15
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
https://bikelightdatabase.com/ has a lot of good information.
There is much more to a light than output. Optics is far more important (and in parts of the world, its illegal to use bike lights that do ...
- 53.1k
11
votes
Rear light with failure warning
The problem is that you have to start considering the failure modes of the failure detection system. You're quite likely to end up with a less robust system or a lot of false alarms if you have a ...
- 62.6k
10
votes
Accepted
Advice on hub-driven rear lights
Yes, any modern LED generator rear light should be fine. Some brands to look at are Busch + Muller, Spaninga, and Hermanns. Recreating the mounting and wiring cleanly with the new light is another ...
- 88.2k
9
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
For illuminating the road ahead at speed where you'll get motor assistance on a UK-legal e-bike, 300 lumens in a well-shaped beam is plenty. You only need the sort of output you mention for off-road, ...
- 62.6k
8
votes
LASER bicycle lights
The most important part of a vehicle light is the optics because you want a beam with a precise shape and distribution in order to illuminate the road evenly, without wasting light into the sky or ...
- 1,784
7
votes
Can I get a bright rear light using AA batteries, or is there a compelling reason why nonreplaceable batteries are so widespread?
Most modern lights use rechargeable lithium ion batteries. Those come in three form factors: Pouch cells, cylindrical cells and coin cells.
Pouch cells come in a lot of different dimensions which ...
- 29.3k
6
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
You must see more, not less with the powerful light. What is the point of the bright light if you actually see less? This may be contra-intuitive, but:
A light so bright that you see colors of the ...
- 8,134
6
votes
Can I get a bright rear light using AA batteries, or is there a compelling reason why nonreplaceable batteries are so widespread?
You mention riding from dusk to dawn. That's a rare situation. Most buyers of lights do fairly short rides, at least the after dark bit of the ride, and may want daytime flashing. Being able to charge ...
- 62.6k
5
votes
Accepted
Can I get a bright rear light using AA batteries, or is there a compelling reason why nonreplaceable batteries are so widespread?
There are advantages of non-replaceable batteries (see other answers; I would point out to better weather sealing specifically), but you shouldn't care about them directly: you need to consider the ...
- 1,038
5
votes
Dynamo bike lights - unknown short circuit cause
There are four things you need to know:
Almost all (99%) of bicycle "dynamos" are in fact AC alternators and they produce alternating current (3~6 VAC) with a current limiter (usually 1A max). The ...
- 29.5k
4
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
A tricky topic, and one that is ever evolving as technology changes.
15-20 years ago when LED lights were new we'd have told you 200lm was excellent, these days some will tell you 2000lm is not enough....
- 18.5k
4
votes
How reliable is the "smart" brake detection on a $20 tail light?
The brake detection is based on an accelerometer, and is not a complicated feature. I have had a similar feature on a Chinese front light and it worked ok from what I can see. So that's probably not ...
- 4,240
3
votes
Rear light with failure warning
Most of the Busch & Müller IQ Dynamo lights seem to have this feature. Their lights have a well designed beam pattern, si it's hard to tell whether they're on or off during the daytime. So they ...
- 1,223
3
votes
LASER bicycle lights
Here are just a few points that make lasers a less-than-ideal light source for road illumination purposes:
Lasers are monochromatic. While there are some exceptions in the physical labs, all the ...
3
votes
Rear dynamo light (tail light) or reflector without rack?
Fairlight Cycles sells an adapter for a SON rear light with their bikes. As far as I know they just print it 3D. Here's a photo:
This should also work on the rack mount from your picture. If you have ...
- 403
3
votes
Rear dynamo light (tail light) or reflector without rack?
Rack upper eyelets of that sort don't have a standard distance between them, so there are no off-the-shelf brackets that would attach to both of them and center the light, if that's what you're ...
- 88.2k
3
votes
Single switch light system?
It's an easy modification to make if they use the same voltage and have simple on/off switches. I've done it on an e-bike. But I'd only make the primary tail light share a switch with the headlight. ...
- 62.6k
3
votes
Dynamo bike lights - unknown short circuit cause
As previously mentioned, the most obvious answer is that the "live" wire from the dynamo i.e. the one not connected to the frame, is being shorted to the frame somehow. Even if you don't ...
- 31
3
votes
Advice on hub-driven rear lights
My question is whether these rear lights are likely to be fairly inter-changeable? If I buy another branch which is 6V ac, and 0.6W rated (which the current one is) - should it work just the same?
...
- 21.3k
2
votes
Tail light Amperage draw
There are tail-lights that are designed to be powered by the e-bike battery. At least Shimano and Bosch units provide either 6 or 12 volts DC to the taillight through a buck converter. Many taillights ...
- 21.3k
2
votes
Tail light Amperage draw
To all practical purposes, they use such a small current it can be considered none. AAA Batteris are around 750mA, lights last around 30 hours - around 25mA. Running off the 6V supply will require ...
- 53.1k
2
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
1600 lumens is overkill. Car H4 headlights have 1650 lumens per bulb at high beam, and 1000 lumens per bulb at low beam. Note that most cars with auto high/low beam these days switch the high beam on ...
- 21.3k
2
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
Two considerations are 1) how well lit the roads travelled on are and 2) regulations. You mention your route is public roads in city/urban UK, but are there regular lights from buildings or street ...
- 21
2
votes
How do I mount a light intended for a tube to a flat rack?
The light seems to have an elastic bungy/strap to hold it on. Your rack appears to have a flat vertical plate on the back. The light might just strap over that and keep pointing backward. That would ...
- 131k
2
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
Personal experience: between me and my wife we have a Magicshine Allty 1000 and a Cateye AMPP 1100 which each do about 1000 lumens. And either of those is absolutely enough and then some to bike at ...
- 975
2
votes
How strong should lights be for a route partially in a city and partially outside city on a public road?
I had a similar commute. 1600 lumens would be far too much (if it really is 1600 - keep in mind that some manufacturers will claim a light to be brighter than it really is).
I had a front light that ...
- 121
2
votes
Fitting an additional rear light to Bosch ebike
Most likely it will work, but you need to somehow tap into the existing voltage source.
The easiest way would be probably to take the existing light, and look at its markings to see which wire is plus ...
- 21.3k
1
vote
Fitting an additional rear light to Bosch ebike
ANSWER: Rather than mess with the existing wiring, consider fitting a second battery powered light instead. This gets you the requested second light.
Advantages:
Doesn't require tinkering with ...
- 131k
1
vote
LASER bicycle lights
Not a bicycle light, but Wicked Lasers has an add-on called Phosforce to their blue Arctic handheld laser that converts the blue laser light to bright white light. It's a phosphor screen that ...
- 178
1
vote
LASER bicycle lights
I've never seen a laser-based front light for a bike, though I have seen rear lights that use a laser to draw "virtual cycle lane" markings on the ground.
These have conventional red LEDs as their ...
- 131k
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