LED headtorches

So how how bright are they?

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Steve Riley
20/11/2001 at 10:38
So how bright are these new fangled LED headtorches? What would be their equivalent in say a bike light?

Can you see where I'm going with this, I'm wondering if something like a Black Diamond Moonlight would be good enough to use as a supplemental light for mountain biking. At night that is.
Lloyd Bower
20/11/2001 at 11:35
Hi Steve,
I've got the Petzl Tikka and been well impressed with it. The great advantage is the seemingly endless battery life.

That said it's not really bright enough to run offroad in the dark with.

I do quite abit of bike night riding and always take it as a back up, to fix punctures, etc. It would be ok to get back on road, but not off road.

There's a review of head torches in the current Trail magazine, the Lucido 7 looks like the one to buy. 6 LEDS, plus a halogen bulb and you there's various levels of control. Don't think its cheap though!
No doubt Petzl will be coming out with something to match shortly.
Carolyn Otley
20/11/2001 at 12:00
Lloyd's assessment sounds fair to me. They spread nice, wide light, but it doesn't go very far.

I'd certainly be scared if I used one as my only light MTBing, so it depends what you mean by a supplementary light? It'd be OK to get back to the road slowly and then get home, I guess....
Jon Doran
20/11/2001 at 12:08
I've used a Moonlight for mountain biking - from the shooting hut down to the Chapel road in the Peak and I don't recommend it if you want to survive for long...

The Moonlight is brighter than the Tikka and okay for walking, but too diffuse for biking. Good for being seen by car drivers though. The Lucido T7 lloyd mentions, costs around 60 squid, which is a lot for a head torch. If you're going to spend big bucks for mountain biking, take a look at the Lumicycle set-up. Not cheap, but ideal for biking and, if you were prepared to carry the weight, massively more effective than any walking/climbing head torch I've encountered. A 12-watt lumi with a 20-watt flood on the bars should get you though anything - unfortunately it costs around 160 quid...

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Jon Doran
20/11/2001 at 12:09
ps: the Lucido T7 just has seven LEDs, no halogen, it's the T61 that has the 65 LEDs and one halogen. Sorry, that was nit-picking at a high level.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Steve Riley
20/11/2001 at 12:44
OK then, not the miracle cheap, light and powerful I was hoping for (I'm looking at maybe sticking something on my head to go with 6W/15W on the bars).
Jon Doran
20/11/2001 at 12:58
Have you asked on BIKEmagic? Problem is that any conventional head torch that's going to give enough light will eat batteries. I'll try and get hold of one of the Lucidos for test on the site.

Combination of head and bar works really well btw, means you can look round corners etc rather than just straight ahead. I tend to ride exclusively on the lumi headlamp unless it's very technical when I stick the flood on as well.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Jon Doran
20/11/2001 at 13:07
Oh, just goingback to the original question, it's not so much the brightness or otherwise of LEDs that's relevant, they're just not very directional. What you get is a sort of uniform pool of very white light, but with no focussed beam effect, closer to a flood than a spot in bike light terms.

A Petzl Zoom with normal bulb is also crap for biking, the halogens are better but again they eat batteries.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Chris McSweeny
20/11/2001 at 16:44
On new batteries I reckon a Tikka's almost as good as a Zoom Halogen - rapidly dims though, so the seemingly endless battery life doesn't give you that good a light. Totally dwarfed by my Lumicycles when I'm on the bike - I use the Tikka to read my map with / look at signposts. It's possible to run with it if you're careful, and certainly OK for walking.
Lloyd Bower
20/11/2001 at 16:58
Summing up then, Yep as Caroline says it depends on what you mean by supplemental light.
As Chris says the Tikka's ok for reading a map, looking at sign posts, pitching a tent, walking etc.
Regarding proper off road bike lights, I'd likewise definitely recommend the lumicycles. As mentioned above by Jon they do a helmet mount.
Jon Doran
20/11/2001 at 17:03
www.lumicycle.co.uk

but if you really want insane light, try a Cateye Stadium... Okay, they cost 300 quid, but it's like throwing the switch on set of football stadium floodlights. I borrowed one of these and used it with a set of Lumis during a magazine night ride shoot and it was like daylight. Of course that takes some of the fun out of the night riding experience, but what the heck, they vaporise moths six feet away.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Ian Munro
20/11/2001 at 17:07
I'm building a new LED headlamp at the moment, using a luxeon star LED. This single led is rated at 1 watt and is brighter than a petzl zoom with a standard bulb, and almost as bright as a zoom with halogen bulb. The only problem is that the light colour is cyan. (I've also got white ones, but they don't produce as much light at the moment)

The cyan light is fine for walking and riding, but not so good for map reading as you loose all colour reference.
Because of this I'm building a unit which also incorporates low-power (aka tika) white leds for map reading and general campsite use.

To drive it, I'm desiging a constant current switching regulator. This means that the lamp will run off 2 AA batteries and won't fade as the batteries run-down. It will also be quite a bit more efficent, so you'll get more light per a battery.

I'll post more details once I've got a decent prototype working.
Jon Doran
20/11/2001 at 17:31
If you'd like to do a build your own LED torch piece for the site, that would be great. Isn't cyan sort of blue? Sounds quite funky.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Ian Munro
21/11/2001 at 09:52
Yeah, the cyan colour is pretty funky. It's a sort electric greenish (if such a colour exists). Switch in on and you get the sort of mono-colour lighting effects you normaly get in films such as aliens when you're looking through the eyes of the monster hunting it's prey.
It sounds odd, but you soon warm to it.

As for the LED torch bit, I need to find an objective way of measuring output and battery light. Shining the lights at a white sheet of card, and using a camera with fixed exposure is one possiblity. Or using some-sort of light sensor with the a similar spectral response to the human eye.
I'll get back to you if I do any objective testing.
Steve Riley
21/11/2001 at 10:33
Put me down for #0002 Ian. I'd quite like the idea of Predator night riding.
Chris McSweeny
21/11/2001 at 11:01
Ian, you should subscribe to <A href="http://www.topica.com/lists/bikecurrent/" target="_blank">bikecurrent</A>, where they discuss homemade LED lights and such. By the sounds of things you could contribute, rather than learning anything!
Chris McSweeny
21/11/2001 at 11:02
Try again...

an, you should subscribe to bikecurrent, where they discuss homemade LED lights and such. By the sounds of things you could contribute, rather than learning anything!
John Bailey
21/11/2001 at 15:02
There would definately be a market if someone sold a kif for about 5 quid to convert a zoom to using an LED, all you would need is a bright enough LED, an LED holder that fitted into the standard bulb holder and preferably a converter so that you could put a lighter battery in the battery case.

Of course its not in petzls interests to do this as they are far more interested in selling everyone new torches.
Hedgehope Aztec
21/11/2001 at 16:11
It's quite easy (though fiddly) to make a homemade LED bulb using the casing of an old bulb without resorting to using a constant current generator and thus you have a pop in replacement. The downside is the light will fade as the battery runs down.
I made 2 bulbs one with 3 leds in which is ok for walking and one with 1 in for use in the tent for reading, finding out where the water's coming in etc. (though I always keep a high brightness normal bulb just in case).

I'm really surprised that some commercial company hasn't come up with a "LED replacement Bulb".

PS from something I posted in May about LED Head torches, if you fancy a bit of DIY:

Maplin do:
NR73Q "Nichia White LED 5mm" £2.99
GV65V "Nichia White LED 3mm" £2.99

The 5mm have the highest light output at 1.56cd, the 3mm at 1.27cd, but the 3mm may give a better fit.
Ninja Marmot
22/11/2001 at 08:38
Discovered this site last week. Hello everyone!
Very interesting thread, guys. I need a new head torch and I fancied one of the Tikka-type ones but would like to know their suitability for night-navving; most of you seem to be using lights for biking. I use at present a Petzl zoom and an AA Maglight as secondary light. I find (as a fair damsel!) that the Zoom is rather heavy and am looking for a lightweight but no less efficient alternative without spending a mortgage on it.
Ian's experiments sound good, let us know how you get on; I'm not averse to a bit of building. As far as the testing of luminosity goes, could you set up a series of LDRs in potential divider circuits and vary the resistance of each with a pot? Just a thought.
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