I've had my front light go out once on me (cable fault) but to be honest it's no great shakes as long as you have a back up. Unless you are bowling along at 40+ you can stop the bike in a few seconds. Either carry a spare light (or in my case a spare battery), or buy a light with a longer burn time.
That's true on a decent road. Most of my commute is back lanes with no white lines, variable verges, ditches, puddles, gravel, potholes etc. I keep to 15 mph even downhill and at that speed it's all fine as long as I can see
A couple of seconds without a light and I could be upside down.
Don't your LED lights have a less powerful setting? In that mode they actually strobe extremely fast so power use is reduced considerably.
They do. The second from highest setting lasts a good couple of hours and is OK if there is some ambient light such as moonlight. But I do prefer the full 200/250 lumens.
I've just looked at the runtimes on the box from my Moon light. All values are "up to"
Constant beam:
Low: 6 lumen - 9 hrs
Standard: 12 lumen - 4 hrs 30
High: 25 lumen - 2 hrs 15
Overdrive: 50 lumen - 1 hr
10% flashing: 5 lumen - 20 hrs 40
50% flashing: 25 lumen - 4 hrs 25
100% flashing: 50 lumen - 2 hrs 10
Strobe: 10 lumen - 10 hrs 40
At constant beam on high you would get a couple of hours, that should do you?
As above, yes it would. I think ultimately I need to have a light with a bigger battery. The Moon is beautifully small and convenient, but for longer rides at night I think I am pushing its capabilities a bit.
It's the 'protection' circuit on the L-ion batteries that causes it, if the battery fully discharges it wrecks em.
Try getting a light that runs on 4 AA batteries and run that on NiCad or NiMh rechargables (or even Duracells)
EDIT - Try something like this, 80hrs runtime on Alkaline so should give 50-60 on rechargeables
That looks like the business, thank you.
One of the things I quite like about my fenix is that as the power drops, it steps down a light level to maximise run-time.
That is an excellent idea.
Thanks for the suggestions all. Think I will be investing in a bigger, better light for next winter and keeping the Moons as daylight markers and reserves. Cheers, and a Happy New Year to you.