Last week on MMW I was following a cyclist who had a Lezyne Femto Drive rear light. It was set to the half-second flash mode, and when it was on, I was fairly well blinded and couldn't see anything else, like pedestrians.
wondered how were front lights bright enough to cycle on unlit roads before LED lights, if the lights were blubs and did not flash must have ate batteries?
They did eat batteries, and most lights weren't very bright.
If you had money, you bought the 5W/10W Vistalites with the MR11 dichroic reflectors, and you had a big lead acid battery, on a curly wire, and you had perhaps an hour's run time. Later ones had Ni-Cd battery packs, which were lighter but gave you no more run time until 4400mAh cells arrived.
If you had less money, you bought a 1.5W/6V halogen light and you owned a stack of AA rechargeable cells. This was also super power illumination because anything was better than the Ever Ready lamps that ran on D cells (which were good for being seen and almost useless for proper dark riding - even the posh red one with a Xenon bulb). You had a few hours of run time, and you carried spare cells for when it ran out on your way home.
If you were inventive, you took your 1.5W halogen light, put a 3V bulb in it and overvolted it to 7.2V with an external Ni-Cd battery pack. That way you had huge brightness and good run time, at the expense of bulb life.
When white LEDs arrived there was no contest for the being-seen lights.
posts
