Suggestion for a bike light from ultrafire

mr.pi

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
7
hello flashlight fans,

after reading a bit here and on lightreviews.info i wanna buy a ultrafire flashlight for biking (inside city and around).

has anyone experiences with on of these lights

ultrafire c3 with extension to 2xaa nimh
ultrafire c5 2xaa nimh
ultrafire wf-606a

about runningtime and benefit for money and usefulness for biking in the city. i read the are all good but which is the best for my purpose?

thx an advance

the pi
 
Last edited:

Gunner12

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
10,063
Location
Bay Area, CA
I'm guessing you want low price, AA battery and good brightness. The WF-606 is pretty good for that. A 18650 light would be around the same length and thicker but with more amounts of light. The Ultrafire C3 has more runtime with 2 AA.

A Fenix light be a better choice but they are also more expensive.

:welcome:
 

carrot

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
9,236
Location
New York City
The rig I normally use while night riding in Long Island is rather costly but pretty impressive. I have been night riding regularly with a few friends and decided that more light is better than less light. So, I have a Surefire E2L, Streamlight Strion, Fenix L2D-CE and Fenix L2P2 strapped to the handlebars of my bike. The effect is incredibly impressive, the Strion being used to aim high so I can read street signs as I am riding in the darkness. Each light is mounted on a Twofish lockblock, allowing for easy removal, but could probably easily be substituted for hose clamps available at any hardware store.

I am not really suggesting you go out and buy all these lights (I had them laying around, so I figured I might as well use them), but I suggest having at least two reasonably reliable and bright, long runtime lights because it is a lot easier and safer to ride when you can see where you're going and what you're running over.

In the city, where there should be lighting (depends on what city, however), your concern may be more of being seen rather than seeing (because of the streetlamps) in which case having a translucent shroud like on some Underwater Kinetics lights may be beneficial. IMHO 60+ lumens is plentiful and usable enough for most riding needs. Don't forget a rear bike light; I am rather fond of the Cateye 2xAAA 7-LED model, which should be under $15.
 

RecycledElectron

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Messages
180
Location
Kansas
I got a couple of bum C3's. They're bright enough, run a long time on 2 Nimh's, but the heads of two of the 4 lights I bought popped off and I had to wrap the threads of the body with desoldering braid to screw and glue them on. They make a good bike light, though, if you get good ones. They're nice and bright on 2 high capacity AA Nimh's for at least 2 hours.

I'm going to try out a couple of C-8's, sku 6131 from DX. They're not Ultrafire but I hope their machining is better. If the C-8 works out it'll be brighter than a C-3 and it's got a slow and fast strobe.

The 606a looks a lot like my TerraLUX TLE-5EX MiniStar2 EXTREME modded 2AA MiniMag. If it's as bright or brighter, it should work well too. My MM runs for about 3 hours on 2 high capacity Nimh's.

Good luck.
 
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