Originally Posted by
DaveLeeNC
I do pretty much zero night riding. But I like to be highly visible from face on in the daytime and had been using a Niterider that after a number of years quit charging. I bought a Light and Motion Urban 500 from my LBS. I wanted something that flashed (IMHO, that maximizes daytime visibility of the biker) and this one had a 'pulse mode'.
In a nutshell I would NOT recommend this unit for my purposes. My complaints ..
1) The pulse mode simply moves from dim to bright rather than flashing. This seems to me to be far less visible/noticeable.
2) The cover over the USB charging slot is incredibly irritating. It literally takes a screwdriver to get it to flip up from covering the USB port. And then once it is flipped up, the remaining holding force is about zero and the damn thing almost always ends up on the floor.
3) You have to take out a screw (you can do it by hand as it has a 'twisty thing' on one end) to remove the unit from your bike. It is not easy to deal with and hard to get back in. In fact apparently I have already failed to put it back in properly as it fell out on a recent ride and is now gone. It seems to stay in without the screw (so far, anyway). And not much of a loss if I lose it.
Maybe this is a wonderful night time light, but I will not be buying another light from Light and Motion.
FWIW.
dave
Completely agree with point 1. In fact, I started a thread complaining about that a year or so ago:
https://www.bikeforums.net/electroni...ctiveness.html
For point 2, I've never needed a tool to get it open, but it does fall off easily. I'll add that the plastic this cover is made out of is brittle and mine snapped off at the hinge after maybe 30 uses, so maybe it's better not to bend it but to just take the whole piece off when you need to open it. I mostly use my 1000FC as a flashlight these days. It's a decent nighttime light though.
I switched to a Niterider Lumina 1100 which has better flash modes (but still not ideal). Unfortunately the water proofing on that model leaves something to be desired (only IPX64 rated, which I believe means it's good against splashes but not full immersion). I just recently managed to destroy mine after getting caught in a ~2hr downpour. Now it just stays in the low power steady mode all the time and won't even power off (until the battery runs down).
So now I'm back to my trusty Dinotte XML-3 which does have a nice triple-flash and a few other flashing modes. The external battery is a bit of a pain to deal with, and it doesn't have a GoPro mount option so I can't mount it under my GPS on the out front mount, but it's a solid light (knock on wood).
By the way, I believe that fixing screw is just a long 3mm screw, so you can probably get a replacement at the hardware store if you want.