I bought an L&M Arc direct about five years ago, which I had to send back for warranty repair almost immediately. I got it back, stuck it in the cupboard, and didn’t really use it much until this year, when it’s started playing up again. I mailed L&M who have offered me a deal on a Seca 700 ($150) or 1400 ($225) light. On top of these costs is shipping, import duty and handling fee. I’ve seen the threads where old Arc lights can be modified, are these modded lights as good as the Arc ? What are the Seca lights like for the money compared to other units available in the UK (or via ebay etc) ?

I’ve got a Seca 900 and it is superb. Very bright, excellent beam pattern and I’ve been able to go much quicker with this than my Hope Vision 4 that I had before. The Hope is allegedly brighter but in reality doesn’t come close to the Seca.

I’d definitely recommend them

If you’re after a conversion, then you might want to track down “Trout” from on here. He has a workshop and has carried out several conversion of all manner of lights.

For new stuff, you can get a lot of lumens for your money from the lights I or Trout produce.

I had thought about getting a Trout conversion on my Arc and either using that as a helmet light and buying a bar mount or vice versa. It’ll cost me about £250 to end up with a Seca 700, I can’t help thinking there may be better ways to get reliable, usable lights for less.

Troutie’s you man – I’m pretty sure I seen some posts on here where he made up on of his lights (can’t remember if it was the liberator or mini) to run off a L&M battery pack – I’m sure he’ll be able to sort you out with something

I have a Seca 400. The beam pattern is superb, nice and clean with a good spread.

However, the mountings are awful. The rubber band is just not secure enough to hold it steady in bumpy terrain, especially on 25.4mm bars. The helmet mount is utter cack too, it ends up with the lamp stuck far too high up, and the ‘bar’ to wrap the rubber band around is too narrow diameter to get a firm mount. Add in any rain and it continually ends up slipping down. My old Solo had much better mounts, on the bars and on the helmet.

In my case it was underpowered – I used to ride with people with low-power lights so it was fine. Now I play with the big boys and it was getting drowned, so I bought something else.

try Troutie here:

http://www.troutie.com/

I’m using Seca 700 race and I’m well impressed. In my opinion they’re a good example of it’s not what you’ve got, but how you use it. They’re certainly brighter than my old 1000 lumen Niteflux Photon Max.