Who rides at night?

[GMP]

I made my nighttime debut Sunday night on my local trails, where I'm fortunate to be able to ride mountain single track from my house. It was very interesting and puts a new spin on riding for sure. Your in more of a tunnel vision situation and loose peripheral vision naturally, so it's good to start on familiar trail. Right now I'm running a home made double 10W LED headlight on the bike and a Task racing helmet light that runs 4hrs on a LiOn battery in my drink system pack. Very bright! The helmet light is a must and you could get away with it alone in just single track. I also have a 40W, 4 emitter LED spot bar with a quick change mount I'm finishing up and will test soon. This is all for some summer fun and practice for the 24hr Northeast Challenge race at the end of August. I'll shoot some video next time after I figure out how to mount the GoPro and helmet light as it uses a GoPro mount.

image.jpg (212.64 KiB) Viewed 11428 times

[ricoyam]

Nice! I'm envious.

[katoom400]

some of us are going out tonight.

we use these lights:
this one works good under your visor
http://www.amazon.com/SecurityIng-Waterproof-Headlight-Lighting-Rechargeable/dp/B00BJCDH3K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432726819&sr=8-2&keywords=securitying+cree

this one works good on the side of your helmet.
http://www.amazon.com/SecurityIng-Waterproof-Lighting-Headlight-Rechargeable/dp/B00C2MHNJK/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1432726819&sr=8-11&keywords=securitying+cree

yes, they are cheap, but they work great and at $30, I carry a spare and care not if I smash them...which hasn't happened yet.

[GMP]

Yeah the light I have is similar but with 4 LEDs and a GoPro mount system that makes it easy. Do you run one or two helmet lights? I think two may fill in the sides more, but in the tighter stuff where its slower one is fine. I'm still figuring it out and what I need for riding vs racing. The light bar is kind of heavy for the woods but will be handy racing in the more open sections, as the helmet lights don't have a lot of throw. Can't go tonight but we might go Friday.

[bigoscycles]

We have been running the cycleops LED light bar. It seems to do very well.

[GMP]

Way too much $$ for what it is and its vulnerability. I didn't even replace my OEM Beta headlight, which was totally destroyed by a tap on a tree. Instead I bought another number plate and mounted two 10W LED lights over/under with an onboard rectifier. Better light for a fraction of the cost and more durable too. I got $16 lights that work as well as the VisionX on my Ducati that cost close to $100 a few years back. Cyclops wants $119 for that same light! I say no, its not over $100 better. Their light bar is half the size of mine and FIVE times the cost. Mine works fine and I bench tested it for hours and it does not overheat. Will it survive on the bike? Soon find out but its not something that will stay mounted and the mount I made is vibration isolated. You don't have to spend a fortune to do this.

[katoom400]

right now I have one light mounted on the side, but I'll have a second mounted for next weeks ride. I can also make my own battery packs from laptop batteries which use 18650 cells. I have a good supply of laptop batteries here at work, I tear them appart and find the bad cell by testing voltage, discard that cell and then I have the remain cells to work with. I throw the battery packs in a msr roost pack.

What I have found is that you can get these inexpensive lights in different configurations with as many as 5 cree led's mounted in 1 round enclosure. the problem is that they all use the same 4 battery pack which will die quickly with all those lights on high. anything more than 2 lights on the 4 cell battery pack seems to be a waste. not to mention that heat kills the led faster than anything. so the 2 element light is all that is needed. It is also much smaller than it seems in the picture.

It is much more efficient to run (2) 2beam lights with seperate 4 cell battery packs, 2 double lights and (4) 4-cell packs will get you ~2 hours of good lighting on high, and ~4hrs on med.

right now it gets dark in the woods around 8:00, and the guys have been going from 5pm-9pm so we only need them for 1 hour.

[cag33]

GMP, any chance you can post a photo of your light setup?

[Mark Donovan]

GMP, any chance you can post a photo of your light setup?

X2 Please do, sounds like the ticket.

[GMP]

My helmet light has four LED emitters and runs on an eight cell pack, of which I have two. I had it on for 2 hrs on high and it was still going strong, spec is four hrs. run time. I should measure the current draw and calculate the actual power and run time based on the battery capacity. I found larger packs (with larger cells) direct from China with the same connectors for $18.50.

The helmet/bicycle lights are different than the automotive grade lights in that they only run on 8.4V and have a simple driver. The larger lights like the 10W emitters and combo bars use a broad input voltage range driver and have much greater mass in the heat sinking. They are also tougher and heavier and I suspect more vibration tolerant.

As far as my headlight goes, I did not make it specifically for night riding, but as a replacement if I needed something for an enduro or occasional ride where one is required. For pure output you can do a lot better in the space occupied by the number plate with a variety of LED arrays of different shapes and sizes and some basic bracket work, keeping power within the range of the stator of course. I chose to use a small bar because it will be shared between Steve Beane and myself for night shifts in the 24hr, and will mount to our Flexbars, and will not require removal of any OEM headlight or number plate. Rapid R&R with no interference to brake line was also a design goal. What also is required is a rectifier of adequate rating for the existing AC light ckt., and the DC output for the light MUST be isolated from the frame ground. No big deal as the lights case is isolated from its DC gnd. A regulator is not needed because of the 9-48v input range of most of the lights, and the small AC regulator in the system does a good job of keeping the input low enough so the output DC does not exceed 18v on my bike at least. You can add some filter caps to smooth some flicker at idle but it really not necessary.

From my limited experience I would say get your helmet light setup first, you need that for sure. Then depending on terrain and speed look into a higher power array on the bike.

Here is a pic of my simple headlight. Two cheap 10W clones of the original VisionX Solstice. Onboard rectifier. My harness is mostly cut down to minimal but I added a waterproof coaxial power connector for secure and rapid R&R. No switch its just on all the time, simple. Been beaten and shaken up pretty good and seems solid so far.