Brent Hugh said:[email hidden] (Fritz M) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:(Steven Scharf) said:though a better option is one of the Lightman bicycle
Xenon strobes, also designed for bicycles:
My newest toy is an amber Lightman xenon strobe. When I received it
I
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:immediately turned it on and was stunned by its brightness.
I did a conspicuity test Friday night. I have two Vistalite "Super
Nebula" 5 LED lights mounted side by side on the back of my rear
rack,
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:. . .
From very close up (i.e. less than 6 feet away and outside of my
vehicle), the xenon is almost blindingly bright compared to the red
LEDs. As I moved further from the back of the bike, however, the
difference became much less apparent. I don't know if it's the
inverse
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:cube law kicking in or what, but the LEDs seemed in my subjective
judgement to be just as attention getting as the strobe, especially
from several car lengths away. . . .I did a similar test on my bike with similar results. I found that 2
Lightman strobes about perceptually equal to one red LED blinky light
set on "fast strobe".My red LED was a basic "Bell" 5-led red rear light (the older
model--you can't seem to buy these any more).The strobe was a bit brighter to the side, but it was surprisingly
small.It took two Lightman strobes to equal one LED light because the
strobes have such a long cycle. The blinky light is going about 4x
per second while each strobe goes about 1x or 2x per second (and
slows
Quoted message said:as the batteries die).
I don't have the Lightman strobe, but the flash rate on my 12V strobe
is 120 flashes per minute. I don't ever let the power source get run
down to a level where the flash rate decreases.
I see that the Lightman AA powered strobe is only 83 per minute on
fresh batteries, and the xenon strobes flash at a slower and slower
rate as the batteries are depleted (as a camera flash takes longer and
longer to charge up as the batteries get weaker).