That time of year is coming again – what's hot in the lighting world?

iainc – Member
So is there still a market for the £300 plus Exposure, Lumicycle and other premium brands ? What is better about them and is the price tag justifiable ?

The market share for the premium product has significantly reduced as a result of the flood of low cost lights coming from China.
As for explaining “what is better”. In my experience, most of the public do not understand the differences and will not. The only difference of any concern to buyers appears to be price, so thats how it pans out. looking back at the days when Lupine were charging £800 for a light, I find it easy to see why people would become cynical about prices Vs perceived quality. But things are different now and for any premium products which remain. It will always be the case that certain customers will ask what the difference maybe, when the lights all appear to be designed and built the same. Fact is, there’s quite some significant difference which may or may not become apparent during many years of use. Which again, is not something a customer is going to come to appreciate if they’re replacing their budget light each year.

help please – front lights are sorted here but what rear lights are recommended ?

I run a MaxxD on my bars and have just ordered a Diablo for my helmet. My old helmet light, a MJ-808E, is great but the trailing wire and sloppy mount have made me change.

Also ordered a Support Cell (that clips on) for the Diablo to give a 2 hour run time.

Expensive but I ride a lot at night and wanted to be wire free.

what rear lights are recommended ?

Smart R1 or R2, both arround £8-£12, although I think On-One did a phart light which looks identical too so probably the same factory.

Or Blackburn Mars.

I prefer to ziptie one to the back of my helmet too as it’s much more noticable bobbing arround at eye level than on a seatpost covered in crud.

I’ve also got a magicshine rear light that runs off the same 8.4V batteries and a Y-splitter cable, as long as your front light is compatible with the magicshine batteries it’ll work, or you can just cut and splice it into any other front lights cable.

I was tempted to spend more on wire free lights, but in the end as all my riding was on either the SS or the road bike over the winter it’s easier to just fit the lights and wires neatly and zip tie them on, then jus disconect the battery, no more hastle than removing an exposure lamp to charge.

I have a Hope District on the road bike angled down so as to not glare but bright enough that car drivers can’t not see it 🙂

Smart R1 or R2 are good on the off road bikes.

Anyone know if you can get a lead that splits from one battery pack to 2 lights? Was think of running my 4×18650 waterproof battery box to 2 lights.. one on bars and one on lid.. or even buying a bigger 6×18650 box and running to 2 lights

I’ve gone for a Yinding for the helmet as they have been getting good reviews over on mtbr. Bit more expensive than the cheapest option at about £32 but pretty small.

I was keen to go for a cableless solution for the bars like an Exposure Maxx D. Wasn’t prepared to pay £300 so have gone for one of these and some Panasonic 3400mah batteries. I still need to rig up a bar mount, but for about £65 I’ll have a 1500lumen self contained bar light that will run for 2 hours (or about 3.5hrs at 900lumens). Its a floody light so would be no good on the helmet but perfect for the bars.

Anyone know if you can get a lead that splits from one battery pack to 2 lights?

Loads on DX and ebay, only problem is a lot of the brands have subtly different connectors even if they look the same. I found the best way was to have a seperate battery for the helmet anyway as it provided a completely seperate backup that way. And batteries are <£10, barely more than a cable for the added convenience of not being attached to the bike when stopped for a mechanical or call of nature.

Just found this……….8000 theoretical lumens for £30!
http://www.dx.com/p/marsing-b70-7-x-cree-xm-l-t6-3-mode-5500lm-white-bike-light-headlamp-black-6-x-18650-308400

Has anyone found a good way to mount the XML lights to helmets where the vents don’t allow it to be done easily? I’m having to hang on to a very old Giro Xen because I’ve struggled to mount the SSX2/smudge XML/old DX P7 to any other helmets.

Slackman these are a great way of fitting tricky lights to bars.

I presume you’re trying to use the semi circular bracket that comes with the lamps? like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/171267056081

I binned that and just zip tied it directly to the helmet with one tie on the front hook and one on the back directly to the central spine of the helmet. It has to be a long way back though to point far enough up.

That should work as long as the helmets symetrical arround a central solid bit this works, obviously not if it symetrical arround a vent, but might still be possible it’ll just be off center.

Added bonus it lowers the lamp significantly so the weight becomes un-noticable and eliminates the ‘nodding dog’ feeling I had with the original mount.

Theres just about enough wiggle room in the zip ties to remove the lamp for daylight rides, more of a faff to get it back on in a hurry if your disorganised in the evening though.

Zippykona, where’s that from?

leftyboy – Member
I run a MaxxD on my bars and have just ordered a Diablo for my helmet. My old helmet light, a MJ-808E, is great but the trailing wire and sloppy mount have made me change.

Also ordered a Support Cell (that clips on) for the Diablo to give a 2 hour run time.

Expensive but I ride a lot at night and wanted to be wire free.

Also using current models of Maxx D and Joystick and can justifiy them to myself on basis of use and hassle free setup, but the £15 chinese one I got, as per my posts earlier up, kicks out similar quality of light, albeit it might only last a few months….

google “THULE CHARIOT Hydration Cage”

Slack man got mine off eBay for a fiver. Look for handlebar bottle cage.
Here’s my commuting solar storm mount.

I used to own an exposure enduro maxx, very well made and very convenient, but I found that if I was in front of mates with the Chinese lights, I would be riding in the shadow cast by much brighter lights. For me it didn’t seem worth having such a well made light only for it to be eclipsed year on year by £15 worth of light.

zippykona – how is the light affixed to the cage ? tia !

I’ve taken the screw out of the bar mount and screwed it to the cage.It needs a longer screw. There’s handy holes in the cage already.
The battery is cable tied on.It could be made a lot neater and I want to shorten the cables.

The Yingding is decent had mine for a year. Nice and bright, decent burn time.

I made a mount from a spare section of 90 degree gopro mount, it bolts straight into the chassis of my Yingding.

Top work zippykona, ordered a few bits to build something to mount my own X2 with battery.

Also got a 2 year old XML T6, went flickery which I thought was the battery. Nope, the +ve wire inside needed a bit of re-soldering so it lives again.

Thanks to snownrock for the recommendations on page 2. I’ve had a Solarstorm since last year and the battery, which initially seemed good, has pretty much given up now. I ordered the linked batteries from banggood the other day and quickly recieved an email sayin they were out of stock but offering to change the order to these instead, at no extra cost. They shipped later that day. Very impressed with the service from them so far.

Ok, so it seems that remembered correctly and, in a fit of sleep-deprived rage, I threw out my waterproof battery case for my Solarstorm. All the usual suspects (DX, Lightmalls, ebay, etc) seem to be out of stock. Anyone seen any recently?

Make your own?

Or wrap the battery in self amalgamating tape.

Here’s light mount mk 2.
Have turned it all sideways and it looks a lot neater.
The other torch is way too large for one of the lock blocks.
Richard 3rd how easy is it too shorten the cables. I don’t have an iron or know how to use one.

No shortening required Zippy, it all (just) fits in the box.

I’ve not read all the thread but can I have full details of your box Rich?

Sure, box is a Z45 project box, eBay id 261485868450

Attached to alloy bar cage holder eBay id 380899085928

Like yours, remove original bar clamp from lamp unit, use that screw to fix to box with a piece of rubber etc in between to minimise movement

I used a Dremel to make a cable slot in one half of the box. The cables wrap around the battery and hold in place. It’s a fairly tight fit, I used 2 x disk mounting bolts to fix the box to the bar clamp as they are shallow, to not dig in to the battery pack. Whilst removeable, it’s not as QR like yours, but I left the connector exposed purely to make recharging easier/ on the bike. It tucks under the bar knob.

I’ve not read the whole thread, so apologies if this has been mentioned; there are Solarstorm X3 lights on eBay now- does anyone have experience of the 3xled light? It looks like they come with the same battery, which will impact run times?

Are the SolarStorm batteries/chargers still exploding?

Are the SolarStorm batteries/chargers still exploding?

Not sure about that, but the QA is definitely hit and miss. Bought mine from Amazon the other day. First outing (Early morning, so at least it was getting lighter) 5 miles down the road the road, off it went. Got home later that day charged it up, green light on charger in about an hour, only 1 light on the back lit up, used it to go to work, 3 miles down the road off it went. Quite a bit darker this time too. No CE markings on the box no instructions. Order fulfilled by Amazon rather than sold by the seller, so it’s eventual refund only and no exchanges. Whilst over the last few years I’ve had 3 different MagicShine style lights all with the same sort of battery pack as this, I think I’ll move on to an all in one unit like the Exposure Joystick. Nearly all these lights have had battery pack issues. Either cables coming loose where they connect, not charging fully, dying in a short space of time etc.. The lights themselves are great, the batteries and chargers not so. The amount of money I’ve spent on them I could have bought a well made light like the Joystick and had less hassle! 🙂

I’ve had a year out of my Solarstorms and the battery pack has died due to loose wires. Got a 4 x 18650 battery case coming as a single order coming (regardless of the group buy post in the other thread).

In the meantime, I’ve ordered one of these 3 x Cree – 6 x 18650

If the battery pack is gash, I’ll just get another battery box and bung some high capacity 18650’s in to cope with the 3 Cree’s

nice one TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR my mate just sent me the same link having purchased last week (for half the price) and raves about them. apparently illuminates a large field easily…obviously the price has shot up due to the darkness falling

He paid £12.25?????

I can’t even buy them wholesale from China for that price!

fghj

What?

that’s what he told me, from amazon …and you know what they are like at shifting stuff

also main reason I’m no longer interested 😆

Just picked these up 🙂 bring on the dark mornings

Womp, you weren’t a mod were you?!?