Greystoke wrote:Are LED lights really fit and forget? My 2 off 3w halogen dynamo lights worked fine this morning but my led head torch packed in.
Forgot to mention it was -2degC on my commute this morning
The answer is of course no, LEDs are not fit and forget. But they are so much better than old filament bulb lights, until something goes wrong then not so easy to fix! I have gone through a few LED head torches, mostly wiring failures, one a potentially dangerously hot battery pack from a short.
I run Supernova dynamo lights, just had a bit of a saga getting some lights returned from Germany over the last 5 months. The 4th repair I have had on a headlight. Three tail lights have failed and been deemed unrepairable by Supernova, I know it is the wiring in one of them, but not the other 2, so disappointing. I will add my experiences are over about 5 bikes set up with Supernova dynamo lights over the last 8 years or so. Overall still highly reliable, but not fit and forget forever.
My lights are on all the time every ride unless out on a racing bike, so they see a fair number of hours. Other family bikes see less use.
No lighting set up is 100% reliable, I generally run battery backup front and rear lights at the same time as my dynamo lights at night, sometimes even 2 battery rears. At some point something will happen, wires may fatigue somewhere after a few years of service at the minimum, or the lights may experience a failure eventually too (standlight capacitors fail frequently but at least do not stop the light working properly on the road). On critical overnight trips I may well pack a powerful head torch in addition, had to use it once when the wire to the headlight from the dynamo started to work intermittently and had to be replaced when home.