Are LEDs as bomb-proof as people say?

Any idea what sort of Warranty Hope can offer? I’m tempted into spending alot of money as opposed to a homebrew system, but if i go for a Hope LED am i getting a light for life?

No reason why not. The LEDs themselves are very robust and not overly expensive to replace if needed. The electronics is all cheap to repair/replace.

p.s. The battery probably won’t last ‘for life’, and is (with current technology) quite expensive to replace. You’ll probably want to replace it with something better in a few years time though anyway.

Lupine, who used to make the best most bling HID lights (and possibly invested the most work into them), have now given up and only make LEDs. That should tell you something.

I dont think I would be spending loads right now, LED lighting systems seem to be improving leaps and bounds year on year, the Hope will be a good system no doubt, but my money was on a P7 torch for now.

You have to ask how long a runtime etc you really need, 1 torch 2 batteries will do more night riding than I get time for..

Noticed that Hope and L&M no longer list HIDs on their websites as well

tinsy – that’s because there has been a large leap in power LED technology of the the last couple of years. This has now slowed significantly, so I wouldn’t say now is a bad time to buy.

btw, yes you can use cheap torches, but they don’t have long run times, lightweight rechargeable batteries (in most cases), optics optimized for biking or sophisticated electronics to improve runtime/lifetime/flexibility of use.
You get what you pay for.

Hope warranty is one of the best in the bike industry.

Hope are great. My battery or charger was a bit iffy and I got it sorted out no problem. I buy Hope mainly because of their after sale reputation.

They are nice lights too.

I broke an old led light by dropping it. Apparantly The LED itself was broken not connections etc. So it appears its best not to drop them on a concrete floor.

Glenh, maybe your right but I do have look at the homebrew threads and I am not sure its done just yet, there sems to be quite a few different types of LED the homebrew guys are using, the torches are agreed limited, I did cover that in my post, just have to make a rational decision on what you really need to get out of a light in terms of power and runtime.

I also agree the Hope stuff would be great quality, I said as much earlier, but my opinion stands for now I dont think I would be wedging out a lot on a bike specific light, when right now I can get the same power and runtimes as a Hope for £50 albeit with a change of battery to get a similar runtime.

Its just an opinion, they do vary.

I am not sure its done just yet, there sems to be quite a few different types of LED the homebrew guys are using

Not really much new though. A few are doing stuff with newer multi-chip LEDs, but their performance isn’t actually any better than LEDs which have been out for 18 months or so. It’s a good 2.5 years since the last big leap in performance, and there’s certainly not another one round the corner any time soon – the light I built over 2 years ago is far from being outdated. There may be small increments in performance, but from the POV of future proofing, now is as good a time to jump in as there’s likely to be, given current commercial offerings are for the first time in a while using LEDs as good as the home-builders, and it will be years before the home-builders have anything significantly better.