[Closed] The Lights Arms Race - How Bright Is Too Bright?

My 5 year old Hope HID is too bright

Your life is not dark enough.

its like bhp, you can never have too much

SBZ
I bet you have a car that will do more than 70 mph

i think the answer is why you ride at night. Do you ride at night to ride at night in which case a little less light isn't an issue. Or do you ride at night because you have no choice, your ride at night to train during the winter, in which case more light means you can go faster.

Trout - yes I do, but the lights on it are a bit crap to be honest.

I ride at night because I like riding at night. I don't want to pretend I'm riding during the day. This is one of the reasons I like riding on my own although the main reason is I've got no mates.

SBZ - that's already around almost three times my total lumens and I reckon I'm happy.

Steven - totally agree, night riding makes any trail fun especially when you're not sporting lights that could burn a hole through the fabric of space and time.

I've ridden for years with just a joystick. You make do with what you can afford IMO.

Hope Vision 2 on the bars (wide), Stella on the helmet (spot). Never felt the need for more. Probably around 300lm total.

My homebrew set up is 1650 claimed lumens Its hugely bright.

This argument is shite

so the light on the other thread can be a feeble 224 lumens and run for a week or a savage 3600 lumens and run for an hour with all the combinations in between .

so a light for all situations .it is not compulsary to use the max power

Just devilish fun though 😈

But would it not be lighter if you limited it to say 1800lm?

TandemJeremy - Member
My homebrew set up is 1650 claimed lumens Its hugely bright.

Claimed [i]by you[/i]. I'm not aware that any one person on the regular Wednesday evening rides is out-shining the rest.

Stacking together standard LEDs for more brightness is (relatively) easy.

Building more efficient batteries is the clever bit.

druidh - actually claimed by the manufacturer of the leds. Same as a magicshine is 900 lumen and so on

really output will be around a 1000 I guess.

One cree MCE running at 700ma and 3x Seoul p4s (IIRC) running at 1 amp

Aye - but has anyone actually seen them all running at once?

Yup - you rotten troll you

I shall blind you with my brilliance

I was deffo winning the lumen wars till someone turned up with a troutie

hey, dont start on the batteries 🙂

I do night orienteering with a headtorch with about 600 lumens (yes I know it's well behind the times, but it is 3 or so years old, and that's actually enough given diminishing returns). That's because I like to be competitive. I do really enjoy though going out with a smaller torch which makes it more challenging - one of my most fun events ever was candle orienteering!

I ride at night because I work in the day. If I could ride in the day I would.

Therefore you can't have too much light. If I could strap the sun to my head, I would.

what about those days where's it's really sunny and we all wear sunglasses?

i've got a claimed 900lumen handlebar light, and a claimed 180 head-torch.

it's fine, but a touch more would be welcome.

i've been using my torch for 'candle-light' dual races, we hang our lights in trees, and have a dual competition in the light. this works well, but in this case i'd love LOADS more light, and a big flood-area.

SBZ - the "900 lumen" DX torch, if it's anything like the magicshine light, is only about 550 Lumens.

It's now not about lumens, but beam pattern, colour, battery size/life and formfactor of the light unit.

If riding mates have bright lights you cant see owt but shadows with a low spec light, hence the general light-arms race twixt many riding Krewz.

i always suspected we were approaching car light brightness.

confirmed last night when a car about 50yds in front of me, pointing at me, that had obviously stopped, presumably in order to turn right, across me.... but for some reason wasnt indicating..... turned into two riders side by side

for some years now ive been more interested in increased burn times than more lumens.

More than 900 lumens is unfair to the people riding with you unless you've got the legs to stay at the front all night.
Also, if you're shining too much light on the rider in front or any close objects the glare back will dull your night vision leaving it harder to see detail at the edges of your beam.

If I've just finished a 9 hour shift at work and I'm riding home along the river bank or canal tow path at 2am, I'm not looking for a challenge and I'm not bothered about whether it dazzles other riders, because there aren't any.
I just want to stay out of the water.
The brighter the better.

Well ives just recieved [url= http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CREE-Led-500-Lm-Rechargeable-K8-Flashlight-Torch-Lamp-/170514821794?pt=UK_SportsLeisure_Camping_LightsLanternsTorches&hash=item27b379b2a2 ]this[/url]and I think thats bright enough for me

Efficient batteries? For £20, you can get 75 Watt-hour LiPo batteries from eBay which weigh 540g, how much more efficient do you want?

Do you really believe that is correct. DrRad

It's just getting a bit silly now is it not? I have a [s]1200lm Maxx-d and a 900lm DX torch for my helmet. I never run either on full because they are just too bright for me.[/s] 65mm front sus bike - why would I need more or that pointless new fangled full sus contraption

It's just getting a bit silly now is it not? I have [s]a 1200lm Maxx-d and a 900lm DX torch for my helmet. I never run either on full because they are just too bright for me.[/s] cantis that work perfectly well when set up properly and riding in the dry. Why would I ever need expensive, heavy hydraulic brakes?

Comparable arguments from a long time ago?

I reckon ChrisWilk is onto the right path.

imo, 200 - 2000 lumens, multiple output levels is about right.

In the future we may not need more than 2000 lumens, but having fewer LEDs is an obvious advantage.

But, its all abit academic at the mo, until the Optics companies produce some useful stuff, which I'm sure they will.

L.

I find that about 1000 lumens scares the living shite out of doggers.

[i]I find that about 1000 lumens scares the living shite out of doggers[/i]
😆

This is a theoretical 1480 lumens from one of my two bar lights from last years system (I ran another 900 on the helmet). I'll be tweaking it with another 500 lumens in the next couple of weeks:

[img] [/img]

Photo was taken at ISO: 100, Exposure: 6.0 sec, Aperture: 4.0.

It looks to me not far off a sunny day in the centre but it's a 6s exposure. To get a light level that really is similar with a bright sunny day (using the sunny 16 rule) I'd want the exposure to be more like 1/1600s not 6s So I'd want 9600x more light. Call it 14 Million lumens. I guess I don't want to wear sunglasses though, so call it 10 million (any more is too much).

There's the whole "theoretical vs actual output" lumens argument too: I've got a 200l Dinotte that kicks out a nicer patch of light than my 760lm Exposure doo-dah.

However, neither of them, or even both of them run together, are powerful enough to scare away all the monsters. So I'd be fine with brighter lights 🙂

My 12000 Lumen monster is under development (12 x XM LEDs fan cooled)

Should be ready to ride in a week or so 😀

DAEDCU.

Keep us posted.
😉

OK then

[img] [/img]

LEDs will be arranged as 3 sets of 4 running off a 14.4V Li ion pack.

You'll be visible from space.
😀

You'll be visible from space.

I'll be the first cyclist to be convicted of endangering aircraft. Either that or starting grass fires 😆

I cannot wait for the beam shots

That is so ridiculous as to be absurd

I cannot wait for the beam shots

Sadly my camera only does 1 sec max exposure so probably wouldn't look as bright as the photo on the previous page. I'll do a comparison though using my old Lumi halide system.

That is so ridiculous as to be absurd

Well the 12000 Lm would only last an hour (it is 100 Watts after all). I reality most of my ride will be 3000 Lm for 4 hours with a wide oval shaped beam plus a semi-spot.

Can anyone recommend a source for wire, to connect up battery packs both internally and out to the light? I'd normal have a poke around a Maplin or something but there are a real dearth of hobbyist electronics shops around here, so it's pot luck on sizes and the like.

CPC normally have everything. They are owned by Farnell who in turn stock everything imaginable. Although Farnell are trade orientated, it is quite easy to order on a credit card. Same for RS components.

What the hell is SBZ - Daily Mail meant to mean?

12000lm is absurd, but I can see why someone would do it just for a laugh.

I've a bastid, which is nice, but I could quite happily have 2 on the bars (could do with a 2nd one with more flood and less spot but with the same beam angle, and one on my lid with slightly less of the peripheral beam.

Hope Vision 4 on the bars and Hope Vision 2 on my helmet and I was verbally abused by white van man on my commute home last night (might have been in jest but I wasn't hanging around to find out). Well, I thought, had the desired effect then, he saw me coming !!

How many Lumens do you need to scare away the "undergrowth Demons".

They are there you know!

well at 4000 lumens you can set fire to things!

Problem is - if you are out with medium strength lights - then when someone with a 2000-3000 lumen rig comes up behind you - you are suddenly find yourself cycling into an dark area in the relative eclipse you have made. 😥

I think there should be some restraint shown.

I am with MRMO

i think the answer is why you ride at night. Do you ride at night to ride at night in which case a little less light isn't an issue. Or do you ride at night because you have no choice, your ride at night to train during the winter, in which case more light means you can go faster.

...with 3-kids I do most of my riding at night, over the hills and in the woods locally, therefore good (bright) lights equals more speed equals more fun!

I recently changed my c1800 lumen HID for an 1700lumen (approx) Troute Liberator 3.0. I have more than enough light now for my purposes and through the Liberator now have a controllable light with up to 12-hrs from the battery (my HID would give 2.5hrs tops).

I like Troute’s new prototype, pushing boundaries – but I doubt I’ll personally ever look for more than 2000 lumens – my focus is on battery life and durability.

I would love a light to be that bright. If it has a few modes, say 1-5 in intensity then it's up to the rider to select the appropriate brightness.

That sort of light would be awesome for fast riding at night and also for lighting up areas to session bit of the trail.

Good work, show us the results!

I've got a 900 lumen toro2, its more than enough for night riding. I prefer a balance between size of unit/light than all out power.

Sadly my camera only does 1 sec max exposure so probably wouldn't look as bright as the photo on the previous page.