Running a hope 4 led on the bars – budget up to £150 for the helmet light.

Narrowed it down to:
– hope 2 led
– exposure mk5 joystick
– exposure diablo (bit too expensive really, plus how usable is the 900 lumen when it’s only for an hour runtime!)
– Ay up single

Love the idea of no cables so exposure and Ay up look good, hope looks a faff unless you have a spare helmet to mount and leave it on all the time. Run time on joystick and Ay up look good.

But is the joystick going to be bright enough or will it just get overpowered by the 4 led, while the Ay up is more powerful but I can get the joystick quite a bit cheaper.

Options, options, options ………..

I’m now using a Diablo on half power its plenty powerfull and that lasts three hours, you can always buy a piggyback for £35 to give you another few hours, its just great having no batteries to connect up

Mate of mine had just got the Joystick. For it’s size it’s bright and focuses into a fairly tight beam. It looks to be a good option to go alongside some bar mounted lights.
The main benefits for me would be that it’s so lightweight and compact. Also handy as a torch if you are camping or walking the dog.
Pretty sure my mate said for £35 you can get a piggy back battery that will double the run time to 6hrs on high.

I’ve got the Spokeshirts version of the DX light and it’s quite a bit brighter than the Joystick. It has a wider beam spread too so probably more usable as a stand-alone light.
3hrs on full and 9 on low, but it’s bulkier, heavier and has a separate battery that I stick in my rucsack (and forget about everytime I take it off.

Niterider do a similar light to the Joystick that might be worth considering – an all-in-one style thing. They do a commuter one & a more powerful version although I am not sure how it stacks up against the Exposure.

Currently running an exposure Maxx D on the bars (1200 lumen) and a joystick on the helmet (240 lumen). The addition of a helmet light in my case is purely for a bit of extra peripheral light. Looking ahead through the next turn etc areas where the bars mounted light is not pointing. The joystick will be more than plenty for this task…

If you have the budget I would also recommend the joystick, I think it’s the best secondary helmet light, but not cheap by any means.

(I have similar set up as CrombieCraig, except the older 900lm version of the MaxxD; I must admit that the wide MaxxD beam pattern makes a helmet light almost superfluous)

I think that’s whats putting me of the diablo that to use the full power you really need the extra battery, otherwise on medium its just a joystick.

Joystick and lack of cables is always a good thing, but for a similar cost the single Ay-up has more power, similar run time, yes it has cables but battery is small and light enough for it all to be on the helmet with a great mount. Just I’ve never used Ay up before, and I have used exposure and hope. Was there not warranty problems with Ay up at one point??

The joystick just seems low on power these days with the lumen explosion…….

Several of my mates have ayups, and they seem all very happy; iirc, the problem is that there is currently no UK distributor, so warranty and parts has to go to Oz.

The joystick is not low on power, if what you are looking for is a secondary light to help you around tight corners and such (which considering your main light, I think you are). I find the no wires, and the fact that you will not notice when it’s on the helmet nice features.

There’s a UK distributor again, isn’t there (Ayup)

http://www.uk.ayup-lights.com/products/categories/

I have the Ayups and also a Joystick and although the Joystick is ace from a weight and setup point of view, the Ayups leave it for dead.

Also, i always get more than 3 hours from the small battery on the Ayups whereas i have never gotten 3 hrs from the Joystick. In fact the Joystick arrived back to me from Exposure on Saturday after being sent back for a second time to be sorted again. Despite being rarely used and only 3 yrs old the runtime had reduced to 45mins on the highest setting which is the only one worth using. To be fair they fixed it without charging me but they had it 6 weeks and never contacted me once with any updates.

Finally, the Ayups now have the ability to be made more powerful with an upgrade via Ayup themselves – details are on the website and i think i shall be upgrading mine, only downside is that they need to go back to Oz. Upgrade seems fairly cheap though.

this
http://www.cycle-world.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b95s37p3564
simples

The joystick does seem to have a lot of fans, there has to be a reason.

Yep, def a secondary light for twisty singletrack.

I def think for me the perfect helmet light would be a diablo with 2 led rather and 3. So you’ll get 500 odd lumens and a 2 hour run time on full all in the ‘joystick’ sized package. But it doesn’t exist…..yet

Well I think that it’s down to the Ay up or the mk5 joystick. Think price will seal it though £148 for the Ay up verses £115 for the joystick.

Think the Ay up will be brighter but by how much I’m not sure now. Ay up use 2 xp-e LEDs so about 400 lumens and the exposure is 1 xp-g so around 300 lumens. I think that’s right as I’m not aware that the Ay up use xp-g’s yet even on the upgrade is to make them the same as the current xp-e model.

I use a Fenix and it is really good.
Fenix

I recently changed from a joystick to a diablo and yes the drop in run time was an issue but then I only use it on bright for tech descents/sections not on all the time so hasn’t been an issue so far and the extra lumens is great in overcoming the uber brightness of bar lights and glare from fellow riders.

shop around you may get a diablo for j/stick money.

plus diablo comes with a bar mount so you can use it if your Hope fails for what ever reason as a main light 😉

I’ll second what Valleydaddy says. I bought a Diablo for joystick money from Rutland last year (I ordered the previous model and it wasn’t available so they sent the new one at the old price). Handy running on high when you need it and then on lower setting for the rest. I later shelled out for a single piggyback battery, but can’t say I need it on my regular route (mainly got it if I broke down and wanted it on high for doing repairs!). Don’t notice the weight of both on helmet either. It’s pricey but very good.