Be-Seen Head Lamp for Daylight Running
 

What are options for a daylight be-seen forward facing light? Hub powered lights excluded.

What type of batteries do you want to use? AA, 18650, or something else?

An 800 lumen 18650 powered light would certainly be bright even during the day, even if it only has an hour of run time, but batteries are more expensive and you'll need a charger for lithium batteries. An 18650 battery will cost $10-20 each and a decent charger will be another $20 or so and you might not have other devices that can use these batteries. The upside is that this is certainly bright enough to light your way at night also.

There are lower powered lights with more run time also. My 500 lumen light runs for about 2 hours and is still bright enough to light the road at night.

I think ideally it would be self contained USB rechargeable with minimum three hour run time in flash mode capability.

I have a fair understanding of what I would look for in a night time light if I were to venture out on a public road in the dark. I also have a DiNotte 300R that well defines an appropriate daylight rear facing attention grabber. Reviews on MTBR and most forum discussions focus on night time features; what are the daylight criteria for evaluating a front facing light?

I use an 18650 powered light with a xm-l emitter on flashing mode. I get about 3.5 hours before I need to change the battery.

Lot's of options. One that's worked for me is a Planet Bike 1W or 2W Blaze on flash mode. Either is plenty bright for day use IMO. They run on 2AAs which I find convenient.

PB 2W in flash will last 40 hours, probably more, with a set of Sanyo Eneloop AA, 2AH. I run it about 10 hours a week and I only deplete about 15-20% of the charge on my batteries. I charge my batteries every week on a Maha C9000.

Maybe something like a Niterider Minewt of some sort. I had the 250 lumen model and the flash will get a lot of attention. Don't run that strobe at night though because it's far too intense and not in a good way. I started getting vertigo as a result of the flashing light reflecting off the road and other objects.

I have a generator light (supernova) to see with, and use a little blinky light (cateye loop) to be seen.

I've been using a PB 2W Blaze in superflash mode during my morning commute and also at twilight. I turn it off and use a stronger constant light once it really gets dark. I can see that pedestrians notice it. It's harder to gauge driver reactions.

Jim

I've been testing a bike equipped with dual Blackburn VOYAGER 2.0 FRONT lights

The specs are:
• 3 Super-bright LEDs
• Easily mounts to any handlebar
• 65hr steady, 130hr flashing runtimes
• 3 AAA Batteries included

For the price ($20 approx) this thing easily outperforms anything else I've found on the market in the same pricerange and Blackburn backs it with a lifetime warranty. Even better - a combination of two is EXTREMELY effective and still doesn't break the bank.
The only criticism I might make is that like most consumer lights - this one isn't waterproof.

Here's what DiNotte Lighting USA had to say about this and a related lumen question:
...it takes a really bright white light to be visible during the day time...lumen output is a reference when talking about the same color -and when talking about using it to see the amber lights put out less lumens than white (or red), but in traffic an amber light is an appropriate light for a front light, and the lesser lumen amber light is more visible than a similar lumen white light.

DiNotte's "best" amber recommendation for daylight only, model 800A - http://store.dinottelighting.com/amb...ight-p126.aspx
Their day + night recommendation, 1200L or XML-3.

I want a front headlight, that also lights up the road. Because it is one thing if the light lets oncoming traffic know you exist. It is an entirely different matter if, it does that but, it doesn't light up the road in front of me. How is a cyclist supposed to see debris in the road, if the headlight doesn't light up the road.

This light is a piece of junk! The only way it is useful, is for oncoming traffic on a road/bike path to see you. But when it comes to seeing debris or cracks in the road, well before potentially running over them, this light is no good!! I have run over bumps/cracks in the road, that this light never picked up, even if I had the light angled to the ground!!

There is plenty of information available to help you or others with that decision if you were in the market for a light to see with. I started this thread with the hopes of eliciting information about being "seen" in daylight.

The majority of my riding is on single lane rural roads in bright daylight, I wave/raise a hand to drivers of oncoming vehicles (it's a regional thing), and notice that some drivers are not aware of my presence until I show a sign of greeting, and some don't ever make eye contact. It's the unaware daytime driver I want to target, and target them from a long distance, before they reach for a button, cell phone, or turn to talk to a passenger, or plan to early apex a corner.

The PB 2w is a great light that gets good run times on rechargeable batteries and compares nicely to the 25lux Lumotec on my wife's bike and puts out similar light to a 10watt halogen... the strobe function is seizure inducing.

I picked up a set of these MEC USB Plasma lights and am quite pleased at their use as marker lights... they are pretty bright in either direction.

MEC Plasma USB front light

Good idea.:thumb:

I prefer to ride during the daylight hours. But, The shorter daylight hours of the winter months has forced me to ride at 'night'.

I 'take the lane' pretty consistently. But regardless of 'taking the lane', it is a moot point when I can't see the road because of a lack of being able to see the road due to bad lighting.

Good point on color -- it's the difference between being visible and being conspicuous. The brighter white light is easy to see if you're looking for it, but amber grabs more attention if you aren't looking for it.

I agree about amber. I just wish it was cheaper.:(

Lezyne Super Drive. $100 & you'll get a 450 lumen light with a great flashing mode. The battery is replaceable & could be charged through USB (i.e. you do not need a charger). The body is solid aluminum that comes in three colors. PB 2W is not bad but I would not pay $50 again for a cheap chunk of plastic. Although its flashing mode is good, the light is too weak for city riding at night at more than 10 mph....

I was going to chime in with this, but appears to be discontinued. Quick search revealed that ModernBike still has some in stock.

Mind you, I have no direct experience with this product. It's just something that I bookmarked after mechBgon posted a link to it in a thread some time ago...

Funny - the original post only mentioned day-time running and said absolutely nothing about any need for night-time driving. In fact, it asked for EXACTLY what you just stated the light was good for.

And the performance compared to a couple other popular lights in the same price range, the Knog BEETLE at $22.95 US or the Knog SKINK at $34.95 US - makes it a steal!

Had to dredge this up from the depths of memory, and no direct experience with this either- but would 180 degrees of coverage and noticeable up to 1.6 miles away be of interest? Different color options, but I managed to find one in amber. Lightman strobe.

The Super Drive states flash run time as 5 hours....not really enough for a good long day of training.

Did I mention the battery was replaceable? Get a couple of 18650s from Dealextreme together with a charger for about $15 shipped & it'll be enough.

I actually have a couple of those in clear with the exnon bulb. Extremely effective at night for all round visibility but not so much during the daytime. Much as I hate to say it - the new super right LEDs have this beat in both performance and run time.

My 'evaluation' doesn't involve measuring lumens or lux. I simply set up a stand with a variety of flashing lights on it and video the goodies using an older camera with auto ISO. The camera adjusts to the most powerful light source and the others are obviously dimmer as a consequence.

DesignShine
 

Sorry I couldn't reply to your PM (not enough posts yet, apparently), but I would definitely put the DesignShine Lights out there for consideration for daytime running lights. The taillight really has no equal (even compared to the 400R). When nothing but the absolute brightest daytime taillight will do, the DS-500 is pretty much it.

Here's a couple of good videos:
Prototype DS-500 testing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRB-6FokXw4

Daytime comparison with the 400R
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVisF...otation_291127

So, on the front end, there's the matching DS-1300 headlight. This is a very unique headlight in that it has the option of an amber daylight running filter that's easily removed (with a single screw). Even with the yellow filter, you could still use it for a see-the-road light, but typically, if you're out on a long ride that goes after sun-set, you'd just take the filter off and keep going. The light has a road-bike friendly mode where you just toggle back and forth between medium and high power. Think of it as "low" beams and "high" beams. On medium (roughly 600 lumens), you still have plenty of see-the-road light, but you won't blind oncoming drivers. The highest power mode, really should be reserved for lonely stretches of road at night, or flashing during the day (1300 lumens).

One thing that isn't mentioned much with regard to daytime running is the "duty-cycle" of the flash. The lower power lights will typically have a much shorter duty-cycle (ratio of on-time to off-time), and my experience has been that the longer duty-cycle at the right frequency is much more effective during the day. The DS-1300 duty-cycle is nearly %50, but you can still get over 13 hours use flashing on high with the 5200mAH battery.

Here's a good video with a ride-by using the yellow lens. Do note that the camera doesn't do a very good job of capturing the yellow tint for some reason. It really is very "other-wordly" looking in real life. If you want to skip over directly to the ride-by, just go to about 4 minutes in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opt1XI1oatA

Lots more good info at:
www.DesignShineLighting.com
(including the latest Build Blog)
and
https://sites.google.com/site/design...ing/the_lights