Lights for dark commute required

Chris Hatcher said:

Now it's dark I must get some lights to see with, as approx 2 miles of my 9
mile commute is through a dark country park. I guess I need batteries to
last up to an hour at most, to cover all the journey but approx 10 mins for
the dark bit.

Do I go for rechargeable batteries or replacement type. Have seen loads of
tests and am confused.

What would you users recoomend please.

I'd recommend that you do some googling for a start. There is a
current thread over in rec.bicycles.tech under the subject
"Lighting--Update to http://bicyclelighting.com" which will show you
how high feelings can run on this particular subject. As well as
convincing you that there is no one-size-fits-all solution that thread
will point you to a number of useful on-line resources as well as
highlighting the limitations of each approach.

If you do go for battery powered lights you can use rechargeables of
one kind or another with almost any lamp. Although the initial outlay
is higher you will save money if you cycle regularly in the dark.

--
Dave...

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live. - Mark Twain

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:55:13 -0000, "Chris Hatcher"
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Now it's dark I must get some lights to see with, as approx 2 miles of my 9
mile commute is through a dark country park. I guess I need batteries to
last up to an hour at most, to cover all the journey but approx 10 mins for
the dark bit.

A SON with two lights in series and a shorting switch across one. 6W
gives serious light, and the SON is virtually maintenance free (plus
if you are unexpectedly delayed at work in Spring, your lights will be
ready to go).

Shimano's Nexus hub dynamo is also excellent, and will apparently run
a 12V set, but even if it doesn't 3W plus a head torch is actually
perfectly adequate for a completely unlit road (says he from long
experience).

My commute home is up to 25 miles of which 15-20 is on unlit roads,
the balance on urban roads. On the unlit roads I use the above
(sometimes with the addition of a head torch), and I can switch the
second light off round town. A SON with a single 3W lamp produces so
little drag that I've been known to ride thirty miles or more without
noticing I've left the light on!

Rechargeables work, but the batteries have a definite service life,
limited burn time and require the discipline of recharging. Oh, and
you have to remember to take the battery, which is a problem if you
are simply a bit late leaving. I have both types and for my money the
SON wins hands-down.

Here's a handy link: http://www.audax.uk.net/lights/index.htm

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

"Chris Hatcher" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Now it's dark I must get some lights to see with, as approx 2 miles of my

9

Quoted message said:

mile commute is through a dark country park. I guess I need batteries to
last up to an hour at most, to cover all the journey but approx 10 mins

for

Quoted message said:

the dark bit.

Do I go for rechargeable batteries or replacement type. Have seen loads

of

Quoted message said:

tests and am confused.

What would you users recoomend please.

Many thanks

Chris

I got myself a Vistalite Nightstick 05 for £40 (forty quid) from Merlin
cycles (best price I could find on the internet). This has a rechargeable
NiCad battery (a stick shape .... think of a stick of rock from the
seaside!!) which gives two hours of output. The light, a 5w halogen, is
more than adequate for my thirteen mile commute on dark country lanes.

I'd definately do a bit of shoppping around on the internet. But I can
recommend this one as it's done me fine for the price & commuting I do. You
can spend lots lots more but I really can't see the point!!

Nolan

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 21:29:46 -0000, "Deb" <[email hidden]>

wrote in message : said:

I got myself a Vistalite Nightstick 05 for £40 (forty quid) from Merlin
cycles (best price I could find on the internet). This has a rechargeable
NiCad battery (a stick shape .... think of a stick of rock from the
seaside!!) which gives two hours of output. The light, a 5w halogen, is
more than adequate for my thirteen mile commute on dark country lanes.

After a year of use the two hours will be down to just over one. Mine
was. And I have three sticks to rotate.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Chris Hatcher said:

Now it's dark I must get some lights to see with, as approx 2 miles
of my 9 mile commute is through a dark country park. I guess I need
batteries to last up to an hour at most, to cover all the journey but
approx 10 mins for the dark bit.

Do I go for rechargeable batteries or replacement type. Have seen
loads of tests and am confused.

What would you users recoomend please.

Chain reaction do an Electron light setup with a 5W bulb, and another with a
5W and a 10W. The Smart Twin and Cateye RC220 are cheaper, but have lead
acid rather than NiMH batteries. Sealed Lead Acid batteries do work alright,
but tend to die if you leave them discharged for any amount of time, whereas
NiMH are much more resiliant. I'd go for the electrons if I were buying
lamps now for the road. 10W + 5W is lots of light.

Chris Hatcher said:

Now it's dark I must get some lights to see with, as approx 2 miles of my 9
mile commute is through a dark country park. I guess I need batteries to
last up to an hour at most, to cover all the journey but approx 10 mins for
the dark bit.

Do I go for rechargeable batteries or replacement type. Have seen loads of
tests and am confused.

What would you users recoomend please.

Many thanks

Chris

Well, I got a set of "Cygolight Night Rover Nicad Extra" rechargeable
lights as a birthday gift, two lamps in one unit, 6W flood, 10W spot, can
run with 6W on it's own giving 6hr runtime, or both the 6W + 10W lamps on
ofor 2hr runtime, or the 10W lamp on for 3 hour or so runtime.

Nicad battery pack, so not as heavy as a sealed lead acid - the
batterypack is bottle shaped so fits in the bike bottle cage.

Approx £65 or so if you shop around.

Quite pleased with mine, the 6W is fine for light roads, switch the 10W on
for unlit roads / trails.

--
Brian

Surprised nobody has mentioned Lumicycle, British made, small, light for the
huge power on offer and only sold direct from manufacturer so no dealer
mark-up. I bought a 10W spot and 20W flood last year after 25 years of
cycling with cheap battery lights. They are unbelievable - the road ahead
is lit up as if by arc light! They're so bright that you'd only need to use
a single head for all road work. Single head run time is in excess of 3
hrs, run both together and you get around an hour and a half. The best bit
is the Intelligent charger which means you never need to worry about
overcharging etc the very expensive nimh battery.

Check out www.lumicycle.co.uk They're to bike lights what Aston Martin are
to cars - sure they're expensive but when you think how important night
lighting is and how long they will last you then the cost is not
unreasonable. Worth it alone for the fact that it's given me far greater
confidence that motorists have seen me at night - I have really noticed a
difference in the speed of recognition of motorists in side roads.

Saxon
"Brian" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Chris Hatcher said:

Now it's dark I must get some lights to see with, as approx 2 miles of

my 9

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

mile commute is through a dark country park. I guess I need batteries

to

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

last up to an hour at most, to cover all the journey but approx 10 mins

for

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the dark bit.

Do I go for rechargeable batteries or replacement type. Have seen loads

of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

tests and am confused.

What would you users recoomend please.

Many thanks

Chris

Well, I got a set of "Cygolight Night Rover Nicad Extra" rechargeable
lights as a birthday gift, two lamps in one unit, 6W flood, 10W spot, can
run with 6W on it's own giving 6hr runtime, or both the 6W + 10W lamps on
ofor 2hr runtime, or the 10W lamp on for 3 hour or so runtime.

Nicad battery pack, so not as heavy as a sealed lead acid - the
batterypack is bottle shaped so fits in the bike bottle cage.

Approx £65 or so if you shop around.

Quite pleased with mine, the 6W is fine for light roads, switch the 10W on
for unlit roads / trails.

--
Brian

Saxon said:

Surprised nobody has mentioned Lumicycle, British made, small, light
for the huge power on offer and only sold direct from manufacturer so
no dealer mark-up.

Because it would be over the top for Chris, who doen't need long run
times. I'm like my Lumi too but I don't think it's ideal for everyone,
largely because of the cost.

~PB

Brian said:

you know? said:

A SON with two lights in series and a shorting switch across one. 6W
gives serious light, and the SON is virtually maintenance free (plus
if you are unexpectedly delayed at work in Spring, your lights will be
ready to go).

Offspring powered lights? ;-)

Seriously, lights in *series*? What if one bulb were to blow? Woops,
there go your lights.

so what, if the secondary light blows you toggle the switch and revert
to 6v, if the primary bulb blows it's no different as with any other
light.

Quoted message said:

I would have imagined lights wired in parallel would be better.

lights at low speeds would be very dim, and you would need some serious
over voltage protection if a bulb would fail

--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl

Brian said:

Seriously, lights in *series*? What if one bulb were to blow? Woops,
there go your lights.

I would have imagined lights wired in parallel would be better.

The reason they're connected in series is that a bicycle dynamo tries to
supply a more-or-less constant current, not a constant voltage.

Put two 6V 3W (0.5A) bulbs in parallel and they'll get 0.25A each, which
will be very dim. Put them in series and they'll both get about 0.5A if
you're going fast enough, so they'll be nice and bright. The total
voltage across them will be nearly 12V, but the dynamo doesn't care - if
you're pedalling hard ;-)

Chris

On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 17:40:15 -0500, Brian
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Seriously, lights in *series*? What if one bulb were to blow? Woops,
there go your lights.

The two lights are in series because the dynamo has a current-limiting
device but no voltage limiting device. If the secondary lamp blows
you throw the shorting switch and the primary comes on. If the
primary lamp blows you fit one of the three spares in the little
plastic box in your bike bag, along with a micro Maglite thoughtfully
provided after a lengthy cursing-and-fumbling session.

So far I have had one lamp fail on the road in something over three
years of everyday bike commuting.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

"Brian" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

you know? said:

A SON with two lights in series and a shorting switch across one. 6W
gives serious light, and the SON is virtually maintenance free (plus
if you are unexpectedly delayed at work in Spring, your lights will be
ready to go).

Offspring powered lights? ;-)

Seriously, lights in *series*? What if one bulb were to blow? Woops,
there go your lights.

I would have imagined lights wired in parallel would be better.

Dynamo is approximately a current-limited device, so provided you're going
fast enough you can run extra stuff in series. Doesn't work in parallel.

Actually one of the great things about having your back light in series with
your front (as mine is) is that you know that the back light is on.

And a traditional mode of failure of dynamo lights in parallel is that when
one blows the other follows in short order!

cheers,
clive

On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:04:15 +0100, Andreas Oehler
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

No. The remaining light will still be working. The zener-diode couple (or
the RMS voltage limiter in the E6/E6-Z) integrated in all modern halogen
headlamps for dynamo use will conduct the current if the bulb fails.

Hey, you're right! I just pulled the lamp out and tried it! It goes
to standlight.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

you know? said:

A SON with two lights in series and a shorting switch across one. 6W
gives serious light, and the SON is virtually maintenance free (plus
if you are unexpectedly delayed at work in Spring, your lights will be
ready to go).

Offspring powered lights? ;-)

Seriously, lights in *series*? What if one bulb were to blow? Woops,
there go your lights.

I would have imagined lights wired in parallel would be better.

--
Brian

Just zis Guy said:

On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 17:40:15 -0500, Brian
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Seriously, lights in *series*? What if one bulb were to blow? Woops,
there go your lights.

The two lights are in series because the dynamo has a current-limiting
device but no voltage limiting device. If the secondary lamp blows
you throw the shorting switch and the primary comes on. If the
primary lamp blows you fit one of the three spares in the little
plastic box in your bike bag, along with a micro Maglite thoughtfully
provided after a lengthy cursing-and-fumbling session.

Wouldn't a shorting switch on the primary lamp and then open the secondary
also work ? This gives a very quick emergency backup if either bulb goes,
giving the option to finish the journey with single lamp, or find a safer
place to pull up and change the bulb.

I have read (ie. don't own a hub dynamo) that some hub dynamos are turned
off (no output and lowest resistance to turning) by shorting across their
entire terminals, thus having a shorting switch across two lamps in series
would simply turn the dynamo to off.

One of these days I'll go over the hub dynamos. The usual night time bike
gets left at the rail station bike rack, and the idea of a £150+ lighting
rig on an hack bike which is left in a place where theft is a risk seems
wrong.

- Nigel

--
NC - Webmaster for http://www.2mm.org.uk/
Replies to newsgroup postings to the newsgroup please.

NC said:

Wouldn't a shorting switch on the primary lamp and then open the secondary
also work ? This gives a very quick emergency backup if either bulb goes,
giving the option to finish the journey with single lamp, or find a safer
place to pull up and change the bulb.

Possibly, but to be honest the chance of failure is low enough that it
really isn't an issue. As Marten said, the Lumotec goes to standlight
plus short if it fails anyway, so a Lumotec oval as lamp 1 and a SON
E6 as lamp 2 looks favourite.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

NC said:

Quoted message said:

Wouldn't a shorting switch on the primary lamp and then open the secondary
also work ? This gives a very quick emergency backup if either bulb goes,
giving the option to finish the journey with single lamp, or find a safer
place to pull up and change the bulb.

don't do this with an E6Z, which has a capacitor fitted to increase
lightoutput at low speeds. The voltage limiter won't be able to cope
with the missing bulb

Quoted message said:

I have read (ie. don't own a hub dynamo) that some hub dynamos are turned
off (no output and lowest resistance to turning) by shorting across their
entire terminals, thus having a shorting switch across two lamps in series
would simply turn the dynamo to off.

This works for those dynamo's which have less resistance when the lights
are switched on (sic). The SON is not one of those 😉

--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl

Quoted message said:

Dynamo is approximately a current-limited device, so provided you're going
fast enough you can run extra stuff in series. Doesn't work in parallel.

If I put a 5W bulb in my B and M front light instead of 2.4W would
that damage anything?
(To save me 2mins trying it out) do you think it would work at a speed
of , say,15mph with a shimano hub dynamo?
I would have a backup light for the steep hills but might appreciate
the extra brightness downhill or on the flat
TerryJ

Terry said:

Quoted message said:

Dynamo is approximately a current-limited device, so provided you're going
fast enough you can run extra stuff in series. Doesn't work in parallel.

If I put a 5W bulb in my B and M front light instead of 2.4W would
that damage anything?
(To save me 2mins trying it out) do you think it would work at a speed
of , say,15mph with a shimano hub dynamo?
I would have a backup light for the steep hills but might appreciate
the extra brightness downhill or on the flat
TerryJ

AFAIK the 5w bulbs don't give very good focus, so are no better than a
6v 3w bulb with the filament in the right position. Converting the
zehner to 12v is another pittfall.
--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl