After reading this http://www.trailscotland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9462 I think I might pay a little more for some premium lights. Anyone had a bad experience with the cheap Chinese lights?

In fairness, that’s the batteries -not the light.

Just buy a chinese head unit and decent UK sourced batteries and charger and you’re laughing.

My solarstorm light is still going strong after two winters.

I recently bought two lights from MapDec, which appear identical to the mtb batteries ones. So a sort of middle ground I guess, in that they’re from Hong Kong, but bought from UK supplier. Christmas present for the wife so not used yet.

Them cheap solarstorm lights are brilliant and an absolute bargain – just bin the battery and charger that come with it and buy a decent one, and you’re away.

there was a thread on this recently. Bit scary.

For the sake of riding along unlit towpaths etc, I picked up a Cateye Volt 300 for £35 which does the trick just fine, i charge it up at work from my computer’s USB socket, no stress. Would recommend it for that level of riding, any day.

I’ve tried all sorts with varying degrees of nearly being run over. Currently running Exposure Trace and Tracer and not an incident.

2 solar storms here one on the bar one on the lid. One 2 yr old one 18 month. Both on original batteries and chargers. No one has burnt to death yet but I don’t leave them unattended whilst charging and max night ride for me is 2hrs tops.

Just got a mapdec k200 I think about £80 very pleased with it and paul was very helpful to deal with. Will look there first if I need a new light for helmet

I have two, one charger blew up in the car whilst charging through an inverter whilst driving up the A9 – that was quite scary. Changed to a uk sourced charger and everything fine now for most of last year and this so far.

The secret is to pay a little more for something similar but more reliable, rather than a lot more for “premium”. One source has already been mentioned on here, which is where I’d probably buy from now (I won’t mention where I did get mine as Paul’s a mate 😉 )

I got some Magicshine lights imported for £46 and they were brilliant, never had an issue! I’ve just upgraded to a new Exposure Race and Joystick as I’m riding a lot more at night. I’d say it all depends on how much you plan to use them, don’t brake the bank on expensive lights if they only come out once a month.

I’ve found my Chinese torches hit and miss. 2 out of 4 have had issues with intermittently cutting out. One doesn’t work at all now. As such, I never go out without a backup. But when you can get that amount of light for under a tenner I can live with the downsides.

I also changed my charger. First one got pretty hot, and I wasn’t too comfortable with it. A bit of research and I found myself with something that ran a lot cooler and is supposedly a fair bit safer.

Buy a head unit then buy a Solarstorm battery box and whatever batteries take your fancy.

You shouldn’t need a charger as they can be charged in the battery box via USB cable.

Kaidomain have the new USB battery boxes in stock.

Batteries *and* charger from a reputable UK source.

Never charge unattended.

Get a lipo charging bag or charge somewhere with non flammable furniture/surfaces, and in the house… working smoke alarm!

Google the incidents of exploding batteries.

Job done.

The light, wherever you like. There is a bit of you get what you pay for. The basic LEDs inside are mostly all Cree and same Chinese or UK sourced (except the fake ones 😉 ). The difference is in the build quality, the driver board (and how it adapts to battery level & temperature… or not), settings available, ease of use, mount options & flexibility, weather proofing, along with the lens and reflector quality which make a huge difference in the actual brightness and spread or focus (depending if you want spread or spot. Cheap lights may not give you an option).

Finally… ignore quoted lumens.

Cheap torches here… more than 4 years, no issues. Latest generation XM-L2 501b cost me £7.50 each, powered by cells liberated from old laptops. I’ve a £5 charger running on a mechanical timer (3hrs on, 1hr rest, 3 hrs on) inside a LIPO bag. Marvellous.

Are you sure that you’ve got enough lights there Bart???

Any links to a reputable UK source for battery/charger then? I have been looking at c and b seen, are these safer despite still being imports?

It seems like some people are buying the absolute cheapest, nastiest options out there then if anything is wrong with it go ZOMFG CHINESE LIGHTS SUCK. I got a Solarstorm to try and I never risked the charger, it went right in the bin.

If you buy even one rung off the bottom of the ladder, you can get away from a lot of that, there’s a lot of room between a £10 ebay special and a “proper” bike light. Frinstance my slightly pricier Magicshines came with a high quality charger and a decent battery.

Torchy the Battery Boy sells Fluxient battery packs which seem decent. Don’t know about chargers, never needed one!

(but tbh I’m not sure how much point there is to buying a super-cheap light then stumping up extra for a battery and charger, when you could get a better light in the first place, for not much more?)

The Solar storm XT40 comes with a battery case to which you add your own batteries. Best of both worlds.

The majority of people seem so recommend “cheap” bike lights. I’m surprised people are prepared to take such risks!

The stories of lights bursting into flames when charging is seriously concerning.

I’ve seen people turn up to night rides then have to put there bike back in the car when there lights haven’t charged, despite only just charging them up.

I’ve witnessed peoples bargain lights failing mid ride. People having to change batteries 90min into a ride. I caught one mate recommending his bargain ebay lights whilst the cable seemed to be attached to his light only by electrical tape, and another part had split exposing the internal wire.

I’m sure a lot of people have had success with their bargain lights, but I’m not prepared to risk a ride being ruined (or worse!)

People having to change batteries 90min into a ride.

The horror 😮

I run a solarstorm with a battery box from puresytems and quality panasonic batteries with a ce marked Uk battery charger. Never had any issues.

I run a hope light, which I guess you’d call Premium, and it failed once mid-rid. Got sorted really quick by their warranty-bods and has been fine since. I don’t think I’d ever go for something like that picture above with the roasting tin, I wouldn’t sleep!!
RM.

right on cue:

My cheap lights have been good for the money, batteries don’t last as long after a couple of seasons but that’s about it.

To be honest I wouldn’t charge them in my house after seeing the few stories on the net.

I have a solarstorm X2 and I’ve been using it for a couple of winters, it does the job and I’m still using the original batteries and charger (when I’m in the same as it…). The battery is beginning to die now I think. For this reason I recently decided to for a Torchy BK2200 which, at 80 quid, seems like a nice balance between cheap and expensive and outputs a lot more light and for a lot longer than the solarstorm.