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8.5 Light systems




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This article is from the Misc Bicycles FAQs, by various authors.

8.5 Light systems

From: allard@isi.edu (Dennis Allard)

This is from a post I made in June. It has to do with how to modify
your existing Cateye halogen to be a super city bike headlight.

An issue of Bicycling last fall has a good survey of most of the
currently available units. Most powerful, by far: the Night Sun, a
20W high beam/ 10W low beam double headlight unit. But it costs $200.
I decided to acquire a battery unit on my short ride bide (i.e., my
city/mountain bike). I went in to a store thinking either Night Sun
or Brite Light. I walked out with a unit which was not even in the
Bicycling issue. It's the new Cat Eye thing. You buy the Cat Eye 1.1
Watt Halogen. You buy a kit which includes a 4W bulb, a small light
weight battery good for 1 solid hour of riding, a recharger, and some
miscellaneous connecting wires and stuff. You chuck the AA cells from
the original unit, and wire up the little battery pack, which on my
bike fit very neatly near the top of my rear stays. You now have a
quite useful and brilliant light for city riding. The whole deal
comes to one third of what the Night Sun goes for, yet I think the Cat
Eye, at 4W, is quite competitive or maybe even better than the 10W low
beam of the the Night Sun. They use different bulb technologies, and
in a side by side, in store, comparison, I frankly preferred the
brilliant white narrow beam of the Cat Eye halogen to the Night Sun's
low beam. Nothing can compete with the Night Sun high beam.

One feature of the Cat Eye I particularly liked: It has two little
side ports which cast a brilliant pencil diameter beam both left and
right. A nice touch.

A tip. If you get the beefed up Cat Eye kit. Drill a couple of holes
in the headlight casing up behind where the reflector is. Some people
have reported that the stock reflector can melt when used with the 4W
bulb.

Another tip. The Cat Eye mounts *beneath* the handlebars of most
mountain bikes quite nicely. The beam is symmetrical, so its not
upside down if you do that.

 

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