LIGHTS MEGATHREAD - all questions on riding lights asked and answered here!!!

[Milpool]

Pushys has a sale on lights at the moment.

 

[Daniel Hale]

Thinking of grabbing a combo set of Ay Up as a lighting upgrade this winter. Positive reviews from mates who have had em for years...... Price kinda makes me feel exploring alternates is the responsible thing to do.

any up are reliable, & used to be the ducks nuts, other lights are now cheaper or with more lumens

 

[DMan]

any up are reliable, & used to be the ducks nuts, other lights are now cheaper or with more lumens

I have to agree. Aren't ayups on 700 lumens. I find that not enough for fast techy downhill stuff. Look for at least 1200 lumen

 

[Daniel Hale]

I have to agree. Aren't ayups on 700 lumens.

i can’t find the study but they test out at 750 approx, which is what most 1000lm light systems mostly get to

 

[bear the bear]

i can’t find the study but they test out at 750 approx, which is what most 1000lm light systems mostly get to

Depending on where you live and what you ride, that is probably not enough lumen.
When I was racing 24hr events, my lights were running around 1000lm for both the bars and headlight as my low setting.
As mentioned above Ay-ups are quite old school tech, and haven't advanced in the last few years in terms of optics and output.

 

[shiny]

Thinking of grabbing a combo set of Ay Up as a lighting upgrade this winter. Positive reviews from mates who have had em for years...... Price kinda makes me feel exploring alternates is the responsible thing to do.

Thoughts on alternative lights? I am well sorted for commuter lights so this will be MTB specific.

How often do you get out for a night ride? No point dropping big bucks if only doing the odd ride at night. MTB Direct has their Cleanskin brand which are supposed to be good and have been reviewed by @Dozer on here:

https://www.rotorburn.com/forums/in...-cleanskin-solo-1000-lumen-led-lights.311056/

As others have said AyUp have not changed for years. I run Exposure and they are fantastic but the price is up there another option is Gloworm lights. Have also owned these and are good lights I just prefer the no cord and battery pack of the Exposure.

 

[Tubbsy]

Look at the exposure range of lights if looking for an integrated light.
Pushys currently has 15% off, so something like the diablo is $356.00 for 1850 lumens.

Alright, so I went with @bear the bear's recommendation. Pushy's sale had the SYNC v11 sell out quickly, and thinking I wanted a remote I didn't buy the V9 (no SYNC, so no remote, a few less lumen) they had a fair bit cheaper.

This arrived today as Wiggle have a 10% off code for Exposure at the moment. Seems very nicely made and the machining for heat dissipation is clever design. Paying $80 more to get SYNC for the remote/phone app function was possibly a bit extravagant, so we'll see how that works in practice.

It's getting noticeably darker on my ride home, so looking forward to testing it out tonight!

 

[nathanm]

What's the go for cheap <$50 Lights these days? Still ebay 2.4 billion megawatt ones or are the cheap pushys/mtbdirect 1000 lumen ones still the go to?
Fuck Winter and fuck no daylight savings.

 

[northvanguy]

What's the go for cheap <$50 Lights these days? Still ebay 2.4 billion megawatt ones or are the cheap pushys/mtbdirect 1000 lumen ones still the go to?
Fuck Winter and fuck no daylight savings.

Daylight savings is complete shit......... should go the other way.... i dont care if it's dark until noon.....

 

[ForkinGreat]

My Gloworm X2 battery pack broke, well the casing did. 4 x 18650 Li-ion batteries inside. Any tips on where to get a decent replacement case with DC plug & lead? in Aus would be nice, so it will take ages instead of @$%#$% glacial ages. I have a number of 18650 batteries and a good charger, so better than waiting hours for the tiny led to turn green.

I've seen a few on eBay, with super-slow shipping... - all the sellers seem to be china or hong kong based.
bought 2 of these so something will turn up in the mail eventually, just would like to have something say, this month some time.

4x 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case House Cover For Bicycle Bike Lamp New 665184757685 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 4x 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case House Cover For Bicycle Bike Lamp New at the best online prices at eBay!

www.ebay.com.au

 

[Tubbsy]

Someone posted up a 25% off code for Gloworm in the discount thread, might be worth a look.

 

[link1896]

My Gloworm X2 battery pack broke, well the casing did. 4 x 18650 Li-ion batteries inside. Any tips on where to get a decent replacement case with DC plug & lead? in Aus would be nice, so it will take ages instead of @$%#$% glacial ages. I have a number of 18650 batteries and a good charger, so better than waiting hours for the tiny led to turn green.

I've seen a few on eBay, with super-slow shipping... - all the sellers seem to be china or hong kong based.
bought 2 of these so something will turn up in the mail eventually, just would like to have something say, this month some time.

4x 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case House Cover For Bicycle Bike Lamp New 665184757685 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 4x 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case House Cover For Bicycle Bike Lamp New at the best online prices at eBay!

www.ebay.com.au

There are very few nice cases on the open market. It’s why companies designing a lighting “system” make their own case, as they have assessed all on offer as utter shit and bullshit or a combination of the two.

This is how things were last time I looked and why I’ve drawn up my own case solution that I think doesn’t suck for myself.

A quick google search reveals very few 18650 enclosures inside australia sadly. The ones I’ve linked below are, being arranged as two groups in series of 3 cells in parallel, there should be no issue running this with 4 cells instead of 6, apart from reduced capacity.

8.4V 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case 6 Pcs Batteries Holder Cover for Bike AU | eBay

Our goal is. Size:as picture show. Due to the different monitor and light effect,the actual color maybe a slight different from the picture color. We will be responsible for.

rover.ebay.com

 

[ForkinGreat]

There are very few nice cases on the open market. It’s why companies designing a lighting “system” make their own case, as they have assessed all on offer as utter shit and bullshit or a combination of the two.

This is how things were last time I looked and why I’ve drawn up my own case solution that I think doesn’t suck for myself.

A quick google search reveals very few 18650 enclosures inside australia sadly. The ones I’ve linked below are, being arranged as two groups in series of 3 cells in parallel, there should be no issue running this with 4 cells instead of 6, apart from reduced capacity.

8.4V 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case 6 Pcs Batteries Holder Cover for Bike AU | eBay

Our goal is. Size:as picture show. Due to the different monitor and light effect,the actual color maybe a slight different from the picture color. We will be responsible for.

rover.ebay.com

Unfortunately my glowworm 4-cell case fell into that combo category.
I might grab one of the six cell cases.

 

[cokeonspecialtwodollars]

There are very few nice cases on the open market. It’s why companies designing a lighting “system” make their own case, as they have assessed all on offer as utter shit and bullshit or a combination of the two.

This is how things were last time I looked and why I’ve drawn up my own case solution that I think doesn’t suck for myself.

A quick google search reveals very few 18650 enclosures inside australia sadly. The ones I’ve linked below are, being arranged as two groups in series of 3 cells in parallel, there should be no issue running this with 4 cells instead of 6, apart from reduced capacity.

I'd be happy to have a look at 3D printing your design if it's printable @link1896.

 

[DMan]

My Gloworm X2 battery pack broke, well the casing did. 4 x 18650 Li-ion batteries inside. Any tips on where to get a decent replacement case with DC plug & lead? in Aus would be nice, so it will take ages instead of @$%#$% glacial ages. I have a number of 18650 batteries and a good charger, so better than waiting hours for the tiny led to turn green.

I've seen a few on eBay, with super-slow shipping... - all the sellers seem to be china or hong kong based.
bought 2 of these so something will turn up in the mail eventually, just would like to have something say, this month some time.

4x 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case House Cover For Bicycle Bike Lamp New 665184757685 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 4x 18650 Waterproof Battery Pack Case House Cover For Bicycle Bike Lamp New at the best online prices at eBay!

www.ebay.com.au

I think I have a couple of those style cases at home. If I do you can have one.

 

[komdotkom]

I'd be happy to have a look at 3D printing your design if it's printable @link1896.

I'm a big fan of the cheap chinese lights, not so much of their batteries. I was thinking about making a 6 cell holder that screws to a bottle cage mount and uses 6 x Panasonic NCR18650B 3400 mah cells. I've got some Tefzel 18AWG wire left over from another project so combined with some DTM connectors and DR25 this should make a pretty nice and reliable setup for my 21,000 lumen chinese light.
This is the sort of thing I was thinking about for the battery
https://www.stlfinder.com/model/reuleaux-triangle-18650-x-3-battery-holder-beta-/4789386/

 

[link1896]

I'd be happy to have a look at 3D printing your design if it's printable @link1896.

thanks, have mill, lathe and printers here.

My design is based around gas pipe with printed or machined end caps. Bunnings and plumbing stores sell a bright yellow gas pipe thats semi flexible. Its aluminium tube with low density PE coating. It fits 18650's just nicely.

 

[rowdyflat]

not so much of their batteries.

Found you roughly get what you pay for in batteries .
Good brands last me for 5 -8 years if looked after and topped up during summer.

 

[cokeonspecialtwodollars]

I'm a big fan of the cheap chinese lights, not so much of their batteries. I was thinking about making a 6 cell holder that screws to a bottle cage mount and uses 6 x Panasonic NCR18650B 3400 mah cells. I've got some Tefzel 18AWG wire left over from another project so combined with some DTM connectors and DR25 this should make a pretty nice and reliable setup for my 21,000 lumen chinese light.
This is the sort of thing I was thinking about for the battery
https://www.stlfinder.com/model/reuleaux-triangle-18650-x-3-battery-holder-beta-/4789386/

It's a reasonable concept but from a quick glance it looks like it's a long way from being a final design that would be ready to print.

 

[cokeonspecialtwodollars]

thanks, have mill, lathe and printers here.

My design is based around gas pipe with printed or machined end caps. Bunnings and plumbing stores sell a bright yellow gas pipe thats semi flexible. Its aluminium tube with low density PE coating. It fits 18650's just nicely.

We've probably had a discussion similar to this before, my memory is rather shit at doing it's one job.