noglider 

Thanks, @angerdan. (What a funny name.) I have the Ixon Core, and it's excellent, especially the battery life. The rubber band mount is disappointing. I'd like to have the bolt-on mount.

I removed my dynamo powered lights from my favorite bike when I overhauled it. It's going to be a big project to put them back on. In the meantime, I'm using my Ixon light. I wish these lights had a flashing mode, but that's not legal in Germany, so they don't provide the mode. But it's not a deal-breaker for me.

JohnJ80

Simply not true. And I’ve tested it with lights well beyond those ranges in front and back. That includes up to a Lupine Betty at 5000 lumens in the front (that will blind someone) but at these lumen ranges, simply not true.

angerdan

Unfortunately the Ixon Core mount can't keep up with the Ixon IQ mount. Don't know why they invented a new mount instead of using the proven Ixon mount.

You can add an white Cateye blinking light to the handlebar for visibility.
A blinking headlight during dark wouldn't show you always the way and distract incoming traffic.

noglider 

Right. I would never use a blinking light to show my way. I don't know how people do that. But Cygolite lights have a "steady flash" mode which emits continuously at medium intensity and gives pulses every second or so at high intensity. It's good for attention grabbing. And I don't think any kind of pulsation or flashing is too distracting to motorists, and it is something I concern myself with.

01 CAt Man Do

Sorry, I'm a little late in commenting but as usual I agree with most of your comments. However angerdan makes a good point that even a 500 lumen lamp can be blinding at a certain distance under certain conditions. Those conditions would be something like > A completely dark environment > Direct line of sight with the light source within ~ 50 meters. All of this would be true even if using a bike light designed with cut-off. That's because even with cut-off there is always some forward upper spill. Just keep in mind all of what I just said is only true when the people on the MUP choose to look directly at the light source. Smart people will just look away or look down. Strange but one night I had a lady shine an LED flashlight directly at my face as I was passing. While this totally pissed me off I just turned my head and continued on my way. ( Of course the next time that happens I will stop, turn around, turn on my 1200 lumen helmet torch I keep on stand-by and give them a dose of their own medicine ).

Anyway, the only time I worry about blinding someone with my Raveman lamps is when I'm on a paved MUP. This is the only situation where there is direct line of sight ( pedestrians and cyclists ) with the beam pattern. If I see approaching traffic on the MUP I immediately hit the remote and drop the output to low till I am past the people who are on the trail. On an MUP I don't use a flasher ( just the lamp on low ) when it's not completely dark. Otherwise when riding on the road I use a separate low power flasher mounted to my fork ( set to flicker ) and one of my Raveman lamps ( with cut-off beam pattern ) on the bars, usually set on the 450 lumen mode to give me maximum run time. At times though I need more forward throw so I have a Gemini Duo ( spot / spot optics with wireless remote ) set up on a bar extension to use for "high beam only duties". I find this set-up very necessary / useful where I live because of the local deer that love to graze at the side of the roads at night. Real important to see the deer BEFORE you are right next to them so you have more time to react to whatever they do when they see or hear you coming. If it's late at night and no cars around I will use the high beam more ( in certain areas ) when on the road.

Wiggle

Some thoughts:

USB advantages

1. USB charging is simple and highly adopted, can charge off of power banks while travelling without ever having to open up the light and deal with batteries. Replacing and possibly charging external cells is more of an operation.
2. Li-ion batteries offer very good power-to-weight and power-to-volume ratios to keep runtimes long and brightness high at a given size.

USB Disadvantages

1. No ability to do "on the fly" battery changes like you can with replaceable cells. When it is dead it is time to charge.
2. Limited lifetime of Li-ion batteries, probably one to two years of strong performance and 1 or 2 additional years of acceptable performance. It's true that "topping off" the li-ion is not hard on the cell in one sense but you pay a penalty to keep a li-ion fully charged most of the time. The chemistry degrades more quickly while holding 100% charge.
3. Li-ion tends to perform poorly in cold weather. This can be offset somewhat if the light is powerful enough to warm itself in operation. NiMH cells perform reasonably well in the cold and lithium primary(L91, L92) cells perform great in the cold.

I am going through this debate myself right now. I've got a PB Superflash Turbo that is old but works well. I am also setup to charge AAA batteries already. But I also like the appeal of charging things on the bike and the features (like ANT+ control) on the newer USB tail lights.

My "dream taillight" would accept a 14500 lithium ion cell and allow a AA cell to be used in a pinch even if functionality/brightness needed to be reduced. Have an integrated charging circuit for the 14500.

zacster

I guess I already commented in this thread about this but I'll say it again. My Cygolite Hotshot 150 taillight does NOT hold a charge long enough to be useful to me. I don't ride in the dark that often now that I'm not commuting because I retired, but when I do I can be sure that my Cygolite won't be ready. It's a good thing I have a Magnic light for the rear, always on, always ready, and plenty bright.

I like USB rechargeable things, but I like them to have replaceable batteries too so I can carry a spare and keep it charged separately from the unit itself.

My Cygolite is charging right now but I doubt it'll be ready the next time I need it. My rechargeable headlights are always ready, except that I have a dynamo light on the bike I'm likely to use at night.

noglider 

The lower-power lights might be easier on the batteries, but of course, it would need to be bright enough for you. I recently got a Cygolite Hotrod. I don't remember, but I think it's rated at 50 lumens. To my eyes, it's definitely bright enough for me, and I have observed it from far away.

bpcyclist

Personally, I believe there is something seriously wrong with your Hotshot. Mine lasts a couple weeks on a single charge riding 6 days a week for about three hours per ride or so. Have you contacted Cygolite? I'm pretty sure they would tell you the same thing. They generally have good customer service, in my experience. Just a thought. Sorry you're having trouble with this light.

zacster

Actually I haven't contacted them, maybe I should. While I have no experience with them they are one of those companies that I'd expect to stand behind their products for some reason. I didn't contact them mostly because it then means a trip to UPS, USPS or Fedex, and avoiding that itself is worth more than the light.

ChrisWagner

Composition aside, batteries are consumables as are lamps/leds. Light housings should not be a throw away item. Run the marketeers out of design and offer a long life working light that may be repaired and I'll take a look at spending serious coin on a light.

noglider 

@zacster, I had a Hotshot that stopped holding a charge. They said they would replace the battery, but then they replaced the whole unit. I'm more than satisfied.

Wiggle

I don't think I've ever killed an LED (or even come close). I'd suggest that if an LED dies, a product is at end of life. There are exceptions (like P60 drop-ins for flashlights for example) but typically to achieve strong thermal performance it is not likely that an LED will be replaceable except perhaps by an advanced user/modder.

ChrisWagner

Doesn't everyone have a PACE station on their work bench?

Wiggle

Here is something to consider re: cold temperature:

Li-ion (the type of cell used in almost all rechargeable lights) performance decreases pretty quickly below freezing. This won't be applicable for many situations but for those of us in northern areas it can really have an effect, especially if the bike must remain outdoors between rides.

It gets cold here but I am lucky that my bike is transported only between a warm office (20 degrees C) and a "warm-enough" garage (5 degrees C or higher). This provides a buffer but doesn't completely offset the problem of course, especially for longer rides.




You can see in this curve that for this cell it's down nearly 50% in Ah (Amp-hour) capacity at -20C. But the story is actually worse because the voltage has dropped as well so the Wh (Watt-hour) capacity is even lower than this. Depending on the circuit used in the light, because the voltage is lower, the light will compensate by drawing more current (amps) to maintain brightness.

This causes a combination of setbacks:

1. It chews through your, already diminished, Ah capacity more quickly.
2. Because it is pulling higher currents the Ah capacity is actually even lower than the graph implies. This is because batteries Ah ratings diminish based on the discharge rate of the cell.

So cold bites into the performance in a combination of ways. This is all general of course and even with reduced capacity it's highly possible the runtimes and brightnesses are still acceptable in a specific case.

Other batteries are prone to this as well, I'll try to get some specific numbers for other chemistries.

Lithium primary cells (which are not rechargeable) perform the best in cold weather, showing little degradation in performance even at very cold temperatures.

Digger Goreman

I've been running a pair of cygolites (360 lumen front/2w/30 lumen hotshot) for over 5 years and they are still charging (Atlanta all seasons).

Wiggle

Nice, that's very good longevity from those cells if you are still getting good runtime.

Thing is that if the light has a lot of capacity, even if it loses half of that, it may still run plenty long.

noglider 

This reminds me that I should get cracking with getting my dynamo lights back on my bike. I took them off when I overhauled the bike. They'll give me a lot of peace of mind this winter. They don't care about the cold.