I want to spend no more than around £ 50 on my first set of rechargable lights and have come up with either the Cateye HL-RC230 Dual Front or the Smart 10w/2.4w Twin Rechargeable Headlight. My rides are normally 50% on, 50% off-rode.
Probably the most important factor for me is burn time - the longer the better! The Cateye is rated at 2 hours at 10w which doesn't seem long at all for me. I'm having some difficulty finding any specs or reviews for the Smart lights so i don't know much about them. Someone said they can last up to 10 hours on just the 2.4w light?.... This would be ideal as i could just use the 10w as and when needed.
So the question is : Cateye HL-RC230 Dual Front or Smart 10w/2.4w Twin Headlight?
I use the Smarts and I'd say you'd get about 2 hours with both bulbs running at the same time. I'm not sure how long you'd get with just the 2.4w bulb though. Saying that though, the spread of the beam is pretty good. My mate just bought the 10w Vistalite Trailrat for £100 and I think the beam is actually better on the cheap smarts !
i just got my cateyes through the post and charged the battery up last night for 40 winks/8 hours (like the instructions say!) plugged it all together thinking 'waheey i'll go for a nice night time ride tonight' but when i switched the lights on i got the low battery warning LED as soon as i switched on. run time < 1 second. i'm not impressed with that. does anyone know if i can get the battery into life?
I have a set of the bottle battery smarts and I get the following run times out of them: 2.4=approx 10hrs 10=approx 5hrs both=approx 2.5hrs With the NI-Cad bottle I always dis-charge it fully before giving it a full 12hr charge and after 4 years it is still working fine.
Matd; I used to use my smarts for both commuting and off road cycling, the 2.4 is well bright enough for commuting I would only switch the 2.4 & 10 on together when going through some very nasty roundabouts! When in off road use the 2.4 was good enough to light unlit sections of fire road type sections, I would then switch to both beams for the more tricky bridleway sections that we cover on our nightime rides. The only down side with the smarts is the long charge time for the Ni-Cads so I now use Vistalite 5/15w on my MTB (4hr odd charge time) but still use the smarts for commuting, the prob was getting in at 23:00 from a night ride and then going to work at 07:00 so hence not enough time to get the battery charged up or trying not to use it "too much" on a night ride which is not a good idea! If you opt for the SLA type for the smarts then you have to be careful with how you charge the batt. Hope this is helpful! OJ.
Thanks for your reply, very useful and much appreciated.
I've ordered the Smart 2.4w + 10w with the Lead Acid Battery, but i've read that you can upgrade the batteries yourself which will give very impressive burn times :-
matd: ta, i spoke to the shop and they suggested running it to flat and recharging it three or four times to try to get it to work properly (!?) which cateye apparently recommended, if not they will swap out the battery for a new one. i have an Optimate battery charger for my motorbike which optimises and recovers lead acid batteries and i may just bodge up a connection and try that... i'm about to try clickyclick on that link there also.
Matd; The only prob with smarts is that the mounting bracket is a bit bouncy! The best way to fit is to have the screw lugs at the bottom with the bracket then coming back up vertical (if this makes sense?) If you want to cut down on the "strobe effect" is to then pack out the gap with some sort of packing, say polystyrene, then cable tie the whole set up tight to the handlebars. Enjoy your nightime rides, I can safley say after 3 years of late night MTBing you can not beat it! No matter what lights you run! Owen.
Thanks for the tips, they should be here by Tuesday so i'll try your suggestion out. Can't wait to try them, there’s something about riding at night that you just don't get during the daytime, especially through Forest tracks...
yep, i've been discovering the sheer terror of forest riding by braille the last couple of weeks. brilliant fun, but you do need something more than an everready torch on your bike ;-)
