I have been looking at the budget end of mid / high power lights (Chinese stuff on the bay / amazon etc) and just can’t seem to make sense of what you can get for your money. I am thinking of having a foray into night riding, on the local loop nothing epic but the pricing on appropriate lights seems all over the place such as this for example (2400 lumens for £55, way more light than I was thinking of):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/eLifeStore%C2%AE-HeadLamp-HeadLight-Waterproof-Rechargeable/dp/B007W96KA6/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1347435144&sr=8-15

So anyone with any experience of these or similar? Am I wasting my time on Chinese tat or are there genuine bargains out there?

Massively impressed with my magic shine mj872 can be had for about £80

Following on from abductees post on another thread I’m tempted by £23 cheap Chinese light on Ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230825016348

Cant justify spending a lot as it will only get occasional use, should I get the night riding bug however I’m guessing I will need to upgrade to something better but time will tell.

What kind of budget are you thinking about?

Smudge at mtbbatteries has a very nice looking light at £89

ninja has a glow worm light that looks nice too, but i can’t find his site or a price.

I’ve a DX light, it was £28 delivered, 900 lumens, 3 modes, 3hrs run time and has lasted 2 years (10-20 uses only though)

Its been fine but gets red hot during use, and the stories about overheating batteries etc scare me enough to not mount it on my helmet. Also this year at SITS the lamp came loose twice from the mounting bracket forcving a mid lap repair or two.

I too want something more trustworthy with a prereq of 2 x SITS laps or 3-4 hours burn time same lumens, without carrying a spare battery – and after my Hope R4 thread last night my conclusion is either:

a) A Hope R4 standard, nearly 4 hours £200
b) Asking Smudge to supply a battery which will get his X2 to 4hrs, and pay the £89 plus whatever to do so which I think will come in less than the R4.

Depends how much light you want – I notice that eighteenbikes have a couple of 300 / 500 lumen lamps on sale for instance.

Rusty, I have no idea how much use this thing will gets so was guessing up to £50 but I have an open mind.

If a £60 light is in a different league to a £30 light I would consider it. Ideally though I am looking for someone to say ‘I have this light at £30/£40/£50 purchased from x/y/z and its ace’.

uwe-r – I think generally you pay for what you get. DX lights are cheap becuase they use cheaper labour in China and they come to the UK under the HMRC radar.

They have hit and miss quality though, and there’s no customer support.

I find it hard to spend £100 on what is effectively the same light I have, but I understand why…. you just have to accept it. I’d go for Smudge at mtbbatteries if I were you – better than magicshine, same prices and an excellent reputation. Unless you want to venture of over £100.

I would have happily paid £50 to avoid my DX light falling off my bar on muddy SITS lap (twice).

I ordered one of those Chinese jobbies 2 weeks ago.
It looks good, but I can’t really comment as it still hasn’t arrived.

Have a look at c and b seen. The 1200 lumen job is brilliant.

I’d go for Smudge at mtbbatteries if I were you – better than magicshine,

I’d like to see some evidence to support that.

My Magicshine MJ-872 is an excellent bit of kit, bought from a uk seller for £80 quid or so.

Fair point mlucas, I’m going solely on feedback of both I’ve seen on here.

After a crap ride last night where my £30 Cree xm-l cut out twice I’ve ordered a Gloworm X2 with the 20quid off voucher.
Use code GLOWORM20 at http://www.crgmoto.co.uk – Ends midnight 15th Sept

Rich tea, would that be the £150 set with £20 off? A bit out of my league.

Kryton.

Might be worth considering a Model 401. The 4 cell version should give 1000 lumens for just under 4 hrs. As opposed to the ~630 lumens from the R4.

Mail me if you want to know more.

EDIT:
Another thumbs up here for Smudge at MTBBatteries too, good service, UK based.

Love my ultrafire 1300 lumens torch plus a cheap clamp to fix it to the bars. There’s a thread on here somewhere about them but I can’t find it. Torch + 2 lithium batteries+ charger + clamp was less than 30 quid.

I’d like to see some evidence to support that.

I can vouch for the excellent customer service and the high standard of battery cells Smudges supplies, which goes along with his excellent knowledge and experience with batteries. 🙂

Smudge has supplied my batteries and chargers for years and its always been top service and product.

Massively impressed with my magic shine mj872 can be had for about £80

+1 here

Got mine off ebay with a battery upgarde. Fitted the light unit with an £8 Hope bar QR and it is bloody brilliant. It’s like the sun coming up when you switch it on and I’ve struggled to actually run it right down as it automatically drops down a setting as the battery runs out.

I have bought and owned a few of the chinese Cree XM-L torches/lamps.

They work fine; the only problems are;

Battery life isn’t earth-shattering (cheap packs).
Battery packs aren’t always interchangable, some packs and lamps have different mid-way male-female connectors.

Oh, and the Magicshines are simply more expensive versions of the same (having owned both also)

Anyone know when Smudge’s new light goes on sale, and the expected price?

http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/news/

+1 smudge/mtbbatteries

UK based, brilliant to deal with when I ordered the wrong replacement battery for my hope light.

I bought one of the cheap (£35) cree ones last year and think it’s fantastic for the mooney. not sure how long it’ll last but for a first blast to see if you like night riding you can’t go wrong.

I was out with my mates at stainburn last winter and they had both bought magicshines. the only reall diffence apart from no of functions was that theirs had a sligtly bigger flood than mine. mine was a bit more direct, but theirs were £50 more than mine so i’m not too fussed.

Ordered another cheapy XML the other night under £20 now, rude not to IMO:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300677445326?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

The previous one (1Yr old) is still going strong but the charger has recently gone pop, might as well have a 2nd light/battery for not much more than the price of a charger.

Still got an old DX P7 Bastid which is still going ~3 years on but I did have to solder a new switch in after about 18 months…

And a DX P7 (1 x 18650) Torch which hasn’t missed a beat, use it on the helmet or the bars but burn time is relatively short…

I can vouch for the excellent customer service and the high standard of battery cells Smudges supplies, which goes along with his excellent knowledge and experience with batteries.

Smudge has supplied my batteries and chargers for years and its always been top service and product.

I don’t doubt what you are saying at all, i think the point I was trying to make is that there are also other excellent units available for similar cost. Personally I would take an MJ-872 over the single LED T6 unit he sells, even if that means that the quality of service is not as good.

Oh, and the Magicshines are simply more expensive versions of the same (having owned both also)

Granted, the magicshine mj-808s look almost identical to the generic DX Cree XM-L T6 stuff, but the MJ-872s certainly are not. The quality of the light output is significantly better.

I just got one of these as I already have a charger, helmet mount and batteries. It is dead bright.
http://www.lightmalls.com/ultrafire-501b-cree-xml-u2-1300-lumen-5-mode-led-flashlight-1-18650/

I also got one of these and it is a bit bigger than I thought (Like two cut down torches) and the clap is a bit Victorian
http://www.lightmalls.com/ultrafire-uf-22b-2-cree-xm-l-t6-1500-lumen-3-mode-led-bicyclelight-headlight-with-4-18650-battery-pack-and-charger

I was expecting something smaller to go on my lid but as a bar light it is fine. The torch is nice and small for my lid.

Already got a troutie for the bars.

I get the impression that the cheap ass Cree / DX stuff widely available is as you would expected very capable but of questionable quality / durability. For my limited use it would appear well worth a punt.

The pricing just seems to be all over the place so I will see what I can find.

Granted, the magicshine mj-808s look almost identical to the generic DX Cree XM-L T6 stuff, but the MJ-872s certainly are not. The quality of the light output is significantly better.

And four times as expensive. But yes, I was thinking of the 808’s.

uwe-r – Member
I get the impression that the cheap ass Cree / DX stuff widely available is as you would expected very capable but of questionable quality / durability. For my limited use it would appear well worth a punt.

This is exactly where my head was at 2 years ago. I spent £28 and have got thorough several events and night rides with no issues until recently (which actually some threadlock may cure).

My situation now is no2 child on the way this month which means snatching a ride here and there this winter. I don’t want to be stuck in the dark woods pre/post work ride without a light so am just looking for reliablity. PLus I now know I can enjoying dawn/night riding and it hasn’t cost be a fortune to discover that.

FWIW I can also road ride on the medium setting too.

I’m sure someone will be along to pitch in the standard “Buy Cheap Buy twice” line and they would be right of course; the Cheapy far eastern XML and P7 lights don’t last forever and you’d be well advised to make the odd modification straight away to prevent the British weather killing them in minutes rather than months, but considering their actual price the logic is more like more like “Buy cheap, buy four or five before you’re even close to the price of a Hope, Exposure, etc…”

And there is something to be said for being able to get out and riding in the dark for ~£25 Vs ~£150-200, If you’re concerned and want to be certain you won’t be let down by them say in the middle of a 24Hr race then I’d say buy 2 or 3, a bit of redundancy can’t hurt…

You pays your money you makes your choice…

Those mtbbatteries lights look freekin awesome maaaaan

Had a quick google over lunch and if i was looking at light in the sub £50 price bracket this looks like a nice option

http://www.colorapples.com/cree-xpg-r5-1000lm-3led-3mode-white-bike-light-with-mount-bracket-and-battery-pack-4-x-18650-p-137223.html

I can not vouch for reliability or build quality but from the pictures it looks a nice neat little light. Based on XP-G Led’s which generally have a good spread of light (the newer XML’s although brighter can have a nasty hotspot if a cheap reflector is used) and seem to be being run a reasonable current to produce the stated output.
I’d say the £30 would be worth a punt.

If I had bought my 872s when I first started night riding I would have saved a fortune. Buy a good one now as you are only wasting money upgrading later on.
My collection of £30 lights are nowhere near as good as my 872.

What do you do with the 2 pin ting tong charger ??

worldwide to UK adapter??

Just buy a shaver 3 pin adapter plug – they take a 2 pin like on the Chinese chargers.

Is it any bloody wonder UK industry is going down the tubes when the very people with the disposable income to actually support it choose to hand their cash over to Chinese importers who almost certainly dodge taxes and probably stole the IP to the LEDs in the first place?

Buy Hope, get a good light, excellent support, and relax knowing that it’s not been assembled by a 12 year old working for pennies a day in toxic conditions.

Buy Hope, get a good light, excellent support, and relax knowing that it’s not been assembled by a 12 year old working for pennies a day in toxic conditions.

Smudge is 12 and Lichfield is toxic? 😉

so when are those mtbbatteries lights out?

Flaperon – Member
Is it any bloody wonder UK industry is going down the tubes when the very people with the disposable income…

Assumptive…

Oh, come on – if you have money to spend on bikes and lights and you consider them the same importance as food and a roof over your head you’re sadly misguided.

And I don’t mean smudge or MTB batteries.