Dinotte or Cateye

[bonj2]

TBH this whole business about watts, lumens and lux is starting to irritate me. There's no ability for direct comparison between similar looking lights.

I agree. You can measure lumens, which is a measure of light intensity, but at what point do you measure it? If you measure it at the beam centre, i.e. where the light's directly pointing, then that may seem to prove that one light's better than another. But there's always going to be a drop-off as you move round which may be faster on some lights than others, i.e. as you deviate away from the beam centre, plotting intensity against angle of deviation is always going to give you a different curve for each light - because of the optic used. The only way you can really make a worthwhile comparison is to actually try them out in the dark and make a judgement as to the effectiveness for a particular situation.

BTW a parcel which i'm presuming is the BLT firewire is waiting for me at the postal depot, going to pick it up tomorrow and will give it a try at the wknd hopefully!

 

[ajc]

That seems fairly unlucky User, my problems only occurred when TNT tried to deliver the lights to my company and the package didnt have my name on it. I'm hoping that customs won't be chasing it up.
I hope you think the lights are worth it, I do !

 

[ajc]

The new battery style looks interesting, although with the 6 hour run time I shouldn't have to worry about the lights going out on my 1.5 hour commute in an evening. I'd like to see how much the third type of battery will cost.

 

[Noodley]

I arrived at work this morning to find a letter from TNT.£43.

On the positive side, you have something to tell Andy at Ayup - that it's unlikely he'll be getting an order from me!

 

[mikeitup]

I dunno bout that

They are still a bargain at £150 IMO.

 

[doyler78]

I arrived at work this morning to find a letter from TNT.£43.

They're still worth it though.

Roadie Kit including freight = £113.67 ($266 AUD web purchase) + additonal costs collected by TNT on behalf of HM Customs - DFE & VAT = £34.58, Total approx cost £148.25

Seems their investigations into what the costs are likely to be are well out. Nearly 30% higher. A bit of shame that they still can't manage to get the correct info together. No doubt you will be able to provide them the appropriate breakdowns so that they can update their site with a better set of estimates. I must say that from reading other forums it was clear to me that the cost was likely to be in the £40 mark if you got hit so not really sure how they arrived at the mid £30 figure they did.

Bad luck on getting hit with it. Still none arrived on mine and it looks like I am now outside the danger zone so pretty chuffed now.

 

[alfablue]

At £150 they still seem to be head and shoulders above anything else at that price.

 

[HJ]

I would still like to see a direct comparison with DiNotte as they are only £99 from on-one.

 

[HJ]

So would I. You get more with the Ayups (lithium rechargeable battery, mains charge, car charger) for the same price. Shipping is £16 (on-one is £5), then it's a gamble whether you pay customs.

For me one of the attractions of the DiNotte is that they run on AA batteries, if you order them stateside you can get them for £81.12 (Batteries and charger incl.) FREE USPS priority shipping worldwide and if you're lucky get away without paying customs, but as you know that is a a gamble.

 

[doyler78]

For me one of the attractions of the DiNotte is that they run on AA batteries, if you order them stateside you can get them for £81.12 (Batteries and charger incl.) FREE USPS priority shipping worldwide and if you're lucky get away without paying customs, but as you know that is a a gamble.

For me the only advantage of having an aa powered light is that you can buy new batteries at almost any convenience store anywhere. Is that enough to sell a donotte to me. I am afraid not. Why?

Its quite simple I don't think aa's offer the best battery power for a light which is going to be used for more than an hour or so. The aa battery will not come even close to the run times of the ayups 6 hour battery. I can recharge the battery every night without any risk of memory loss as afflicted older battery models and have a fully charged up battery waiting for me every ride. If I want the security of a backup battery I simply place an order for a spare battery with my original order and it is about £10. Not much when you consider the cost aa's over time.

AA's also have the disadvantage as concerns rechargeable versions in that they run at 1.2v rather 1.5 for alkaline friends and such they have a lower initial output ie the light isn't as bright in unregulated lights as it would be on an alkaline battery therefore if you want optimal performance you have use new alkaline batteries each journey which is very expensive.

At least these, amongst others, are some of the reasons I used when I made my initial purchase.

I should also point out that these lights are so small and compact and so very light including the battery pack that it really has the best of all worlds. Lightweight, bright, fantastic battery, excellent warranty (they will pay for shipping back to them if there is a prob - how many will do that even in this country let alone half way around the world?).

I don't know but perhaps you can get your dinottes serviced in the UK if the go wrong if they were bought direct from the US or would you have to pay for return carriage - a bit expensive perhaps!

 

[Lardyboy]

AA's also have the disadvantage as concerns rechargeable versions in that they run at 1.2v rather 1.5 for alkaline friends and such they have a lower initial output ie the light isn't as bright in unregulated lights as it would be on an alkaline battery therefore if you want optimal performance you have use new alkaline batteries each journey which is very expensive.

Voltage is not really the issue, its current delivery. Rechargables, either NiCad, NiMh or LiPo have higher m/ah ratings compared normal alkaline. Whilst Alkalines will be slightly brighter for a few minutes they would soon drop off due to their lack of current reserves where as the others will still give you the same performance hours later. Or so I've been told anyway. Also NiMh and LiPo have no "memory" issues that NiCAD has. But LiPo does need to be charged very carefully with a very dedicated charger or things go "bang" very loudly.