LED rechargeables v dynamo

[4wils]

I've been extending my daily commute to about 20 miles on unlit country roads. The 6 volt , 10w halogen I currently ride with does not provide enough light, particularly in wet weather, to ride at a decent speed. I would like to use a dynamo set up (no worries about batteries etc.) but I am worried that I will not get the light output I need. Some of the LED lights available for batteries have very high output, possibly brighter than I need? Can anyone offer advice about the light output of LEDs driven by a hub dynamo?

[[XAP]Bob]

I can't speak for dynamos, but my battery powered LEDs provide decent output for unlit roads (no competition for oncoming full beams, but enough to do 20 mph)

They are a pair of 160 lumen LEDs, running at ~3watt apiece. One has a wide lens, giving a pretty good flood, the other is a narrower elliptical beam, giving a good view of the road I'm about to run over.

Don't know how much power you are going to get from a dynamo, I looked around, and was looking at 3-5watts most of the time, which wouldn't drive all my lights...

[julk]

The light output from the latest XB2 Solidlights and Supernova Pro E3 headlamps (275 lumens), driven from a dynohub, are enough for riding on unlit roads at speed.

Both put out light in a cone shape which will illuminate above and on the road, not too good for approaching traffic. If you want a shaped beam then the Supernova Pro E3 is available with a non dazzle beam which puts a good shaped wodge of light onto the road and has an upper cutoff.

The E3 will drive an LED rear lamp as well and both headlamps are upgradeable as newer, brighter, LEDs become available.

The Schmidt Edelux and B&M Lumotec Cyo 60 headlamps are also very bright and put a shaped beam down with an upper cutoff. These lamps are somewhat cheaper.

You have to decide how much you want to spend.

[andrew_s]

The LEDs are all the same, and are driven at full power once you are riding at over 10-12mph, so a single LED dynamo light will give about the same light as a single LED(*) battery light. The ones with a well-shaped beam (Edelux, B+M Cyo) will put more of the light produced on the road where you want it than will the simple conical beam that most battery LED lights produce. This will about double the brightness of the road. I've found that my Edelux lights the actual road surface as well as the Magicshine P7 I got from HK (£50, 3h, 900 lumens claimed, 600 actual).

(*) by single LED, I'm not including P7 or MCE LEDS, which are actually 4 LEDs in a single package.

[james01]

The LEDs are all the same, and are driven at full power once you are riding at over 10-12mph,.

My Busch & Muller IQ Cyo (incidentally powered by a bottle dynamo not a hub) seems to reach full power at little more than a brisk walking speed, say 6 or 7 mph. This includes powering a rear LED light. Balancing cost with effectiveness, I'd say that this headlamp is the best buy at the moment. This set-up gives me more than adequate light for safe night riding on the pitch black country lanes around here. I never need to think about batteries, except for the AAAs in my supplementary rear flashing LED.

[andrew_s]

I think it's just a case of "seems" rather than "is".
The brightness will change gradually as you speed up, which won't be very noticeable unless you are looking well down the road.
See brightness/speed curves here:
http://www.nabendynamo.de/service/pdf/ar_11-12_2008.pdf

[EdinburghFixed]

I think this reputation of dynamo inadequacy is an undeserved hangover from decades past. I have a helmet-mounted P7 rated to ~900 lumens and it does not put as much useful light up the road as the shaped beam of lights like the Edeluxe or IQ Cyo Plus. 50% of the output of symmetric lights is being fired into space and another 25% is spraying around the hedgerows. Dynamo optics are so much more sophisticated that it's not even funny.

If you're only equipping one bike, IMO there is no question of getting anything but a dynamo (doubly so for a commuter). If you have many bikes, like us, it becomes a harder trade-off. For what it's worth I don't have a dynamo for this reason (although I still want one, badly).

If I was you, I'd buy a Shimano DH-3N80 and an IQ Cyo Plus today, for about £85-apiece, and get out enjoying. The plush option is a SON20R + Edelux which would weigh in at about £100 more. Remember to budget for a wheel build if you aren't going to DIY.

If you want to go down the rechargeable route, I think the smart money is on the P7 torches, which cost about £25 (plus the same again for batteries, charger, shipping, etc). The only downside is getting about an hour on high before you need to swap batteries, but as you can run them in 'low' mode under streetlights (probably ~5W halogen) this could be enough?

One thing's for sure - compared with a 10W halogen you'll be amazed whatever you go for.

[Phil_Lee]

I think this reputation of dynamo inadequacy is an undeserved hangover from decades past. I have a helmet-mounted P7 rated to ~900 lumens and it does not put as much useful light up the road as the shaped beam of lights like the Edeluxe or IQ Cyo Plus. 50% of the output of symmetric lights is being fired into space and another 25% is spraying around the hedgerows. Dynamo optics are so much more sophisticated that it's not even funny.

If you're only equipping one bike, IMO there is no question of getting anything but a dynamo (doubly so for a commuter). If you have many bikes, like us, it becomes a harder trade-off. For what it's worth I don't have a dynamo for this reason (although I still want one, badly).

If I was you, I'd buy a Shimano DH-3N80 and an IQ Cyo Plus today, for about £85-apiece, and get out enjoying. The plush option is a SON20R + Edelux which would weigh in at about £100 more. Remember to budget for a wheel build if you aren't going to DIY.

If you want to go down the rechargeable route, I think the smart money is on the P7 torches, which cost about £25 (plus the same again for batteries, charger, shipping, etc). The only downside is getting about an hour on high before you need to swap batteries, but as you can run them in 'low' mode under streetlights (probably ~5W halogen) this could be enough?

One thing's for sure - compared with a 10W halogen you'll be amazed whatever you go for.

I agree on the dynamo lights, but for rechargeable I don't think there's much to beat the Ixon IQ, from B&M.
It uses the same lighting unit as the Cyo, so has identical output (although from 0mph!) but takes 4 AA NiMH low self-discharge cells - good for 5 hours on full power or 20 hours on the german legal maximum low setting (which is fine up to 15-20mph).
Obviously, that gives the benefit of the shaped beam which doesn't waste light where you don't need it or dazzle oncoming road users.
If you then upgrade to a dynamo in the future, you can even charge the cells from the dynamo, via the ride&charge adapter cable.
Additional mounting brackets are available so you can use it on several bikes, or to mount it on the fork crown (my favourite).

I only wish I could have got it from the CTC shop, but they don't stock B&M for some strange reason.
I got it from Bike24.
BTW, if you go this route then you'll need a shaver adapter for the charger, as it's 2 pin euro type.

[4wils]

Thanks for all the comments, dynamo driven would appear to be the way to go, my only concern would be swapping to other bikes - but most of my riding in the dark is commuting anyway.

[PW]

Schmidt hub and IQ Cyo is certainly good enough for fast road riding. I've been down Curbar Gap at 3am (1 in not many, unlit & hairpinned) no bother. This morning I went down an unlit hill on my commute with a tailwind at 46mph. The Cyo also drives a tail lamp if you wish and it's a lot cheaper than the Edelux.

[james01]

Schmidt hub and IQ Cyo is certainly good enough for fast road riding. I've been down Curbar Gap at 3am (1 in not many, unlit & hairpinned) no bother. This morning I went down an unlit hill on my commute with a tailwind at 46mph. The Cyo also drives a tail lamp if you wish and it's a lot cheaper than the Edelux.

Agreed, the IQ Cyo is excellent. Just one point - you can start with a cheap bottle dynamo if you can't get round to fitting a hub generator, there's no noticeable difference in performance with a modern LED headlamp, and you suffer no drag when switched off. If you decide to go for hub you can then upgrade as funds permit. Get the switched Cyo for hub dynamos, but leave switch on permanently when powered by a bottle.

[Big T]

Thanks for all the comments, dynamo driven would appear to be the way to go, my only concern would be swapping to other bikes - but most of my riding in the dark is commuting anyway.

The Ixon IQ battery light gives the same amount of light as the Cyo dynamo light and has the advantage that you can swap it from bike to bike. I bought my son one for his birthday and he's well impressed. Uses it on his winter bike for his 15 mile each way commute and on his cyclo-cross bike for riding in the woods and tracks at night.

[scottg]

To swap a dynohub light system between bikes use a skewer mounted light.

I have a Cyo mounted to the B&M handlebar mount, the B&M mount then attaches
to a Velo Orange light mount. The Velo Orange gadget replaces the skewer nut,
so the light ends up a few inches higher than the dyno axle. Lowering the light
helps pick surface irregularities. Old British bikes had light bosses half way
down the fork for the same reason.

http://www.velo-orange.com/lowdolimoty1.html

[james01]

To swap a dynohub light system between bikes use a skewer mounted light.

I have a Cyo mounted to the B&M handlebar mount, the B&M mount then attaches
to a Velo Orange light mount. The Velo Orange gadget replaces the skewer nut,
so the light ends up a few inches higher than the dyno axle. Lowering the light
helps pick surface irregularities. Old British bikes had light bosses half way
down the fork for the same reason.

http://www.velo-orange.com/lowdolimoty1.html

A neat solution where your bike fleet has compatible wheels, but of course swappability works only if the front wheel is interchangeable between your bikes (700c/26"/disc brakes etc)

[CJ]

The Ixon IQ battery light gives the same amount of light as the Cyo dynamo light and has the advantage that you can swap it from bike to bike. I bought my son one for his birthday and he's well impressed. Uses it on his winter bike for his 15 mile each way commute and on his cyclo-cross bike for riding in the woods and tracks at night.

No it doesn't. I have both and the Cyo is brighter: not hugely brighter, but appreciably.

It has also been said that "all the LEDs are the same". It is true that many of the market-leading lamps use the same current state-of-the-art Cree-XR3-Q5 LED, but that doesn't mean they're all the same.

For starters: manufacturers of bike lamps seldom do any optometric testing before writing their blurb. Sure they do plenty of subjective testing, to satisfy themselves it looks well bright, then simply state the rated number of lumens on the LED manufacturer's datasheet. Actual lumens varies according to operating conditions, effective cooling etc. Then a fair few lumens get absorbed inside the lamp and its lens. So it's still anybody's guess how many come out the front.

Total lumens is in any case, a poor guide to how useful a light will be, especially on the road, where you need a concentrated central spot in order to see far enough ahead to ride at high speed, and where any light that is spread above the horizontal is a waste of energy that only dazzles other people! Often a lamp with a fraction of the total lumens, but intelligently focussed so as to achieve consistent illumination of the road with respect to the inverse square law, will be far more useful.

At this point in time, Bush & Mueller have the best optical design and in the Cyo lamp are using the best LED. Schmidt buy in the Busch & Muller reflector and get a bit more light out of the same LED by keeping it cooler (on a copper heatsink in an aluminium rather than a plastic lamp) and using slightly more sophisticated electronics. And by using a coated glass lens rather than plastic they also ensure that less is absorbed. So the Edelux is state of the art.