My ebike has a "low beam" style front light built in and it's okay for the more sparsely lit parts of paths etc, but I'm looking at a situation that will require me to brave unlit back roads a few times over the winter and trying to dig through all the reviews and lists of reviews and best-ofs etc has just left me confused. I'd appreciate if anyone can recommend from personal experience something that's waterproof, with a long battery life, enough light to handle country roads, and is as cheap as possible while meeting those points.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Questions/Support/Help
Light recommendations.
(26 posts)- Started 1 year ago by Yodhrin
- Latest reply from ejstubbs
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Posted 1 year ago #
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I seem to remember a recent thread like this where everyone recommended different lights.
If budget is your primary concern and you don't mind cycling through about 8 modes to change from bright to dim and back again then you can't go far wrong with the Halfords advance range.
They start at 500 lumen which is about what I use when riding on flat or uphill dark roads. But if you are going faster or downhill then I would highly recommend getting at least the 1000 lumen light. The 1600 lumen one is probably overkill for occasional use.Posted 1 year ago # -
I might well have posted/in that thread, I was getting a bit of deja vu when I was writing this hah. I do recall looking at the Halfords lights before but I was put off by the lack of any info on how long it will run for in each mode - a lot of the higher lumen models only seem to be capable of running at peak for an hour or so.
Posted 1 year ago # -
This probably won’t help, apart from letting you know how much you could spend!
https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/best-mountain-bike-lights/
Posted 1 year ago # -
I had a cateye volt 1200 for many years. Worked great until its waterproofing failed.
Recently bought a raveman but not had a proper test. It has a dip function so better for mixing with other road users and good battery life. I bought it for overnight rides (and for supplementing my dynamo in winter). Cheaper than cateye and quality looks goodPosted 1 year ago # -
This is not bad, especially for the price. Good run time, best battery ‘countdown’ indicator I’ve seen on a bike light. Doesn’t seem to mind cold or wet (Paddington hard stare at you here, Moon lights). Rubber mount maybe a concern for durability or repeated removal. Has an output USB port to charge other devices if needed. Seems to annoy car drivers more than my other lights, but oddly only the ones who haven’t shown any intention of dipping their main beams for a mere cyclist.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@acsimpson
Do you have an uphill and a downhill light these days?
Certainly works for me going down the beeftub in the dark, required big linens as surface rubbish
The bigger the linen the shorter the runtime though.
The rubber fasteners on two of my lights have just recently torn.
Maybe can swap swap?
I still have the pencil like torch one that fell off on way to Moffat and the ronde kindly picked it up and returned it. It won’t stay in its holster. Due to earlier stupidity on my part when I turned bike upside down to deal with p word without removing the lamp,
Posted 1 year ago # -
I second the Halford lights. I have both 1000 and 1600 lumens. The 1000 is my favourite as 1600 is heavier and wobbles a bit more.
Doesn’t seem to mind cold or wet
@Murun It certainly doesn't mind wet but it does mind very cold: I use the 3rd from the top setting on the back roads. Last week on all my rides it turned itself off after about an hour of use. However there is no problem with turning it back on but it will will turn off again on that setting after about a minute. When I reduce the power to the 4th setting it runs OK again. This is the only situation when it fails on me so in this weather I carry a backup light (the 1600).
Having said that it is an excellent light otherwise and the cases when it fails because of the severe cold are very rare.
For what it's worth as far as I recall I get about 8-9h of run time on the 3rd highest setting.
I can check at home if I still have the instructions and whether it says the run time.Posted 1 year ago # -
Bike radar lists the runtime of the 1600lumen at 2 hours 10 minutes: https://www.bikeradar.com/reviews/accessories/lights/front-light/halfords-advanced-1600-lumen-front-bike-light-review/
@Gembo, my go to light for most rides is a Lezyne Macro Drive 1300XL. Some if not all lezyne lights have a "race mode" which limits the settings to just high beam and eco. This means it's very simple to run the eco beam most of the time and go to full beam on more technical stretches without cycling through as many settings. I have run it all night in the summer months without it running out of juice. It's reasonably priced if budget isn't your primary concern.
Posted 1 year ago # -
"Bike radar lists the runtime of the 1600lumen at 2 hours 10 minutes:"
I don't think I've ever used the 1600 lumen setting in anger, even descending. I've never managed to empty the charge on it - perhaps I should for battery management reasons.
@bill "Last week on all my rides it turned itself off after about an hour of use." You should be a tester for Halfords!
I see there is a new version out which seems to go down the approach of Moon lights (and others) with a wide beam and a narrow beam LED. Also seems to have quicker charging and a better selection of mounts.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Oooh interesting, I might go in to Halfords and ask for a look at that 1800 one(do shops even have demo units anymore? I haven't bought much from a physical store except my bike and my groceries in about ten years lol), if it stays "low beam" on everything but the highest setting and the spread of the light is decent the ability to replace the battery would make it ideal and only a little more than I hoped to spend.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Halfords does Lezyne.
Seems as cheap as ebay AND there’s extra 10% off.
Free postage (can’t see if there is a min) BUT (just playing with site) couldn’t see how to get delivery. There was a ‘check stock’ option which then offered to reserve at nearest branch!
Don’t know if 10% is offered in store to browsers.
Posted 1 year ago # -
My light is a raveman pr1200. Gets good reviews and has good battery. About £70 if you shop around
Posted 1 year ago # -
I think i have the 1000 lumen halfords light and the battery lasts a long time. there is an option to attach it with a go pro style mount instead of the rubber bands. mine sits under my garmin and alongside my bullet cam.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Looking at the picture of the battery it appears it might be standard 18650 Li-ion cells which would mean extra batteries can be purchased for a very reasonable price.
The garmin mounts are useful if you have a garmin. Unlike many 3rd party mounts they aren't configurable to mount a wahoo.
Upside down mounting also makes it harder to control the light and leaves you unable to see the charge status.
Hermiston Gait appears to be the only Edinburgh store with stock at the moment. I doubt they will have a demo unit but they will hopefully be willing to let you try in store.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've got a magic shine off road light, you'd be tutted to high heaven using it on the NEPN but its off good build quality and they do more on road designed lamps that might be worth looking at.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Good knowledge!
So cheap almost worth buying an ebike to go with them!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Ehh, maybe in another year once the warranty on the electronics part is done.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Good knowledge!
Posted 1 year ago # -
@acsimpson: Looking at the picture of the battery it appears it might be standard 18650 Li-ion cells which would mean extra batteries can be purchased for a very reasonable price.
They are the same dimensions as the standard 18650 but they have both contacts (+ve and -ve) at the same end: the centre contact is the +ve, and the -ve is a concentric ring surrounding, but isolated from, it:
I suppose one might try bodging an 18650 to work with the light using a bit of foil of some such lash-up, but given the risk of short-circuiting the battery, and knowing how this is very much a thing to be avoided with Li-ion batteries, I would not under and any circumstances recommend such an approach.
It also means that, as things stand, you can't charge these batteries in a standard 18650 charger - you have to do it in the light.
I can't find spare batteries listed for this light on the Halfords web site, although the listing for the light seems to imply that they are available. It's possible that they are actually a not-too-uncommon variant of the standard 18650 and can be sourced via the Bay of E, AliExpress or the like, but I've not dug into the subject that deeply yet.
Edited to add: the "092022" number at the other end of the battery is the same on both the ones that came with my light, which suggests that they may be a part number which could be used as the basis for a search. But as I say, I haven't delved that far yet.
Despite that potential drawback, I do think it's a pretty good light for the price.
Posted 1 year ago # -
From a quick googling it seems a few brands have had these or similar "single end" batteries for bike lights and torches, they all seem to be bespoke, probably intentionally so they can charge extra for them. Don't seem to have any kind of common naming or identifier yet that I can find.
EDIT: I'm seeing a couple of cases where the torches themselves will still run on standard 18650s you just can't charge them in there. I think I'll shoot Halfords CS a message and see what they say.
EDIT2: Apparently - for whatever the live chat CS guy's word is worth - it will run normal 18650s fine, the double-contact end is for the charging circuit of the light itself. So you can run it on the bespoke batteries but can only charge them inside the light, or you can run it on regular 18650s but you'll have to charge them separately. I think I'll take a couple of normal cells with me and insist on checking that before I buy one.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@Yodhrin: I reckon the Halfords CS guy is talking hooey (nothing new there). I've tried a couple of freshly-charged normal 18650s in the light and it doesn't want to play. Do let me know if your experiment gives different results.
Looking in to it in more detail, I don't see how cells with a contact at each end could work, given the way the battery compartment is set up. The door to the battery compartment, against which the -ve ends of a pair of normal 18650s would rest, has a rubber cover inside, behind which are four small magnets - I suspect neodymiums - which help to extract the cells from inside the body of the light when you pull the battery compartment door off. There's nothing that could connect the two -ve ends electrically - I checked with my multimeter and the magnets are isolated from each other, so removing the rubber cover wouldn't help - and anyway there's no obvious conductor to connect anything at that end of the battery compartment back to the main body of the light.
I also checked the contacts at the inner end of the battery compartment. The two +ve contacts are connected directly together, and the same goes for the two -ve contacts. So the cells are connected in parallel to provide 3.7V at fairly high current - which is what you'd expect for something capable of pushing out 1800 lumens.
The cells are marked as being 3400mAh capacity each. That's a total of 6800mAh between the two - or 6.8Ah in sensible money. The light is described as being capable of running at full output for 1.5hours, which suggests that at full output it draws roughly 4.5A At 3.7V that's getting on for 17W, which is roughly equivalent to an incandescent (tungsten filament) bulb in the 150-180W range.
As I say, IMO it seems to be a pretty decent, powerful light - especially considering its price*. Lights of equivalent output from most 'mainstream' manufacturers such as Lezyne cost a lot more,
and AFAIK they don't have replaceable (or even removable) batteries[edit: OK, it seems that mayebe some do]. However, the description of the Halfords light on their web site (and in the user manual) does seem to be a bit misleading/wrong and should probably be corrected. Or they could actually sell the replacement/spare batteries...* You can get a online voucher for further £5 off, on top of the EXTRA10 discount code offered at the moment, if you sign up to the free level of "Halfords Motoring Club" membership before you place the order. I think you have to provide a car registration number but I don't know if they bother to verify it against the personal details they ask you to provide.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Digging a bit further, the manufacturers I've found so far that use single-ended 18650 cells are Moon for bike lights, and NEBO for torches.
The Moon battery with seems at first glance most closely to match the ones in the Halfords 1800 lumen light is the Moon LX 3350. A number of UK retailers list it, but so far I've only found one which admits to having stock - at £22.90 each thang-you-very-much-ker-ching (so two of those, with postage, would cost roughly as much as the light itself).
I've not found any UK suppliers of the NEBO NB6640BAT, which is their take on the single-ended 18650, which is a bit of a shame because it seems to be available in the US for rather more sensible money than the Moon battery is over here. OTOH it's only 2200mAh, which might explain the lower cost (although the torch it's intended for is supposed to run for 2 hours at 2000lumens, hmm...)
One possible justification I've seen for the non-standard 18650 design is that the high power lights require cells that can tolerate a high current draw over an extended period of time, which could be uncomfortably close to being unsafe for standard LI-ion cells. Using a different contact arrangement would prevent people using standard 18650s which might be less than ideal for that use case. Or maybe they do just do it to gouge the punters on the cost of replacement batteries...
I still think that, leaving aside the less than straightforward replaceability of the batteries, the Halfords light is pretty good. The choice of easy mounting options and wide applicability, from urban street riding to night trail riding all in one package, means that it's close to a do-it-all light that I'm much more likely to carry with me and use most of the time, in preference to switching and swapping between mounts and/or lights for different outings.
Posted 1 year ago # -
That seems a fair summation. You'd hope that Halfords would actually eventually get stock of the bespoke replaceable battery for their own-brand product - at the price I think I'll take a punt on it, with how often I'll be using the thing in the foreseeable future something else in it will probably break before the batteries meaningfully degrade.
Posted 1 year ago # -
It seems that Halfords do now offer additional/replacement/spare batteries for the Advanced 1800 Lumen front light:
and at a sensible price (certainly compared to the price of the Moon batteries I found in my researches documented previously).
Posted 1 year ago #
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