what do you think of this 4w LED bike light?

What do you guys think of Vegas LED 4watt bike light? Does it seem bright enough for the single track trail? This is the URL: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=111188
You have to scroll down the middle of the page to see the photos. I am considering of buying it.

I've been interested in that little bugger myself. But then I've made my own version that I'm pretty happy with. For an off-the-shelf product, I think it will be a winner!

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Here is their website. Somehow, I doubt that the LED would like to be driven at 4W while stuffed inside of a plastic body... Other than heat issues, it does look very interesting.

Picard: The beam photos do indeed make this an interesting light. I ride year-round North of 60, so that means in darkness essentially 9 months of the year, so, I recommend that whatever you get should be helmet-mounted, as that way it goes where you are going to go instead of where your handlebars are pointed. As well, you can use the full throw of the light by simply looking where you want to go, or read street-signs, lock your bike up, attach your panniers, fix a flat, whatever. If the light isn't that heavy (<300grammes) you can simply tie loops of elastic cord through your helmet's vents to make an instant helmet-mount. I have a review somewhere on the candlepower forums of a Canadian LED helmet light that puts out amazing power for 4 AA batteries and a 300gramme weight, made by Night Hawk. Vélorution!/Bike On!

I think the beam photos can be very missleading.
10 watts is about the miniumum that i would use for mountain biking.
I was just thinking about watts of LED vs. incan.
my uk c8 puts out around 250 lumens i believe, and its 13 watts. a 10 watt would still probally put out at least 150 lumens. now a 3 watt luxeon can put out maybe 40 - 50 lumens, plus we have to remmeber that it is in a plastic body as someone mentioned before. if the manufacturer is smart they wouldnt overdrive it too much for fear of over heating it. so the output may be lower than that.

Im sure that for road biking it would probally be fine, but to go down a narrow dirt trail, looking for obstacles, i dont think it would be enough.

thats just my opinion, but i may be wrong.
Brandon

Your life is worth more than 4 watts. Check out this review of top-end bike lights. It's found in MTBReview.com, home of the most complete bike-light reviews.

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picard said:
What do you guys think of Vegas LED 4watt bike light? Does it seem bright enough for the single track trail? This is the URL: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=111188
You have to scroll down the middle of the page to see the photos. I am considering of buying it.

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The beamshots look a lot brighter than I was expecting. If the prevailing available flux bin is still T (I've been absent for 6 months), there is no way that a single LuxIII is bright enough for safe trail riding, overdriven or not. With the proper optics, you can get adequate flood or throw, but not both - it just doesn't put out enough light. It's enough to ride home on, but I would run at least 2 (flood on the bars, medium-spot on the helmet) for normal use.

On the other hand, it's probably great for limited after-dark road riding. It looks easily intense enough to wipe out the confusing light/dark changes around street lights, and you can dial it back in complete darkness.

I'm curious if they buy a specific Lux bin, hopefully V0 or V1. Luxes are particularly ill-suited for trail riding because they lack red, so browns (e.g. trees) look dark or black. Apparently the warmer tints are less affected.

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eebowler said:
Here is their website. Somehow, I doubt that the LED would like to be driven at 4W while stuffed inside of a plastic body... Other than heat issues, it does look very interesting.

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The LED would hate that. I have a modified plastic body light with external finned heatsink (admittedly a small one), and running 2 TV1Js on a BadBoy at 500mA definitely requires active airflow. This config produces around as much heat as 1 at >1000mA. A plastic body coupled with that overdrive would be a dealbreaker for me.

Are you sure that the body is plastic? I'm having a terrible time telling from the pictures, and I can't find a spec list that says it explicitly. I was looking at some of the older halogen models for a mod host, but a cheaper halogen does me no good if the body isn't metal.

Found a review:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=tech/2005/reviews/light_and_motion_vega

The bezel is aluminum, and the body is (rugged) plastic. I'm sort of surprised that no one has noticed dimming yet, as the internal thermal control doesn't look so good (the Lux star is attached to the battery pack and not much else) in addition to the plastic body.

I have ridden with such lights and can tell you that they are crap compared to even a halfway decent halogen bulb.

Reasons:

1. there's not enough spill for mtn biking due to an optics system or a reflector

2. if you run a bare led with no optics/etc at all, it's not bright enough

3. color temp, screws with your depth perception and recognition of obstacles

4. helmet lights have all these problems plus absolutely NO depth perception due to not casting shadows

Check ebay for turbocat lights. Sometimes you can get a good deal.

For what it's worth, heat buildup is very little even with poor heatsinking. There's so much airflow that it makes up for it.

And finally, $175 bucks? Are they on crack?

Groovy, but costly

Thanks for the experienced comments. One thing, though:
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turbodog said:
For what it's worth, heat buildup is very little even with poor heatsinking. There's so much airflow that it makes up for it.

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It seems like the emitter and batteries share their heat in an insulated pocket of air; it's not that there's poor heatsinking, it's that there's no heatsinking.

Anyway, plenty of reasons not to get this light.

ok, thanks for info guys. I wont't get it since there is no heat sink. The heat will melt the plastic.