biked to work 2a
The head LED and the bike light make a really good combination. I'm discovering that I look around a lot. Especially on familiar streets. (And a 2nd or 3rd pass is enough to count as familiar.) My head (and the LED) ends up pointed a lot of different directions, but the bike's light stays pointed where the front wheel is going. My eyes move a lot more than my head, so they're often back to the pavement before the LED's beam gets there, and it's good to have the bike's light already there.
The central beam area of the dimmed 3-watt LED and the 35-watt halogen seem to be about the same brightness. The halogen has more side scatter, but that is valuable for visibility in traffic, being seen by other people, especially those who aren't directly in front of you. (You really need those people off to the sides to see you coming.) But that's a staggering difference in efficiency. I'm going to have to replace the halogens with LEDs pretty soon. I had been planning to go with HIDs before. I suppose a HID and an LED to replace the 2 halogens (35- and 55-watts) might be the answer. HIDs are more efficient than halogens, but they have some downsides - they take a while to get get to full brightness, and on-off cycles cut their life. They need to be turned on and left on, which isn't the flexibility of going for extra brightness on downhills (high speed) or roads without streetlights.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/354616.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
The central beam area of the dimmed 3-watt LED and the 35-watt halogen seem to be about the same brightness. The halogen has more side scatter, but that is valuable for visibility in traffic, being seen by other people, especially those who aren't directly in front of you. (You really need those people off to the sides to see you coming.) But that's a staggering difference in efficiency. I'm going to have to replace the halogens with LEDs pretty soon. I had been planning to go with HIDs before. I suppose a HID and an LED to replace the 2 halogens (35- and 55-watts) might be the answer. HIDs are more efficient than halogens, but they have some downsides - they take a while to get get to full brightness, and on-off cycles cut their life. They need to be turned on and left on, which isn't the flexibility of going for extra brightness on downhills (high speed) or roads without streetlights.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/354616.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]