entry level lights to see by

On 01/01/13 09:35, Jay Beattie wrote:
On Dec 31, 11:51 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 31, 10:31 am, Sir Ridesalot wrote:









On Sunday, December 30, 2012 9:10:50 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 30, 8:50 pm, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

On Sunday, December 30, 2012 8:49:26 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On Dec 30, 1:04 pm, sms wrote:

Of course the other issue with a dynamo light is that you can't remove

it and use it as a light to do repairs so you still need to carry along

a battery powered light anyway.

I've got a coin-cell LED keychain light in my handlebar bag, and

another that's always in my pocket, should I need them. However, so

far I've never had to fix anything at night when I couldn't find a

street lamp nearby.

- Frank Krygowski

No too many street lights along this area's rail trails or county roads.

Cheers

Then carry a coin cell LED light. Maybe $3, negligible weight.

- Frank Krygowski

I don't need to carry an extra light since my battery lights light up a two lane road to beyond the shoulders and they are bright enough for me to ride at 50+ kms/hr. I can easily remove the light from the mount and use it with a head band mount in order to see to do any needed repair as I did late one very dark moonless night about 10 kms from town when I changed a punctured tube. Plus with my very good battery lights I do not have to worry about carrying and/or forgetting a smaller light.

That's fine, Sir. I don't worry about carrying a keychain light
either; it's just there in my handlebar bag. Since I use generator
lights, I also don't worry about charging or replacing batteries, nor
about battery run times. My bike lights are like my car's lights;
they're just there, and they just work.

I mentioned keychain lights only as the ultra-simple solution to the
overstated "how do I fix a flat with a generator light" problem.
(Although, come to think of it, half my generator lights have
standlights anyway.) Advantages, disadvantages, etc. Ride what you
like.

What has kept me from taking the plunge is the cost and inconvenience
(wiring and rebuilding my front disc). I'm not riding the PBP or
spending more than one to two hours riding after dark, and I need a
bright light in the rain and with all the inner-city light noise. To
approximate my current 750 lumen battery set up with a high quality
dyno (Schmidt/Supernova), I'm looking at $600 -- plus wheel components
(rims and spokes), wires, connectors and my time. I like the idea of
not having to remember to re-charge or having to throw away batteries,
but that's a lot of dough for a lighting system.


My Sanyo Dynapower roller dynamo, is meant to be mounted near the bottom
bracket, but that makes it hard to turn on/off, and it gets coated with
crud, and the mount damages the paint - or isn't suitable on a CF frame
at all. I solved all the issues by mounting it in front of the rear
brake. Your frame might be too tight to accommodate like this though...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55102679@N05/5878886758/

You might pick one up on ebay?

A light is surely not that expensive. $600 and a lot of bother is an
overstatement.

--
JS.

On 01/01/13 10:59, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 31, 10:01 am, SMS wrote:

3. A front strobe is an absolute necessity. Almost no one will buy a
front light without a daytime strobe. It's the equivalent of DRLs for cars.

How many readers think a front strobe is an absolute necessity for
daylight riding? Anyone besides SMS?


crickets/

--
JS

On 01/01/13 12:31, David Scheidt wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
:On Dec 31, 5:35 pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
:
: What has kept me from taking the plunge is the cost and inconvenience
: (wiring and rebuilding my front disc). I'm not riding the PBP or
: spending more than one to two hours riding after dark, and I need a
: bright light in the rain and with all the inner-city light noise. To
: approximate my current 750 lumen battery set up with a high quality
: dyno (Schmidt/Supernova), I'm looking at $600 -- plus wheel components
: (rims and spokes), wires, connectors and my time. I like the idea of
: not having to remember to re-charge or having to throw away batteries,
: but that's a lot of dough for a lighting system.

:Well, contrary to what the Minister of Lighting Misinformation may
:claim, hub generators are not the only generator game in town. I've
:got either bottle generators or roller (bottom bracket) generators on
:five bikes (i.e. my wife's and mine). They work fine for us, and for
:many other people.

:Now your winter riding sounds much more extreme than most people's,
:and that's where a hub unit would be better. But to get a taste of
:things, you could mount a more conventional generator during the
:summer and see how you like it. It would have a little less
:efficiency and (depending on model) might occasionally slip in the
:rain, but it would be a decent introduction to the technology.

I've tried to use a bottom bracket mounted bottle, and it just sucked.
it slipped in any rain, it made an awful racket when it was engaged.

A cheap hub is better, less noise, less wire mess, less drag, no slip.
Works in rain, snow or volcanic erruption.

I'd see if you can find someone to borrow a bike (or a wheel and
light) from, and ride it.

I haven't noticed any slippage in wet weather with my Sanyo roller
dynamo, and it doesn't have a rubber coated roller.

I think the LED lights of mine don't offer as much drag perhaps.

--
JS.

On Tuesday, January 1, 2013 3:52:21 AM UTC, SMS wrote:

It's not a marketing thing at all, strobes work.

Scharfie gets something half-right occasionally. Strobes work; there are many psychological studies telling us they attract attention. Even Franki Shavelegs can't deny something so obvious.

I used blinkies front and rear in daylight and at night until I noticed that my BUMM Cyo/Fly front and Toplight Line Plus rear lamps are brighter than the blinkies I used (SUN/Cateye TL-LD1100). Since those lamps are LEDs with 50K hours MBTF ratings, it really doesn't matter if I run them 24/7. A few experiments soon convinced me that the latest BUMM lights are visible in daylight, and that just sweeping them through a car causes the approaching driver to slow down, and if he doesn't, sweeping the front light through his eyes, even in daylight, convinces him to be sensible. Thus battery blinkies are no longer required, as currently available lamps serve the same purpose of making the cyclist visible.

It is ironic that I achieve this state of security with lamps that Scharfie, without ever trying or perhaps even seeing them, condemns out of hand as inadequate. Y'all know I'm no slacker in condemning inadequate components, and I remember that, when I described a previous generation of BUMM as the crap that it undoubtedly was, some of the dumber denizens of RBT (who're permanent fashion victims and BUMMbuddies) were silly enough to reproach me for telling Andreas so to his face when he tried to defend the indefensible.

Your modern Cyo has shortcomings, sure (it always had inadequate side throw, despite what was said here recently, and the current series has a wretched, wretched, wretched hotspot, pictured he http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLINGbuildingpedelec6.html ). But inadequate light output is not one of those shortcomings. A Cyo/Fly puts more usable light on the road than most American cars, and in Europe, where we use better headlamps on our cars, it has a greater usable output than a VW Beetle had within living memory.

Scharfie is therefore once again pontificating from the depths of his abysmal ignorance.

And, lest the local wannabe polemicists demand to know how I know all this, I have both the "racing" and commuting first series Cyo, and the current series Fly, and also the Toplight Line Plus, and their immediate best predecessors for comparison. In addition I have both Shimano and SON hub dynamos and a humongous battery to provide steady state current for doung test.

Now Scharfie will whine that the lamps don't come on at slow speed. That's not true either. What is true is that the previous generation of halogen lamps didn't light up properly until 12 or 15kph on the SON dynamo, and much lower speeds on the Shimano. (I condemned the SON here on RBT for precisely that reason.) But the Cyo/Fly range are LED lamps and they light up strongly at speeds so low balance becomes questionable. Anyway, they have capacitors which charge in a couple of paces which provide a minimum of four minutes of power even at standstill.

A dynamo light setup (SON or Shimano hub dynamo, BUMM CYO/Fly together with the Line Plus at the back, or the superior but more expensive Phillips Saferide together with the matching rear lamp) is today without any doubt the most superior legal and secure light setup you can fit. (By secure I mean that you can buy a more powerful lamp, but it is stupid to use it on public roads because it becomes a psychological magnet attracting motorists to you, like moths to a candle. See the photo of the Fly head-on on an unlit road in the URL referenced above...) These BUMM and Phillips lamps for the first time provide car-strength lights to cyclists, and SON and Shimano make them battery free, permanent, maintenance free.

Andre Jute

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:52:21 -0800, SMS
wrote:

On 12/31/2012 4:19 PM, Joe Riel wrote:

Possibly he meant a necessity from a marketing point of view, that is,
if the manufacturer doesn't offer it, the sell will be lost. I've seen
the occasional rider with a strobe on the front; under some conditions
it increases the visibility but I'm not convinced dramatically. Hardly
a necessity from this cyclist's point of view.

Quite rare around here to see a cyclist with lights where the front
light is not a strobe. That doesn't mean that there still aren't a lot
of night cyclists with no lights at all.

The increase in the cyclists daytime visibility is incredible. It's
especially effective at preventing vehicles from turning left in front
of either an oncoming cyclists and preventing vehicles from failing to
yield to cyclists where the cyclist has no stop sign but the vehicle does.

It's not a marketing thing at all, strobes work.

On the way home from work the sun is low in the sky and traffic is
picking up. I can see the strobe light reflected in distant signs; I
suspect a steady light will be just more background noise.

And don't forget the dayglo/reflective vest. No batteries needed,
ever.

On Jan 1, 12:16*am, James wrote:
On 01/01/13 09:35, Jay Beattie wrote:









On Dec 31, 11:51 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 31, 10:31 am, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

On Sunday, December 30, 2012 9:10:50 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Dec 30, 8:50 pm, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

On Sunday, December 30, 2012 8:49:26 PM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On Dec 30, 1:04 pm, sms wrote:

Of course the other issue with a dynamo light is that you can't remove

it and use it as a light to do repairs so you still need to carry along

a battery powered light anyway.

I've got a coin-cell LED keychain light in my handlebar bag, and

another that's always in my pocket, should I need them. *However, so

far I've never had to fix anything at night when I couldn't find a

street lamp nearby.

- Frank Krygowski

No too many street lights along this area's rail trails or county roads.

Cheers

Then carry a coin cell LED light. *Maybe $3, negligible weight.

- Frank Krygowski

I don't need to carry an extra light since my battery lights light up a two lane road to beyond the shoulders and they are bright enough for me to ride at 50+ kms/hr. I can easily remove the light from the mount and use it with a head band mount in order to see to do any needed repair as I did late one very dark moonless night about 10 kms from town when I changed a punctured tube. Plus with my very good battery lights I do not have to worry about carrying and/or forgetting a smaller light.

That's fine, Sir. *I don't worry about carrying a keychain light
either; it's just there in my handlebar bag. *Since I use generator
lights, I also don't worry about charging or replacing batteries, nor
about battery run times. *My bike lights are like my car's lights;
they're just there, and they just work.

I mentioned keychain lights only as the ultra-simple solution to the
overstated "how do I fix a flat with a generator light" problem.
(Although, come to think of it, half my generator lights have
standlights anyway.) *Advantages, disadvantages, etc. *Ride what you
like.

What has kept me from taking the plunge is the cost and inconvenience
(wiring and rebuilding my front disc). I'm not riding the PBP or
spending more than one to two hours riding after dark, and I need a
bright light in the rain and with all the inner-city light noise. To
approximate my current 750 lumen battery set up with a high quality
dyno (Schmidt/Supernova), I'm looking at $600 -- plus wheel components
(rims and spokes), wires, connectors and my time. *I like the idea of
not having to remember to re-charge or having to throw away batteries,
but that's a lot of dough for a lighting system.

My Sanyo Dynapower roller dynamo, is meant to be mounted near the bottom
bracket, but that makes it hard to turn on/off, and it gets coated with
crud, and the mount damages the paint - or isn't suitable on a CF frame
at all. *I solved all the issues by mounting it in front of the rear
brake. *Your frame might be too tight to accommodate like this though....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55102679@N05/5878886758/

You might pick one up on ebay?

A light is surely not that expensive. *$600 and a lot of bother is an
overstatement.

A dyno light that kicks out 750 lumens is not cheap, and I've had the
Sanyo in the past -- like the way past, probably 1982 -- and it didn't
last long before breaking, but then again, maybe new production is
better. I couldn't use it in your configuration because I use full
fenders, so it would have to be mounted on the BB and suffer through
lots of water and occasional full immersion. There are cheaper hub/
light combinations, but I don't like putting cheap stuff on a bike
that gets lots of miles in bad conditions because then I just end up
buying two or three.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:17:17 -0800, sms
wrote:

The best option for a small size repair flashlight is one
that's powered by a single CR123A battery, i.e.
http://dx.com/p/romisen-cree-rc-n3-3-mode-led-flashlight-1xcr123a-2xaa-9070.

CR123A lithium manganese dioxide batteries are not rechargeable.
That's fine if you leave the house with a new battery. However, after
using it a few times, the charge condition will be guesswork. I
received a nice SomethingFire flashlight that uses two CR123A
batteries for Hannukah. Not having much experience with these
batteries, I proceeded to use the flashlight normally and eventually
ran the batteries down. It was only about 5 minutes between when I
noticed a drop in output and when the batteries were dead. Not enough
warning.

Also, there seems to be large variations in CR123A battery capacity at
high currents among vendors:
http://www.powerstream.com/cr123a-tests.htm
That's mostly because the CR123A really wasn't designed for high
current applications, such as flashlights.

Doing a bit of research, I found that rechargeable 16340 Li-Ion cells
are available:
http://dx.com/s/16340.html?category=400
I have some on order, but haven't received them yet. (Make sure you
get the ones labeled "protected"). The self-discharge rate is almost
as good as lithium, so they should be suitable as a replacement for my
current backup bicycle light:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/bicycle-flashlight.jpg
Note that the 3.6V nominal Li-Ion voltage is 20% higher than 3.0V
nominal lithium manganese dioxide voltage. Hopefully, it won't
destroy the flashlight.


--
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 Jan 1, 12:16 am, James wrote:
On 01/01/13 10:59, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On Dec 31, 10:01 am, SMS wrote:

3. A front strobe is an absolute necessity. Almost no one will buy a
front light without a daytime strobe. It's the equivalent of DRLs for cars.

How many readers think a front strobe is an absolute necessity for
daylight riding? Anyone besides SMS?

crickets/


I don't think any lighting is an absolute necessity - even for
nighttime riding.

On Tuesday, January 1, 2013 1:37:36 PM UTC-5, Dan O wrote:
On Jan 1, 12:16 am, James wrote:

On 01/01/13 10:59, Frank Krygowski wrote:



On Dec 31, 10:01 am, SMS wrote:



3. A front strobe is an absolute necessity. Almost no one will buy a

front light without a daytime strobe. It's the equivalent of DRLs for cars.



How many readers think a front strobe is an absolute necessity for

daylight riding? Anyone besides SMS?



crickets/





I don't think any lighting is an absolute necessity - even for

nighttime riding.

A lot of Stealth Bicyclists don't think ANY light is needed at night even though it's required by law to have one. Are these the same bicyclists who demand equality under the law? Black or dark colour bicycles with a rider in back or dark colour clothing at night especially a moonles night in an area of poor or no ambient light from streetlights is NOT a good choice. When I see one of these "idiots" zoom out in front of a moving motor vehicle or other bicyclist causing them to have to brake hard to avoid hitting the "idiot" I sometimes, nay oftentimes, wonder how the "idiot" ever survives. Besides being illegal riding without lights puts a lot of bicyclists into the cagers' "they shouldn't be allowed on the road" mindset.

Be safe, be seen.

Happy new year and cheers.

On Tue, 01 Jan 2013 10:47:45 -0800, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

I don't think any lighting is an absolute necessity - even for

nighttime riding.

A lot of Stealth Bicyclists don't think ANY light is needed at night
even though it's required by law to have one. Are these the same
bicyclists who demand equality under the law? Black or dark colour
bicycles with a rider in back or dark colour clothing at night
especially a moonles night in an area of poor or no ambient light from
streetlights is NOT a good choice. When I see one of these "idiots" zoom
out in front of a moving motor vehicle or other bicyclist causing them
to have to brake hard to avoid hitting the "idiot" I sometimes, nay
oftentimes, wonder how the "idiot" ever survives. Besides being illegal
riding without lights puts a lot of bicyclists into the cagers' "they
shouldn't be allowed on the road" mindset.

In some respects I disagree. Even with light coloured clothing you can't
be seen.

Lights are definitely the way forwards.
--
davethedave