Ravemen PR1600 bike light – Mini Review

I ordered a Ravemen PR1600 bike light from fasttech.com about a month ago. Dunno why, but it was reduced to just under £50. I’ve just checked the website and it’s currently on there for £93! God knows why it was so cheap when I ordered it.

It arrived yesterday & I know a lot of people have been talking about getting lights that are more suited to riding on the road without dazzling oncoming motorists, so thought a mini-review might be handy.
When night riding on the road, I’ve always been concerned about not wanting to dazzle motorists, so when I saw the PR1600 I was keen to try it out. It isn’t STVZO approved, but has a ‘dipped’ beam that aims to avoid dazzling. It also has a ‘main’ beam that seems to use a normal conical reflector.
Each beam is rated at 800 lumens on high & while you can have the dipped beam on it’s own, you cam only get the main beam on with the dipped.

Packaging & Contents

The packaging is perfectly fine; more utilitarian than fancy, but does the job.

The light comes with a mount that uses a cap head screw to fasten. I’d have preferred a QR of some kind, but I imagine this will get used mainly on the road bike so not a great issue. The mount has a couple of silicon bands to adjust to different bar thicknesses; I haven’t tried fitting it to my bike yet, but it feels pretty sturdy. The light clicks onto the mount very positively.
It also comes with a USB-C lead, a wireless remote & a battery for that.

Ravemen PR1600 packaging by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

Ravemen PR1600 contents by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

The light body itself is anodised aluminium with a decent heft to it & the ends are plastic. It has USB in & out on the back, covered with soft rubber inserts.
The USB-out allows it to be used as a powerbank.

The control buttons glow in the dark
The large button turns it on with a press & hold, and this also switches between road (dipped beam) and off-road (dipped & main beam) modes.
The smaller button switches brightness in either of those modes.
Regardless of mode, pressing & holding the large button puts it onto max while the button is being held.
There is a digital battery level indicator, which counts down in hours & also an indicator for road or off-road mode – these are a bit small, so not sure how easy to see when on the move.

Ravemen PR1600 general view by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

Ravemen PR1600 lens view by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

Ravemen PR1600 battery display by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

When taking photos, I took a pic of the light in high beam & adjusted the exposure until the image on the screen looked as close I could get it to what i saw with my eyes. I then set the exposure to manual & fixed the ISO at 200.

All the lights were hand-held but I tried to hold them at the same height, angle & orientation.

This is the road beam pattern.
You can see that the beam barely extends into the tree line & while it doesn’t have a hard cut-off, there is a definite drop-off. The trees on the right of the image are barely illuminated.

Ravemen PR1600 Road beam High by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

This is the off-road pattern (both beams)
A lot brighter & you can see the light floods a lot higher and illuminates the trees to the right.

Ravemen PR1600 Offroad beam High by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

For comparison, this is the high beam on my old light that has started playing up. It was a Spokeshirts light bought about 10 years ago, although I replaced the battery a few years back. It was reportedly 900 lumens in high and to be honest is perfectly good for riding on the road just on it’s own. I frequently used to ride with it on low mode (300 lumens) when trying to extend the battery life. As I say, this pic is with it set on high.
It doesn’t even come close to the road only beam of the Ravemen light:

Owlet single LED – High (900lumen) by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

And this is a Moon XP1500 which is a few years old, but back in the day was one of the brightest lights out there. It uses a separate battery pack & 3 LEDs.
It has a good beam pattern with a decent throw in all directions and a central spot that doesn’t overpower the rest of the beam.
I daren’t use this on the road to be honest because it throws light everywhere. It’s a good off-road light though.

Moon XP1500 High by STW stumpy01[/url], on Flickr

The only thing I am yet to do is try it on the road….!!

Nice write up – thanks!

I have it’s precursor (from 2 years back I think) the 1200. Same body / lens setup by the look of things. My version has a wired remote: which is a bit of a pain.

Today its one of those things I have I just take for granted – works predictably every time and you can easily see when to charge it.

Top thing about it is the flat cut off on ‘dipped’. I can aim that up the road a long way and know its not dazzling anyone. Which means I can run it at a higher setting. And then there is the “press and hold” on the remote : it flashes main beam (for as long as you hold it ) which on country roads seems to help some car drivers dip thier own mains.

I’ve used it a lot on unpaved roads – but not proper off road as I dont think thats what its suited to.

Thanks for that. It’s a light that was on my radar, mainly because I saw a used one for the same price and there are few road-specific beams around of good quality and power. Can’t be paying a ton for one but just received a faulty Moon Meteor Dual which is annoying, so once I get a refund I’ll be back in the game to find the ‘one light’ that will do me for roads and towpaths.

Only real negatives (IIRC) I’ve read about the Ravemen have been regarding the mount itself breaking very easily, how does it seem to you?

I’ve not had an issue with the mounts – it mainly lives on a CX bike that gets a lot of rattling about on cobbles / unpaved stuff and it’s been fine. But I’ve not used it off-road (on the mountain bike) – I dont think it would be up to that.

Malvern Rider

Member
Thanks for that. It’s a light that was on my radar, mainly because I saw a used one for the same price and there are few road-specific beams around of good quality and power. Can’t be paying a ton for one but just received a faulty Moon Meteor Dual which is annoying, so once I get a refund I’ll be back in the game to find the ‘one light’ that will do me for roads and towpaths.

Only real negatives (IIRC) I’ve read about the Ravemen have been regarding the mount itself breaking very easily, how does it seem to you?

It was a toss up between this & the Moon Meteor Storm Pro, to be honest. The Meteor Storm Pro has better battery life & I’ve got an XP1500 which has proven very reliable. But, I really wanted something with some kind of road-friendly beam & When I saw this come up for £50, that swayed it for me.

Regarding the mount, are you sure it’s not the Moon that had a couple of negative reviews? I saw one where a bloke had dropped his bike with the light on it & the sliding flange was an integral part of the light case & it snapped off.
I don’t remember seeing anything about the mount being bad on the Ravemen. I’ll take some pics & upload later (if I remember!).
For the Ravemen specifically, it’s a very low profile fitting on the bottom, which screws into the main body. It’s tapered & slides in nice & positively to the bar mount. It doesn’t look particularly susceptible to damage, but time will tell, I guess.

I know with things you buy there is a tendency to be biased & extol the virtues of the thing you have just purchased, but I have genuinely been impressed with this light so far. The control is easy & simple to use, the unit itself feels solid, the battery indicator seems much better than a green/orange/red light and the wireless remote is a bit of a bonus.
I want to get out on the bike tonight & try it, but it’s been chucking it down here so far.

kneed

Nice write up – thanks!

I have it’s precursor (from 2 years back I think) the 1200. Same body / lens setup by the look of things.

I did debate the 1200, as it was even cheaper but was a bit wary of how bright just the road beam would be (I needn’t have worried) given that my old light is supposedly 900 lumens. I suspect that value is a bit generous & it’s also wasting a lot of light because this thing blows it out of the water completely.

thanks for response OP. It was the 900 I was looking at, assumed the mount was common across models. tbh most reviews of the pr range seem overwhelmingly positive. Here are the few mentions of the mount: link