MEversbergII

Looking around for lights, I have a mind to buy a Cygolight Metro 700 because apparently they are awesome. In the process, though, I came across quite a few light sets that are half the price or less, and nearly as bright (while in some cases claiming substantial battery life improvements).

Probably the leading one that caught my attention is the rather funky-shaped "Accocam" light, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...0C6IT716&psc=1

Three lamps that are evidently 600 lumen and last ~8 hours. The brightness seems alright - 600 is "see by" brightness, and the duration is pretty sweet (the Metro 700 gets 1h 15m at advertised duration, though in reality evidently it soldiers on a little longer and a little brighter). It looks cool, but I doubt the two side lamps are all that useful - just point them down at a 45 degree angle (and watch as they probably flop about with every bump, is my expectation).

So what's the deal with these sub-$25 bright-lights? Hard pass, or are there some that are actually worth a look? Maybe not this one per se, but others. What's the trade off?

Also, when did "see-by" lights get so cheap? I used to commute up until about 2015, and I remember these sorts of 400+ lumen lights being substantially more expensive (hell, I think my piece of crap Bell lights from target were nearly $20 for what had to be -4 lumen).

M.

Teamprovicycle

Ive had a free anker lc40 rechargable ,that I got for complaining , mounted to my bars with hose clamps for almost a full year .

I've done centuries at night , along pitch black back roads , never failed .

I could get 2 more and run one on my helmet and under hang one more . Then I would have 1200 solid lumens at around 6 hours .

This is a must have light , its small and easy to pack . Solid and bright!!!

FlMTNdude

Kapusta

DrIsotope

Last time I tried out a China-special no-name LED headlight, it was so electrically noisy it caused my Garmin to constantly drop sensors and BT connection. Also, while bright, it had a terrible cutoff. Light & Motion guy now. They're reasonably priced.

mcours2006

Hit and miss with these things...more miss than hit actually. I had one a few years ago that worked great for the first month, then it stopped charging.

TimothyH

There is no way that Accocam light weighs 70 grams as claimed in the Amazon listing.


-Tim-

DrIsotope

There's also no way on this green earth it's going to make 600lm for four hours out of a single 2000mah 18650. Unless they've stumbled upon the most efficient LED in the world, anyway. I have an 800lm headlamp that uses a pair of 18650s, and it doesn't get four hours out of a charge. The Light & Motion lights largely use single 18650s, and get about 90 minutes on high. And as with others, zero cutoff of any kind on that Accocam. It's a flashlight in a clamp.

MEversbergII

Yeah, I figured that was suspect. I can't say I really know much about that per se, but it did have me wondering. Your statement about electrical noise is also curious.

Either way, I decided to give the Metro 700 a shot. It seems popular, though for whatever reason details are scant over at the Bike Light Database / We Rate Lights (between the two is a better picture, still missing beam shots). It seems popular, and from what I can tell is where price / function / value come together. Considering I used to do all my night riding with little more than a "be seen, maybe" light, I'm sure it'll be fine - I don't know that I'm set to really do any night riding in the near future, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. Interested to see how well it does some night after it's in.

The relatively short lifespan is probably not a real issue on these bright lights for me, since I don't think I'd be out for an hour or more in the dark, but I did pick up a few inexpensive backup lights that should at least count as "be seen": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IIPBYB2/

Now, does anyone know how long these lights last when they're charged, but not left running? Especially in the case of the backups, it would kind of suck to not use it for a week, and then discover its dead on the way back later than you anticipated.

M.

TimothyH

Light & Motion Urban 900 - $48
https://www.excelsports.com/main.asp...ajor=3&minor=6

IMO you can play with $12 lights from Amazon, eBay or Alibaba and take your chances or you can buy a good quality light and ride knowing that it will work when and how you need it.

My experience is that Light & Motion have the best beam patterns in the industry. Their lights consistently appear brighter than others of similar price, quality and brightness due to superior beam pattern.

I own the light above. It will hold a charge for a week without a problem. Pop it on a charger after every ride and it will be ready for the next ride. Top it off if you know you will be heading out later that day.


-Tim-

woodcraft

I've had one for about a year that I use as a back-up.

Small, about the weight of an inner tube, & about 300 lumens on lower setting- adequate to get home with good run time.

So far, so good.

DrIsotope

indyfabz

Yeah. Of all the things to skimp on, lights would not even be on the list.

rollagain

You can expand your options by considering a plain flashlight attached to your bar with a Twofish lock-block or the like. One of my bikes has a ThruNite TN4A NW XP-L. It's a narrow-beam thrower, but has amazing reach for a 4-AA light. Good runtime, too.

MEversbergII

Agree - too long spent back in the day with bad lights. The $12 ones I linked were ancillaries meant to either serve as daytime running lights or emergency backups - the Metro 700 is my actual light.

M.

Kapusta

UniChris

I got a $20 bar mount light head with dual 18650 before my crazy long ride through the woods last summer. I found it gave out a fairly broad pattern with a weird hot spot.

But what worked pretty well was running that for awareness of surroundings, and using an 18650 flashlight on my helmet, zoomed in narrow, to watch for pavement issues where I was actually planning to ride.

I hardly ever encountered anyone (at a certain point only where the trail passed houses - no one actually on it) but when I did I'd turn off the wide light and point my helmet light even more down and right.

Wasn't sure how long the battery in the cheapy would last and didn't have spares the way I did for the helmet light, so would turn it off in open areas where there was some ambient light. But being able to see more than a small circle of pavement made me a lot happier in the dense woods, and I'll probably get a second battery for it this year.

VegasTriker

Buying a generic 8.4V battery pack is the same crap shoot as buying the generic 18560 Li-ion batteries. I own a couple of the inexpensive Chinese 8.4V battery packs and they are worth what I paid for them. Ditto for the cheap 18650 Trustfire and Ultrafire batteries. They are not what is rated on the battery but they work. I use them for non-critical uses. What I would do were I to need a very good 8.4V pack would be to buy one of the ~$10, four cell, empty battery holders and put four Panasonic 3400 mAh batteries in it.




Add four Panasonic batteries for under $25 and you have a battery pack that can't be beaten. Last set of four batteries cost me $23 on eBay and they would run a two cell bike light for over 16 hours compared to a pair of Ultrafire "5800 mAh" batteries that ran it for 2.5 hours in the same mode. I'm one who would never buy any of the lights sold by my LBS and I am very critical of any manufacturer who will not give you honest information on the battery capacity in the light (Cygolite, Light and Motion, NiteRider). It is information you need to make an informed choice. I have a couple decent but cheap lights which rarely get used because it is so easy to use a focusable XML-T6 flashlight powered by a single Panasonic 18650 battery. I can carry a spare battery but rarely have to switch them out during a ride.

UniChris

Those hyper-concerned about weight might feel differently, but I'd rather have two moderate capacity packs than one super-capacity one, not only because there is some redundancy, but as having to switch to the second after the first runs down would provide some useful planning information, vs having only one with little or no indication of remaining charge. Only having one battery for the bar light I used it only in the darkest areas - but with lots of spare 18650's for the headlamp (and even as backup the tiny AA one I use for urban paths) I was free to use that at will.

Similarly using an 18650 and booster to recharge my phone 7 hours into a ride at the point where it still had maybe 45% remaining gave confidence that I could leave strava running with tracking beacon enabled - if that recharge hadn't worked, I would have turned it off and saved the phone for emergency calls.

Incidentally, inserting loose cells into parallel multi-cell packs is not really a great idea, at least not unless you can make sure they are of a matching state of charge before doing so - otherwise the stronger ones will start charging the weaker ones, without benefit of a charge regulator. And mismatched cells shouldn't be charged in series, unless the charger has balance connections between the cells to regulate them up individually.