Technical > Lighting and Electronics

Dynamo lighting recommendations please

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Oldboybob:
Thank you very much Mickeg, much appreciated 👍

PH:
There's a fair bit of choice in decent front dynamo lights.  The SON Edelux II is a thing of beauty, good beam, solid build, strong bracket, tough cable, clever sealed switch... really there's little to fault it, I have two!  I also have a B&M IQ-X, there's a lot to recommend that as well, not least it being the first dynamo light to hit 100 Lux and it has a lovely beam shape, if anything it slightly takes the edge over the SON, but... it's spoilt by an annoying electrical switch that turns the light on at random times (Though thankfully not off) the bracket is a bit flimsy and I've heard stories of condensation, though mine hasn't suffered that.  The list price of the IQ-X isn't far short of the SON, but if you shop around it can be had a lot cheaper.
For a rear rack mounted light - well IMO there's a decision to be made, they fall into one of two types, a big blob of light or a smaller more intensive one.  I like to have one of each, one dynamo the other battery. For a large blob, the Spanninga Elips (Which was originally the Phillips Saferide, before they pulled out of the cycle light market) is my choice, I prefer it to the B&M offerings. For smaller intensive, the SON looks good, though I've never seen one, I have the similar looking B&M Toplight Small but I wouldn't want it as my only rear light.

Dynamo lights are great, I can and do ride all night with one, but they don't compete with some of the powerful (And anti-social) battery lights.  I have one of these, a 700 lumen Niterider Lumina (The current version is 1,200 lumen  :o), in the dead of night when there's no one around, using it to turn night into day can be great, I tend to use that and a dynamo light as I would a high/low beam on a motor vehicle.

mickeg:
One last quick note on dyno powered taillights.  You probably already know this, but just in case you don't, they do not have a flash setting.  They are on or off.  I often have a battery powered taillight on in flash mode during daytime riding.

When touring on my S&S coupled bike, I do not even bring dyno powered lights along, instead using battery lighting.  On tour, I am almost never riding at the time of day when you need artificial lighting to see where you are going.  And when touring I am charging up batteries with my dynohub when I am rolling.

That said, I think dyno powered lights are great for when I want to ride during darker hours of the day.  Thus I have dyno powered lights on several bikes.

martinf:
I currently have B&M front lamps on all the family bikes, mainly Cyo, which are generally a bit less expensive than the IQ-X, which I also have. I did have an Edelux, it failed recently after more than ten years of use.

When riding, I didn't really notice a difference between the brightest (80 lux) Cyo and the slightly higher output from the IQ-X or the Edelux. The switch on the Cyo looks flimsier and the finish doesn't look as nice, but the Cyo seems to work just as well for me. I get the version without the extra "daytime running LEDS" and with the standlight feature.

At the rear I have two lamps on bikes without racks - a mudguard mounted dynamo powered B&M Secula and a battery powered Cateye LD1100. On the bikes with a rear rack I have a third lamp, a B&M Line Plus wired in parallel with the Secula. The Cateye is a point source with 10 fairly bright LEDs, of which 2 pairs face directly sideways, which improves visibility from the side, particularly useful on roundabouts. The B&M rear lamps are more diffuse and give a wider but fainter patch of light, but still very visible from directly behind.

I generally leave the dynamo lamps switched on all the time, the Cateye only at night or in poor visbility OR when I ride in heavy traffic.

mickeg:
MartinF makes a good point when he said:  I generally leave the dynamo lamps switched on all the time, ...

On this forum, especially if the bike is a Nomad, I assume people are using their equipment for touring, and my answers to their questions reflect that.  When touring, I am primarily using my dynohub to charge device batteries.  But when not touring and when I have no need to charge up batteries, I often leave my dyno powered lights on during the daytime for the extra visability. 

There is an extra measurable drag from a dyno powered light system, but it is so minor that I can't feel that drag and I do not turn off my lights in hopes of saving a few extra seconds or maybe a couple minutes on a long ride.  I recall reading an article several years ago that suggested that hub drag was equivalent to five or six feet of elevation over a mile of distance.  I consider that extra drag insignificant.

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