: Yesterday I was in my car, stopped at a red light at
about 9 AM. The pickup truck lawn service guy facing me had his bright
headlights on, glaring in my eyes. I blinked my headlights once, then
once again, trying to get him to dim his lights. His response? He
turned on the off-road light bar on the roof of his cab. There's no
shortage of idiots.)


That's not idiocy, that's aggression. Well, the two are often closely
related so maybe it was idiocy...


Maybe. Or maybe the guy actually had his lights on low beam, but, since
the headlights were right at Frank's eye level they seemed too bright.
This often happens to me when a large pickup pulls up behind, especially
if he's using lights mounted on a snow plow. It's annoying, but also
not clear how it could be fixed.

The normal thing to do when someone flashes their brights at you,
supposing you're not on high beam, is to flash back -- I suspect the
pickup had the off-road light relay wired to the high beam. Which might
or might not be legal with an additional switch to disable them, but
it's pretty convenient if you actually use the off-road lights.

Neither idiocy nor malice was strictly required.


It was a very large pickup (sorry, don't remember the make) towing a
trailer of lawn mowing equipment. It had four headlights, with the two
lights on each side stacked top to bottom. All four were on. And IIRC,
when he turned on the light bar, the others did not change.

--
- Frank Krygowski
  #64  
Old December 9th 17, 03:14 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Radey Shouman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,747
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 12/8/2017 5:21 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Tim McNamara writes:

On Wed, 6 Dec 2017 23:22:35 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On 12/6/2017 9:44 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
I mentioned upthread using my B&M halogen headlight on dusk-to-dawn
brevets and PBP. I saw quite well with that light, but most of those
rides were far out on rural roads with very little ambient light or
light pollution. In town that light is washed out on the road by
street lights, car headlights, etc. Technically the road is just as
brightly illuminated by the lamp as in the country, but the greater
ambient light in town impairs night vision by comparison to a very
dark countryside. Thus the light seems less effective. And since
we're seeing with our eyeballs and not spot meters, it is less
effective in town.

I get good benefit out of a cycling cap with a brim, including at
night. Similarly, I use the visors in my car a lot, including at dusk.
It really helps my night vision to shade my eyes from street lights,
the brighter night sky due to the last bits of sunlight or light
pollution. And of course, if some idiot refuses to dim his high beams,
these things are godsends.

I have never thought of doing that and will try it out.

(About idiots: Yesterday I was in my car, stopped at a red light at
about 9 AM. The pickup truck lawn service guy facing me had his bright
headlights on, glaring in my eyes. I blinked my headlights once, then
once again, trying to get him to dim his lights. His response? He
turned on the off-road light bar on the roof of his cab. There's no
shortage of idiots.)

That's not idiocy, that's aggression. Well, the two are often closely
related so maybe it was idiocy...


Maybe. Or maybe the guy actually had his lights on low beam, but, since
the headlights were right at Frank's eye level they seemed too bright.
This often happens to me when a large pickup pulls up behind, especially
if he's using lights mounted on a snow plow. It's annoying, but also
not clear how it could be fixed.

The normal thing to do when someone flashes their brights at you,
supposing you're not on high beam, is to flash back -- I suspect the
pickup had the off-road light relay wired to the high beam. Which might
or might not be legal with an additional switch to disable them, but
it's pretty convenient if you actually use the off-road lights.

Neither idiocy nor malice was strictly required.


It was a very large pickup (sorry, don't remember the make) towing a
trailer of lawn mowing equipment. It had four headlights, with the two
lights on each side stacked top to bottom. All four were on. And IIRC,
when he turned on the light bar, the others did not change.


I'm not saying you're wrong, but it might be hard to tell the difference
between high and low beam when the KC daylighters light up.

--
  #65  
Old December 9th 17, 10:34 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Sepp Ruf
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 454
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:
On 12/8/2017 5:21 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Tim McNamara writes:
On Wed, 6 Dec 2017 23:22:35 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/6/2017 9:44 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
I mentioned upthread using my B&M halogen headlight on dusk-to-dawn
brevets and PBP. I saw quite well with that light, but most of those
rides were far out on rural roads with very little ambient light or
light pollution. In town that light is washed out on the road by
street lights, car headlights, etc. Technically the road is just as
brightly illuminated by the lamp as in the country, but the greater
ambient light in town impairs night vision by comparison to a very
dark countryside. Thus the light seems less effective. And since
we're seeing with our eyeballs and not spot meters, it is less
effective in town.

I get good benefit out of a cycling cap with a brim, including at
night. Similarly, I use the visors in my car a lot, including at dusk.
It really helps my night vision to shade my eyes from street lights,
the brighter night sky due to the last bits of sunlight or light
pollution. And of course, if some idiot refuses to dim his high beams,
these things are godsends.


You also need the right glasses!
https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/benicio-del-toro-and-johnny-depp-movie-zoom-7e05789c-1793-4717-9b60-e2f4b67a6094.jpg

I have never thought of doing that and will try it out.


Because you generally want to shield from a flattish \ line of approaching
lights, but not shield your view to the sides, the flatter brims work
better. Just like the curved cutoff in the awful OculuStvzo engineering
sample doesn't work...

(About idiots: Yesterday I was in my car, stopped at a red light at
about 9 AM. The pickup truck lawn service guy facing me had his bright
headlights on, glaring in my eyes. I blinked my headlights once, then
once again, trying to get him to dim his lights. His response? He
turned on the off-road light bar on the roof of his cab. There's no
shortage of idiots.)

That's not idiocy, that's aggression. Well, the two are often closely
related so maybe it was idiocy...

Maybe. Or maybe the guy actually had his lights on low beam, but, since
the headlights were right at Frank's eye level they seemed too bright.
This often happens to me when a large pickup pulls up behind, especially
if he's using lights mounted on a snow plow. It's annoying, but also
not clear how it could be fixed.


black-tinted rear window; auto-dimming mirrors; manure-spreading trailer.

The normal thing to do when someone flashes their brights at you,
supposing you're not on high beam, is to flash back -- I suspect the
pickup had the off-road light relay wired to the high beam. Which might
or might not be legal with an additional switch to disable them, but
it's pretty convenient if you actually use the off-road lights.

Neither idiocy nor malice was strictly required.


It was a very large pickup (sorry, don't remember the make) towing a
trailer of lawn mowing equipment. It had four headlights, with the two
lights on each side stacked top to bottom. All four were on. And IIRC,
when he turned on the light bar, the others did not change.


I'm not saying you're wrong, but it might be hard to tell the difference
between high and low beam when the KC daylighters light up.


Had he seen the KC daylighters against the glare, he could have reconsidered
before "escalating" the laserfight with merely two inadequate,
generator-driven high beams.
  #66  
Old December 9th 17, 11:53 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Andre Jute[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,422
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

Thing is, Sep, on a bicycle you don't need a bank of rally Cibie to warn off dangerous drivers. I've found that when on a narrow lane I see a driver coming too fast, I can just tilt the bike a little to sweep the BUMM Cyo's beam across his car just under the window line. If three seconds later he is still stupid, I tilt the bike a bit more and sweep the lamp across his hands on the wheel, and if three seconds after that he's still stupid I light up the interior of his car by just tilting the bike further. If he still doesn't get the message, I have my thumb on a Chinese police blinkie's switch; It is aimed the ground, not his eyes, but it flashes luminous yellow off my cycling jacket, rather like roadworks that can do expensive damage to his car's paint job.

My beef with BUMM lamps isn't so much that they don't make enough light. The Cyo was the first dynamo bicycle lamp at a reasonable price that wasn't lethal to the cyclist by being too dim. The Cyo is adequate rather than sufficient, but we can take up the luxury or possibility of sufficiency on 3W another day. The problem with the Cyo, as with all BUMM front lamps, is that it is designed to flatter the delusion of old roadies that they are "fast", rather than for optimum vision for the cyclist under all conditions, and in particular the Cyo and other BUMM IQ lamps fail in peripheral vision.*

Andre Jute
*When even those clowns McNamara and Krygowski have belatedly come around to my viewpoint, that the Cyo throws too much of its available light too far for cycling use, it makes me wonder if I couldn't possibly be wrong, even probably wrong, considering the track record of those two morons. Never mind, I'm on record about those Cyo lamps in too many places to deny it now. The cock's crowing, crowing...
  #67  
Old December 10th 17, 12:40 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Oculus Lights
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 34
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 2:34:34 PM UTC-8, James wrote:
https://www.bike24.com/p2144878.html

--
JS



Instead of thinking how far up the road you want to see in therms of distance, consider that you want to illuminate the next minute of mental processing for yourself, and at least 15 seconds for observers seeing you. If I light up the next quarter mile downrange nicely, which then lights up to more than a mile way downrange for seeing signs and other vehicles, and light to the side and down on the street several times brighter than any other light on the market, then I'm in the high performance car headlight level of illumination. Doing it without blinding oncoming drivers like a high end car lowbeam, literally makes Oculus as good and in some ways better than having a high performance car headlight on your handlebar, helmet, aerobar, stem, hand, magnetically on the roof of your police car, anywhere else you might want to shine light from.

With apologies, sorry that sometimes posting onto these threads sounds like a promo, but what if my designs really are the greatest thing in LED lighting since the white LED took over from HID and the most efficient light source for projected lighting?

One vagueness in distance claims is that they don't give a brightness threshold, even state laws don't require a minimum lux amount. Think about that little white dot you see on the ground from 10000 feet, ~two miles high, from car and streetlights,when up in an airplane or even 2000 feet like when up on Skyline looking down on the Bay area.
If you have an L&M light with those yellow side markers, remove the translucent yellow plastic inserts. That white now coming out is much brighter and more visible.
How about a 2 lux minimum from 25 meters to the side? Only Oculus qualifies. How about 5 lux at 1/4 mile, both straight ahead and 20 degree sideways? Oculus, and some much more expensive brands that need separate battery packs.
This is where Beam lumens becomes painfully necessary as an accurate tool for the "usable visibility" of a light, versus a raw lumen or lux number. The higher the lumens to max lux ratio, the more even the beam, and the greater field of view that user's brain will be able to process, and the observer will notice as relevant to watch out for or navigate around.
My Oculus Extreme and Ultra three LED models approach this with a beam target filling the users central vision in the center and to the sides evenly, and a soft transition to the edge of the beam filling out the sideways and downward field of view in an approximately 8 wide to 13 downrange proportion. My ray traces shown on the Learn More page on the Oculus website have literally no center spot, virtually no red dots at all, yet accomplished with additive effects instead of cutoffs and blinders. If you're into optics, you know that this is the holy grail of efficiency if you're designing a projected beam.
With efficiency, that lets me make a battery operated light that renders most needs or reasons for generator lights as obsolete. With only one battery change at a 6.5 hour burn time bright with beam wide and even enough to win a World 24 Hour Time Trial Championship on, and 36 hour burn time for climbing and extra long distance touring, Oculus makes it well worth revisiting and reconsidering if the reasons given by generator aficionados still hold water.
As always, I invite comparison of any other light you want to compare side by side with Oculus for any given level of brightness and battery burn time.
  #68  
Old December 10th 17, 02:41 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,945
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 10:34:13 +0100, Sepp Ruf
wrote:

Because you generally want to shield from a flattish \ line of
approaching lights, but not shield your view to the sides, the flatter
brims work better.


We're talking about cycling caps, not baseball caps. A cycling cap
bill's curve would shade the center of the field of view while allowing
peripheral vision.

Just like the curved cutoff in the awful OculuStvzo engineering sample
doesn't work...


There's no equivalence between the shape of the brim and the shape of
the cutoff. The cutoff is designed to manage outgoing light, keeping it
where it is useful and not shining it where it is not.

black-tinted rear window; auto-dimming mirrors; manure-spreading trailer.


I have an auto-dimming mirror in my new car. It verges on useless as it
does not dim anywhere near enough. I'd rather have a manual mirror so
that I don't have to reach up and point the damned mirror at the ceiling
so that I'm not blinded by the vehicle behind me.
  #69  
Old December 10th 17, 02:58 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tim McNamara
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,945
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 15:40:16 -0800 (PST), Oculus Lights
wrote:

Yes, your posts sound like promos because they are. That's simple
enough. You have a vested interest in believing in and promoting the
superiority of your product versus all others. That doesn't necessarily
make you inaccurate, just biased.

With only one battery change at a 6.5 hour burn time bright with
beam wide and even enough to win a World 24 Hour Time Trial
Championship on, and 36 hour burn time for climbing and extra
long distance touring, Oculus makes it well worth revisiting and
reconsidering if the reasons given by generator aficionados still
hold water.


The problem is noted by yourself right above. "With one battery change
at 6.5 hour burn time." I don't want to have to carry an extra battery
with me and then change it partway through my ride.

With my generators I always have lights on my bike, so I can be spur of
the moment on my planning. If I am out for a ride, stop and a friend's
house and they invite me to stay for dinner I can do so and ride home in
the dark. But if I left the house with the battery still on the
charger, thinking I was going out just for a day ride, then my options
are sometimes limited.

The piece that you and Steven don't seem to get is that "good enough" is
good enough. Better than "good enough" rapidly becomes multiple
redundancy and enters diminishing returns. I don't need a beam suitable
for going 100 miles an hour because I never will go that fast on my
bike. But I descended on unfamiliar roads with my old halogen setup at
25 mph; I could descend faster with my current LED light and expect that
will be even more true with the incoming eDelux II.

When is enough enough? When one succeeds in recreating daylight? Fiat
Lux!
  #70  
Old December 10th 17, 04:50 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
John B.[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,697
Default New B&M 100lux headlight.

On Sat, 09 Dec 2017 19:41:16 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

On Sat, 9 Dec 2017 10:34:13 +0100, Sepp Ruf
wrote:

Because you generally want to shield from a flattish \ line of
approaching lights, but not shield your view to the sides, the flatter
brims work better.


We're talking about cycling caps, not baseball caps. A cycling cap
bill's curve would shade the center of the field of view while allowing
peripheral vision.

Just like the curved cutoff in the awful OculuStvzo engineering sample
doesn't work...


There's no equivalence between the shape of the brim and the shape of
the cutoff. The cutoff is designed to manage outgoing light, keeping it
where it is useful and not shining it where it is not.

black-tinted rear window; auto-dimming mirrors; manure-spreading trailer.


I have an auto-dimming mirror in my new car. It verges on useless as it
does not dim anywhere near enough. I'd rather have a manual mirror so
that I don't have to reach up and point the damned mirror at the ceiling
so that I'm not blinded by the vehicle behind me.


My wife's small Honda has a manual tab on the bottom of the mirror.
Flick it with your finger and the "guy behind"'s lights are focused on
the ceiling :-)

--
Cheers,

John B.

 




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