My Light and Motion Arc has finally given up the ghost so I’m looking for a new light on the bars. I know the old HID lamps are old hat now but I really liked the beam pattern and spread. I can buy a Seca 800 for £175 which is 50% off rrp. Are these lights any good, or is there something else I should be looking at for the same sort of money? Or do I make do for the rest of this winter with my Exposure Diablo on the bars and see what pops up in the sales?

There’s lots of better lights for similar money, or less than the SECA. L&M have been off the boil for a while now, even at half price its not competitive.

Merlin are doing the Moon XP1000 for about 30 quid less and it’s brighter and got better battery life. They’re also doing the XP1500 for only about £190 which is significantly better.

Then there’s the Lumenator from Smudge at £115 + p&p which is brighter and longer lasting again.

Troutie offers a quad XPG Light kicking out 1200 proper lumens for around £200, and I can vouch for the quality and the superb beam pattern.

Then there’s Four 4ths, they offer a number of quality lights for great prices.

You could probably pick up a brand new Exposure Toro for just over £200 if you shop around and that’s 1200 lumens again.

Or you could buy a number of cheap Chinese XML lights!

Your money, your vote. But I’d buy pretty much anything over an L&M these days.

These images show that stated output for a light says little on its own

The other opinion.. ) I’m no light expert and I’ve not seen Trout or Smudge’s lights that seem well rated, but of the mix of lights used locally the L+Ms have the best beam pattern and output. I have a secca 1400, considering I rarely use the full beam and low/med covers most the 800 would be worth a look.
Within a range / reason, brightness means little compared to light spread imo and as a main light the L+M pattern at 700-800 (med on the 1400) beats the ‘high power torch’ round-beam 1200-1500 lumen jobs, or whatever they claim to be. I’ve used some cheap / far eastern 900-1000 lumen lights and they were all poor performers vs their claims, fair vfm but not great to use and I doubt they’re actually 900-1000 lumens.

Also, I have an old Arc HID head unit if you want it for a fair offer, it’s had little use. MIP.

I bought some lumenators when I lost the battery to my Arcs.

Typically it turned up a few days after ordering so I thought I’d run the ARCs on the bars as an extra set. Turned them off 20 mins into the first ride and sold them.

I’m sure the secas are good but for the money the lumenator is pretty hard to beat. Small, light, good beam pattern. So far reliable.

Can anyone with the Lumenators give me a rough size and weight of the battery? Cheers.

Slightly smaller than the six cell l&m battery.

Jameso, I completely agree about some manufacturers over egging the pudding with regards to claimed outputs. That’s why I didn’t recommend any (aside from sarcastically recommending he could buy several cheap Chinese lights) that do. Troutie has all his lights independently verified for output. The Moon XP1500 has 3 XPG’s, Chinese light manu’s claim 1000 lumens or more each for these, and its known to be very under rated.

Beam pattern is of course very very important though. Again, don’t think any of the lights I’ve recommended have a poor beam pattern for offroad use. Certainly the Trout Mini at “only” 1200 lumens would probably give the best beam pattern of all if my Lumen liberator (same design just 6 instead of 4 Led’s) is anything to go by. The L&M seca’s I’ve seen have generally not impressed me, either brightness or beam pattern wise, hence I just don’t think they’re worth it IMO.

^ I’ll look out for the trout lights when / if the secca 1400 dies then. If it’s better than the L+M I’ll be impressed – maybe we look for different patterns in a light. Either way I like the small-guy brands and they both come well recommended.