Is it possible to have a light that's too bright?

rflynnr

Following on from my earlier questions about comparing halogen bulbs with LEDS, I now find myself staring into an abyss (albeit a very well lit one). Dinotte are selling a 400 Lumen front and rear rechargeable package for €275 plus €8 P&P.

Some part of me suspects this is mad money but then, the last set of lights I bought were £200 old money. Truth is, I'm looking for reasons not to buy the thing 'coz I'm on the edge here, mouse-finger poised over the "confirm sale" button.

Thus my question is: is a 400 lumen light really only necessary for night trail riding rather than the purpose I would put it to - i.e. city commuting at night?

AstraMonti

I would assume that your commuting and your need for lights depends on the route you take. Mine is quite lighted all the way so i don't really any big headlight.

kenmc

For that sort of money you would get a couple of Fenixs, some Smart rear lights and a bunch of rechargable batteries.

DirkVoodoo

Have a look at Verb's trek up the mountains recently, he had some nice images of his VERY impressive lighting array.

I think it was listed in one of the spin threads, or you could just turn internet stalker and have a browse through his posts

TinyExplosions

Don't do it!!!!

If you're only commuting, and going around the city, get a Fenix L2D with a lockblock mount for the front, and a Blackburn Mars 3.0 for the rear, and have change left out of 100!

You don't need any more than that for around Dublin IMO, and I've used that combination on the back roads that are unlit in the middle of the night too, it's a great combo

DirkVoodoo

+1 on the blackburn, I got one for my bro and it is incredibly bright. I use two Smart 1/2W LEDs which are insanely bright.

blorg

I would go for a Smart 1/2 watt (or three) over the Blackburn myself. I have seen Tiny's and the Smart is honestly brighter IMHO. Easier to change the batteries too.

For the front even any of the Fenixes are overkill, but a L2D or TK11 would more than do you, depending on the battery solution you want (personally I would go TK11 for the Li-Ion batteries.) The TK11 is 225 lumens on turbo which is enough to dazzle oncoming motorists on unlit roads if you don't dip it.

Gavin

rflynnr wrote: »

Thus my question is: is a 400 lumen light really only necessary for night trail riding rather than the purpose I would put it to - i.e. city commuting at night?

Too bright for a city commute, you'll blind drivers. I've gotten complaints about the L2D on turbo, 180 lumens, so I run it on the high setting, 100 lumens or so for 4 hours.

http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/Bike_lights

tunney

Verb wrote: »

Too bright for a city commute, you'll blind drivers. I've gotten complaints about the L2D on turbo, 180 lumens, so I run it on the high setting, 100 lumens or so for 4 hours.

http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/Bike_lights

I quite enjoy blinding drivers with 960 lumen of MaxxDaddy

Seriously though I reduce mine to a mere 320 (lowest setting) when riding in Dublin.

Signal_ rabbit

I use the Smart rear light and its perfect. I too am thinking of getting a new front light, all my rides are in pitch black so it needs to be good. Seeing as money is a problem someone recommended this. they look quite good and are apparently uber bright!

TinyExplosions

Signal_ rabbit wrote: »

I use the Smart rear light and its perfect. I too am thinking of getting a new front light, all my rides are in pitch black so it needs to be good. Seeing as money is a problem someone recommended this. they look quite good and are apparently uber bright!

For pitch black rides, a Fenix TK11 (or 2) is more than enough. If you're on a very tight budget, I got one of these to try out, and it's a great light for the money -fairly comparable to the TK11 from what I've seen. 55 quid for the light, these batteries, this charger (and adapter) delivered is hard to beat. (the bike mount is another 20 quid or so)

Ghost Rider

Even with my Fenix L2D, the issue of needing to dip your lights starts to arise. I've actually had approaching drivers flash me, and I don't think they were just being friendly!

Verb wrote: »

Too bright for a city commute, you'll blind drivers. I've gotten complaints about the L2D on turbo, 180 lumens, so I run it on the high setting, 100 lumens or so for 4 hours.

http://wiki.boards.ie/wiki/Bike_lights

kenmc

yeah, there's a difference between 'visible' and 'bright'. you can NEVER be too visible. Unfortunately you can be too blindingly bright. Sometimes it's a fine line.

rflynnr

Ok, ok. I've put the safety back on the mouse. A Fenix looms...

tunney

TinyExplosions wrote: »

For pitch black rides, a Fenix TK11 (or 2) is more than enough. If you're on a very tight budget, I got one of these to try out, and it's a great light for the money -fairly comparable to the TK11 from what I've seen. 55 quid for the light, these batteries, this charger (and adapter) delivered is hard to beat. (the bike mount is another 20 quid or so)

Whats the burn time on these?

Gavin

2.5 hours.

edit - sorry I thought you meant the TK11.

1 hour for the MTE Tiny linked to on full. Don't know what the low rating is

TinyExplosions

tunney wrote: »

Whats the burn time on these?

I've got about 4 hours out of the L2D using 2400mAh rechargables from Maplin, and haven't run down the TK11 yet (though I think Blorg got about the same, possibly a bit longer out of the 18650 in his).

I would err on the side of caution and say 3 sets of batteries would last the full hours of winter darkness easily.

Edit: When I say I haven't run down the TK11, I'm only using it once a day for a 10 minute commute atm!

blorg

I got to Tullamore from Dublin before I changed the battery on my TK11, all on turbo, it had dropped to about the same as it normally puts out on standard at that stage, still perfectly usable. That was a bit over 4 hours.

Some graphs here, they reckon 02:47 to 50% on turbo (225 lumen) and 12:44 to 50% on standard (60 lumen.) The supposed rating on my battery is 2,400 rather than their 2,200 mAh.

http://www.light-reviews.com/fenix_tk11/

Civilian_Target

+1 on the Blackburn Mars Backlight. I have one as backup on the back seatpost and people tell me it's more visibile than my main rear light.

Personally, I have http://www.bumm.de/index-e.html as my main light. I recommend it.
It casts 40 Lux (I think that's Lumens per Square Metre, and they don't give the overall lumen rating), and that's enough that I can see where I'm going pretty clearly in the country-side in the dark actually. A rough guess says it's maybe about 60% of the power of a car headlight, on dips, and the light is very well focussed on the road.

Oh, and it doesn't need batteries

The light you want is complete overkill for city riding.

72hundred

TinyExplosions wrote: »

For pitch black rides, a Fenix TK11 (or 2) is more than enough. If you're on a very tight budget, I got one of these to try out, and it's a great light for the money -fairly comparable to the TK11 from what I've seen. 55 quid for the light, these batteries, this charger (and adapter) delivered is hard to beat. (the bike mount is another 20 quid or so)

I got the charger for that but when I put the batteries in nothing lights up.

I used an adapter for the plug that says Hong Kong on it so I thought everything would be sweet and ready to rock, but no joy as of yet.

blorg

Which charger did you get? I have two different Deal Extreme 18650 chargers and both work fine. If you plug the charger do any lights come on?

Lumen

Civilian_Target wrote: »

Personally, I have http://www.bumm.de/index-e.html as my main light. I recommend it.
It casts 40 Lux (I think that's Lumens per Square Metre, and they don't give the overall lumen rating)

Which model? I assume the Ixon IQ, but you linked to the home page :-)

B&M tend to quote lux at 10m.

Overall lumen ratings are a bit pointless in isolation - mostly they just tell you how fast the battery will deplete.

Often the flashlight reviews quote lux at 1m, which is obviously very different. Example: the Dereelight DBS V2 I have on order from HK throws out 29100 lux at 1m, but 285lux at 10m according to this test.

So superficially it's about 7 times brighter than your B&M, except it has a tiny hotspot.

For the ultimate "lux doesn't matter in isolation" demo, check out the Big Bang beamshots on the B&M site.

It "only" puts out 140 lux at 10m, but the HID beam is so wide and controlled that in "useful illumination" terms it kicks the arse of it's LED-based Ixon IQ Speed little brother (rated at 100 lux at 10m):

IXON IQ Speed


Big Bang

72hundred

blorg wrote: »

Which charger did you get? I have two different Deal Extreme 18650 chargers and both work fine. If you plug the charger do any lights come on?

UltraFire Charger WF139

^^^^That's the one I got. Plugged it in there the other day and not a peep out of it no lights at all. It might be the adaptor that's the problem.

blorg

72hundred wrote: »

UltraFire Charger WF139

^^^^That's the one I got. Plugged it in there the other day and not a peep out of it no lights at all. It might be the adaptor that's the problem.

I have that one, lights should come on after you plug it in. It comes with a standard two-prong Euro-plug and a standard radio cord, right? So you should be able to plug it in using any other radio cord in case that was the issue (but I imagine you just got a faulty charger.)

Civilian_Target

Lumen wrote: »

Which model? I assume the Ixon IQ, but you linked to the home page :-)

Nah, I meant the Lumotec http://www.bumm.de/index-e.html?docu/174q-e.htm
I have a dynamo, so I need something dynamo powered.

Oddly, the cast of the light looks nothing like the photo, the faster you go, the further it casts... I am surprised by how much it lights up the road from a 3W dynamo!

Niallface

yeah pulled over by the gardai coming down off three rock wearing a silva head torch i use for night running. It has dip beams because its so bright. the ironic thing was that i got stopped by a garda at a check point the week before for not having any lights.