Anyone tried any of these eBay bike lights?

LIGHT LINK

I know there is the ‘you get what you pay for argument’ but there is the argument that lights and LED’s are simple pieces of kit and shouldn’t cost hundreds of quid!

Anyone have experience. I won’t be riding in the rain at night…

Cheers

Angus

All you need to know is that the Lumen claims are impossible, the batteries are recycled from laptops, and the chargers are illegal to sell in the UK.

Otherwise enough light to ride with as long as you have a backup when it goes out half way through the ride.

Yep , I have one of the 5000 lumen type with rechargeable battery pack , Ive used for almost 9 months now in bad rain ,snow ect and its held up well , very bright on the 3rd setting but only really use it on the first for commuting reasons I don’t fancy blinding oncoming cars ect , I doubt its 5000 lumens to be fair though ,but for the £16 I paid for it its lasted well ,

Up at the top end of the cheap lights there’s some great kit, the high end magicshines frinstance come with a proper charger and mine have both proved more reliable than many “proper” lights. I’m not current with this year’s crop (because I’ve no reason to replace my 3 year old MJ872s) but there’ll be gems and there’ll be turds.

I haven’t opened the packs to look at the battery source; tbf I don’t care much, the packs work fine too. If I was building my own pack I’d use recycled samsung 18650s anyway so it’d be churlish to complain 😉

With the cheapies, yep, chargers are worryingly crap and batteries are less dependable. And frankly it’s uneconomic to upgrade a lot of the time, by the time you buy a battery or a box and anew charger you’ve spent almost as much as a decent light

Got a couple of the older twin led models and they’ve been great. Battery lasts well, charger charges and the light gives plenty of light. Bargain light, what’s not too like. No need to spend more IMO. There are a few duff ones as quality control isn’t fantastic but with eBay you get decent protection, send it back and try again.

Got the 1st one last week
Light seems good, well built, full metal construction, brighter and a good beam pattern than my old Niterider MiNewts or any of the other cheap lights I’ve had before, not the advertised lumens though I would suspect
Battery looks cheap, and isn’t completely coated in plastic so not overly waterproof. I will only be charging it during the day, at work and will probably get a replacement battery from MTBbatteries pretty soon
Came with UK charger, arrived in around a week

The free rear light was stupid bright with lots of flashing patterns, but the cheap seatpost bracket snapped immediately, and I don’t fancy the lights chances of surviving a rear wheels worth of spray (will probably clip it to my bag)

For £18 though if it lasts a winter or two I’ll be happy and at £60 with a proper replacement battery it’ll be heads and shoulders above lights that cost 2-3 times as much

I think the quality of even the same looking light units can vary greatly though, as with everything on ebay that originates in the Far East pick your seller carefully

I’ve got this one…

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2000LM-CREE-XML-XM-L-T6-LED-Bike-Bicycle-Head-Light-HeadLamp-Camping-UK-52-/141677713488?hash=item20fca65850

Just been for a pootle round the local woods and it was up to the job, had it about three years and it’s still OK. For the money they are almost disposable.

I’ve got a magi shine. Had 3 two packed up just susuddenly. Battery would die with no warning. My third is still OK but is on a hair trigger if it wants to work . It’s a good backup for my me nix bt20 which I paid 70 quid for. You can get em for 50 on flea bay and they are reliable. Depending on where you ride you may NEED reliable. I uses to xc through woods and needed reliability. Also caird two spares and a helmet flashlight. Pd35 850 lumens.

The general consensus is that the lamp units are all ok, the batteries and chargers are dangerously bad.

That third one down, I have one. However I already had decent batteries (mtbbatteries.co.uk) so I knew I could bin the crappy one it came with and its charger. It’s well machined out of alloy, and looks a lot more expensive than £17. However, the beam is a pretty tight spot.

I bought it initially for helmet use, so I wanted a spot, but it was very tight indeed. So I set about trying to modify it. Lenses in the right size are hard to get, so in the end I tried a round piece cut from one of those credit card magnifier type Fresnel lenses. This had the desired effect, created a wider beam, with a slight hole in the middle. Problem was though that this extra diffusion reduced the penetration a fair bit. The beam didn’t thrown down the road as far, and I couldn’t pick trail features out in the distance. So perhaps the original lens is ok after all 🙂 I’ve ended up cutting a hole in the middle of the fresnel diffusor, so it’s about a 6-7mm ring, this now looks to be pretty decent.

Incidentally a diffusor is available on ebay but it widens the beam into a letterbox, which looks like it’d be ridiculous but once you get it pointed right is actually excellent for road use. At this price I think I might buy another to fit the letterbox lens to permanently, to save swapping over.

As for lamp reliability – well I ride with two separate systems, one for bar and one for head, either of which is more than enough to get me out of the woods and home.

Great thanks for all the advice, I’ll give one a shot and see how it goes.

Ill be trying out 2 cheap sets tomorrow out of a total of 3 different setups I recently got. One tiny but massively bright 2 (T6 U2) led setup on a helmet mount and a similar but slightly larger set on a bodged up (for now) handlebar mount.

Trying out indoors and in garden they throw a LOT of light out and light time is pretty good. Helmet light is for the faster of road parts.

Still a tiny front blinking LED on handlebars for the road as even on the dim setting these things would be a hazard to another road user potentially. Particularly the helmet mount if you forgot and looked at the oncoming car…

The chargers are indeed sketchy. I have 3 sets in total bought to just try out and mess around with. One charger is ok, on poor and one has the alleged CE label poorly printed on a bit of paper thats just peeling off. lol

Would never leave in the house on charge unattended and would ideally charge in a garage or such really. If I start using them a bit I will be changing charger and possibly batteries at some point.

Will try and take some pics of the units and the light spread tomorrow, though the latter is useless really as it all depends on the camera setup as much as the lights.

Poopscoop – would love to know how you got on and some links to the ones you bought! Cheers

sluff – Member
but there is the argument that lights and LED’s are simple pieces of kit and shouldn’t cost hundreds of quid!

There’s a world of difference though between the basic elements of a light (i.e. some stock Cree LEDs and a battery in a simple case), and lights and battery that have excellent projection / spread or focus, genuine lumens, durability, solid construction, flexible mounting options, mounts that won’t snap, weather proofing, good driver board with ability to adjust for ambient temperature & overheating, multiple modes, ramp down when the battery is getting low so you can get home without it just cutting out, protection against batteries exploding from short circuits if they are damaged, under and over charge protection in the battery and charger, reliable charger, batteries that aren’t knackered recycled laptop batteries, batteries that aren’t poorly put together and have no safety or are downright dangerous (same with chargers)…

… and I could go on 😉

Yes, you get what you pay for. That doesn’t mean a £20 ebay light won’t work fine for your needs. There’s certainly no need to spend hundreds. Though there is a definite difference.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10000LM-7x-CREE-XML-XML-R8-LED-Cycling-Bicycle-Bike-Light-Lamp-12000mAh-Charger-/201434202353?hash=item2ee66a00f1

PMSL 😆 10,000 Lumens! 😆

Edit:
Sorry, can’t figure out how to post a flickr image from mobile will sorry later from pc.