How much is too much?

[kristiancyclist]

After finishing my MR16 lighting project, I am now thinking whether I have enough light. The lights are certainly very bright and they beat out many other lighting solutions, I see that I pale in comparison to automotive lights. My spread is very wide but not nearly as far as a car's.

I'd like to think that I can add lights with no limit because I would never, in a practical sense, even begin to approach the output of a car's headlight system. But is there something as too much? When does it becoming annoying to oncoming traffic?

Yes, I have seen the pictures of people claiming 1800-3000 lumen output systems and they have something like 25+ flashlights clamped onto every inch of their bike. I would hardly consider that practical when I add up the sheer number of batteries to maintain and the number of switches to toggle.

Any thoughts on the excesses of lighting?

-- Boris

 

[Buck91]

My Triple Shot is annoying to on coming traffic. It also has a very diffuse beam (translating into a very floody light). This is great for trails, especially in conjuction with a helmet light, but it has fallen out of favor as a ommuter light.

What is your application? Commuter, off road, road...? For me I have no need for anything more than my helmet (or bar) mounted Fenix L1T V2.0 Q2 on my daily commute. Well, once the snow starts, a bit more light would be nice, but even then my cat eye will be too floody and likely give me a 'white out' if riding during a snow fall.


So the simple answer is a firm MAYBE. It depends on your needs as well as your beam pattern.

 

[mechBgon]

Any thoughts on the excesses of lighting?

1) for on-road riding, try to get the lumens onto the ground. You don't need tons of light above the horizon to show up well on a dark country road.

2) as you probably know, the difference between automotive high beams and low beams isn't just the output, but how it's directed.

One possible arrangement for your system would be to set up your 15° spot light aimed out higher, as your high beam, and aim the flood light lower as your low beam. You could try an aluminum hood that shields oncoming traffic from being directly exposed to most of the surface of the optics/reflectors on the flood head, too. Leave just enough exposed to show up to other people well. Then you can kill the "high beam" when there's oncoming traffic, and turn it on again when there isn't. BatterySpace's waterproof switch would make it simple enough to switch your high beam remotely.

3) I think bicycle lights will often appear more intense than automotive lights, because the light comes from a small source instead of being spread across a large reflector. I don't see a practical solution to that effect. It can make even a low-output light look quite intense.

 

[rayman]

Once I was driving with my Jet-III Pro when a on coming car signalized me that my bikelight was to bright by flashing with the headlamps of the car. I found out that a EX10 on max is the maximum for on coming traffic.

In my opinion a single P7 at 2.8A is enough light. If you mount the P7 flashlight on the bike bar something like a EX10 mounted on your helmet would be quite useful for sharp turns. That just my opinion of a bikelight I don't need more lumens and qith the right battery I can get runtimes of up to 4 hours.

rayman

 

[bbgobie]

A couple MC-Es at 700mA / die would rival a single car headlamp.

It would probably be more annoying as car optics are design to cut off above a certain level where as flash light optics go everywhere.

You are also very unlikely to be traveling the same speed as a car, so would not need the same throw, since you wouldn't be able to "over-drive" your lights.

 

[Buck91]

Is anybody aware of any decent "cut off" optics out there? Something similar to what Blackburn uses in the Voyager 4.0, except maybe in a 20mm size range??

 

[Steve K]

Is anybody aware of any decent "cut off" optics out there? Something similar to what Blackburn uses in the Voyager 4.0, except maybe in a 20mm size range??

I've got a home-build light that's composed of 4 Cree XR-E's and Ledil CRS smooth spot optics. These produce a relatively tight beam, but still throw a lot of light into the eyes of oncoming traffic.

Like everyone else, I'm wondering what I can do with a MC-E led. Right now, I think that my best option is to retrofit it into an old BiSy headlight. Some of our buddies over in Germany have experimented with slicing a BiSy vertically through its center, and mounting a LED on the plane of the slice. You can see a picture on this website, at paragraph 3.1:

http://www.enhydralutris.de/Fahrrad/Lampentest0310/index.html

It should produce the same tight beam that the BiSy was famous for. This would avoid the problems of wasting light by illuminating the sky and not annoy/blind oncoming traffic.

The downside is that the BiSy has a beam that might be too well constrained. Might need to move the LED slightly to de-focus the beam a bit.

Until I get this project started, my four Cree's certainly seem like plenty of light for my bike commute!

Steve K.

 

[Bandgap]

I would certainly agree that you can have too much above the horizontal

And too much side spill makes it hard to see down narrow lanes with trees either side.

I quite like the German bicycle lighting regulations and think they would make a fine base to develop a bike light optic - if there are any optics makers reading this.

Also, as there is so much light comming out of leds today, maybe it is time to think about using the various car and motorcycle regulations on beam patterns.

Is this thread a good place to collect some actual figures.

Does anyone have acess to the German DIN or British Standard for bike lights?

Steve

 

[Steve K]

And too much side spill makes it hard to see down narrow lanes with trees either side.

Steve

too much light to the sides is bad?

is this because the light makes the eyes less sensitive? i.e. too much light to the side relative to the amount of light on the road ahead of you?

I've got an analogous problem with the Ledil CRS smooth spot optics right now. Too much light right in front of the bike, and not enough light 100 feet down the road. I'd like to change half of the optics to something with a beam only half as wide, so more light could be put far ahead. Unfortunately, the light housing won't accept a larger optic than the CRS, and the CRS really doesn't offer a version with a significantly tighter beam.


Steve K. in Illinois
(where we have to hope our governor can pick a good new senator for us, since we are sending Mr. Obama to Washington... and nobody trusts our governor.. )

 

[mechBgon]

too much light to the sides is bad?

is this because the light makes the eyes less sensitive? i.e. too much light to the side relative to the amount of light on the road ahead of you?

I've got an analogous problem with the Ledil CRS smooth spot optics right now. Too much light right in front of the bike, and not enough light 100 feet down the road. I'd like to change half of the optics to something with a beam only half as wide, so more light could be put far ahead. Unfortunately, the light housing won't accept a larger optic than the CRS, and the CRS really doesn't offer a version with a significantly tighter beam.

I call that problem "excess foreground flood." If anything, for road riding, I'd rather have the bright area be the part 100 feet away, while there's still plenty of time to react. I find that my DBS with OP reflector approaches the ideal, at least on a dark, straight highway. Maybe a soft spot optic would be worth a try, and then frost the lower 1/3 of it if the fill light isn't enough?

 

[Steve K]

I call that problem "excess foreground flood." If anything, for road riding, I'd rather have the bright area be the part 100 feet away, while there's still plenty of time to react. I find that my DBS with OP reflector approaches the ideal, at least on a dark, straight highway. Maybe a soft spot optic would be worth a try, and then frost the lower 1/3 of it if the fill light isn't enough?

What are the details of your "DBS with OP reflector"?

As noted earlier, I'm using Ledil CRS "smooth spot" optics right now, and would like a narrower beam. The smooth spot optics have a 14 degree beam, and the only other optic in this package style with a tighter beam is their "real spot" design. The "real spot" has a 12 degree beam, so there's not a big difference.

Carclo does have a 26.5mm optic with a 5.6 degree beam (the "plain tight" optic, p/n 10048). This is much tighter than the Ledil real spot, but is too large to fit in my housing. Very tempting, though...

This is what leads me to think about converting an old BiSy headlight with a MR-E LED, since it would produce a much tighter and more optimized beam.

Steve K.

 

[dnlwthrn]

Steve, I have a "plain tight" for my MC-E in the 26.5mm dia. It gives me about the same beam size (as far as I can tell) as my 6 deg optic for my triple Q5 light. That means it pretty floody for a single emitter. Not sure how it will work in real life, as I've not had a chance to fab a housing for the MC-E yet. I'll try to get on that soon...

 

[bbgobie]

Is anybody aware of any decent "cut off" optics out there? Something similar to what Blackburn uses in the Voyager 4.0, except maybe in a 20mm size range??

Carclo has a 20mm Rectilinear lens.
I have one waiting at home for me tonight.

I might be able to get out and take beam shots this weekend.
(Depending how far I get on my housing and the weather)

I have the 20mm tight, med, rect. Wide didn't arrive yet.

 

[Eamon]

I don't think it's possible to have "too much" light. It's easy enough to have too much badly-aimed light, like those idiots with their HID headlights who don't bother to properly set the beamstrike. I have an ARC on my commuter bike, and a ~400lm high-beam (Q5x3, Cutter 4deg) on my brevet bike and I very rarely get high-flashed. I'm careful to set both lights as if they were motor-vehicle lighting, as far as beamstrike height at a given distance.

There are many people who insist on running lights to the StVZO standard, which is a well-controlled beam with almost no throw-weight. They argue that their lighting doesn't blind drivers, and causes less trouble for everyone. I have topped 40 mph at night, with and wthout rain, and StVZO-approved lighting is not enough. I take the occasional high-flash as evidence that they see me and call it good.

My working definition of "sufficient light" is enough lumens on the road that I don't need to slow down when it rains at night. I like enough light to highlight road signs at more than 100', and light up fast descents at night.

I'm building MCE lights to replace both the ARC and the Q5x3, and I'm going to be very curious too see if I get high-flashed more often on the brevet bike than I do now. The brevet bike in particular is going to have quite a few more lumens hitting the road.

Dark Horse

 

[znomit]

I used to run my cutter triple at 300 or 500lm. 500 got flashed all the time. 300 not so much.
Note that flicking low/high/low almost always gets cars to dip too... they just like to know you're not on highbeam.

Yes side spill is a problem. On a wet road with a grassy verge the green is very bright. I see much better if I'm in the middle of the lane not illuminating the grass.

 

[mechBgon]

What are the details of your "DBS with OP reflector"?

Dereelight's DBS V2 super-thrower flashlight, with the orange-peel textured reflector and a 1S R2 pill driven at 1.2 amps. Because the beam is rather narrow, I usually mount it to the bike's frame to reduce steering effect, or use it as a helmet light.

Those familiar with the DBS are probably thinking the beam would be too narrow. For straight dark highways, however...

...yeah. The photo above is a little over-exposed, but if you look at the pattern, you see it covers pretty much the entire lane with the hot spot, and the foreground with the spill beam.

Oncoming drivers would be in the fringe of the hotspot's corona here, which is probably still pretty brutal when coming from such a concentrated light source, so I habitually turn the DBS off when it's aimed at other people, and at least drop my Seca 700 base system to 25% power (~170 lumens spread across six LEDs). The motorists have a tinted windshield and a lot of their own light, so it's not as if they're using fully-adapted night vision. It's the pedestrians I feel bad for, the moreso since they usually don't show up until it's already too late to switch all the bike-mounted lights off and aim my helmet light away from them.

The management of my light output & pattern is the #1 hassle on my nightly commute home in the months when it's dark out. If I ever build a DIY light system, one of my primary motives will be to simplify this chore.

Side note: as a helmet light, the DBS will make yellow reflective signs perceptible at 1.3 miles

 

[bbgobie]

Sorry, thought I had the 20mm rect arriving today.
Apparently not.

If cutter is reading this, please PM me or reply to my emails!
I've emailed them with no response for a couple weeks, and am about ready to just call my CC and dispute the charges since I can't seem to get a hold of anyone there.

 

[kristiancyclist]

Wow! Thanks to everyone for the great replies and opinions! I didn't think my question would attract so much attention but I'm glad it did.

After reading these posts and some thought, I think I need to begin making the distinction between total lumens/output and focusing the light into a usable pattern. 1800 lumens can be useless if it's spread over an area too large or pointed to a direction that doesn't matter. But you can have a smartly generated 300 lumens that makes a world of difference.

To answer some questions in the thread, I am a road rider here and the roads are pitch black. No street lights. Nothing. There is some light traffic on my roads and I get to share the car's illumination. I live in a rural town and the last thing I want to do is aggreviate the community. I'm sure many of the commuters recognize me now because I'm probably the only one in town with a folding bike. People still ask me what my bike is when they see it.

I do get caught in the fierce winds here and when I'm lucky I can commute the whole way home at 30 MPH. Even with a 52x11 gear, my little 20" wheels cause me to spin out. My 1.5" wide tires hum like electrical transformers. I can certainly appreciate a longer beam at those speeds.

My 15 degree spot light is already almost horizontal and my spot like an long oblong oval. I'm afraid of tilting it up higher and shining the light directly at the drivers. The two bulbs look very bright from a distance but not blindingly so. I suppose it's their intense output for their size that makes them look bright. No problem on the "be seen" part with them.

I really like the idea of having something that I can toggle on and off, like a secondary light which can compliment and backup my primary light, when cars are coming. The trick would be to have the switch on the handlebar so I can flick it with my thumb. I'll have to think about that some more.

-- Boris

 

[Steve K]

hi Mech,

Thanks for the photo! Your beam pattern is pretty much what I'm striving for. I just want to cover the width of the lane at a distance of 50 to 100 feet (approx.). The spill is usually enough to illuminate the shoulders and the area between the main beam and the bike.

Unfortunately, a circular beam is not optimal for a road bike light. The optics used for dynamo headlights are usually a better match for road use because most of the light is thrown up ahead in a short, wide beam. If someone made an optic with a vertical beam width of 5 degrees and a horizontal width of maybe 10 degrees, that would be much closer to the ideal.

In the meantime, I figure I have two options....
1. install a good LED into an old dynamo headlight, in the fashion that I refered to in my earlier post.
2. use a few 3W LEDs with tight beams that can be individually aimed such that the overall beam is suitable. This takes a bit of work, if only because it makes heatsinking more complicated.

I'm still working on some 'tronics for my dynamo system to automatically switch from two LEDs to four, based on speed, and to provide a standlight function. After that's done, I'll probably start addressing this issue.

Thanks for everyone's input!

Steve K.

 

[marcopolo]

Sorry, thought I had the 20mm rect arriving today.
Apparently not.

If cutter is reading this, please PM me or reply to my emails!
I've emailed them with no response for a couple weeks, and am about ready to just call my CC and dispute the charges since I can't seem to get a hold of anyone there.

Same here: I ordered 2 weeks ago, 4up R2's with BFLEX and an MC-E etc.. after I emailed to make sure they had stock. Have not heard since if it has been shipped or not and Cutter have not responded to my e-mail
Whutsup Cutter.au??????

Marco.