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I want something with lots of light for the bars, and something as small as possible for the head. Any recommendations? I am talking about the £10-15 type, since I have known good batteries and chargers already.
Bar light wise....Not sure it latest or greatest but I've just bought a kaidomain BL 70 (Cree XHP70.2) head unit [in Neutral White 4000K] and am really very happy with the output, loads of light and nice and floody. The downside were a 20day wait, a huge head unit that you need to replace the clamp (the Hope universal clamp is good), I occasionally get lost in which setting I'm in (but that hardly a major issue) and the low beam is really very low.
I am no longer struggling to see past my own shadow when my m8 is behind me with his Exposure 6 pack
It's always easier when everyone settles on a 'winner'.
So we had the original Magicshine Bastid, the Solarstorm and to a lesser extend the Yinding and the Nitefighter.
The problem is there hasn't been a 'winner' since these, so I've continued to buy my favourite the Nitefighter BT40 in neutral white when I needed extra lights for my son.
The latest Magicshines are usually dearer now, but there have been a couple of Alpkit or Planet X deals on these over black friday, etc so maybe worth keeping an eye out.
I replaced my Nitefighter BT70 with a BL70 as Z1ppy recommends.
Mine are quite old now - 5-6 years or so. Has LED technology improved? My bar light is a Troutie one with like 5 LEDs in a row - very floody which is lovely on full with a headlamp, but lacks penetration otherwise. My headlamp is a single unit like most cheap ones, it had a ludicrously tight spot:
Yes without a doubt things moved on, you can replace that unit with something half the size and comparable output, but they seem to have slowed down lately or at least I can't see any major advances. I swapped to a Solarstorm x2 on my head a few years ago (dual light, which are still for sale with upgrade LED's), which is still a pretty tight beam but not as bad as the original bastid, and nice a low profile for helmet use (depending on how you mount it), they're cheap as chip on ebay. I was using the SSx2 and a Tout mini on the bars until last year, when the mini finally got flakey.
BL70 is just a bit too massive for my taste, surely there must be something better than the BT40 by now? It's just a copy of the ancient magicshine 872, the first good cheap light...
I bought a cheapo, 2 x 18650 cell headtorch, with a thick magnifying lens; for about £16 from EBay. The beam pattern is fantastic. Perfect light spread. Look for one with Zoom Headtorch, & a single light.
I got one of these recently to replace an ancient Lumenator, following a recommendation on here. Better than a Solarstorm. Definitely with £15
Still rocking a BT40s as my head unit
But I recently picked up a bikehut 1600 light as an all in one for ease of use
Finding it a bit of a faff with the battery pack and wires
I was hunting around to find the "BL2s" name earlier as a recommendation(but failed), it look nice units and get a decent review on MTBR, but half the battle is waiting for the damned thing to arrive from china, so depends how impatient you are.
As for the BL70 being big, yep it's huge but with a decent mount it's not going anywhere and produced the beam pattern I wanted. I did look for alternatives but couldn't see anything new (or exciting), without going mainstream, even though the BL70 been out since 2016.
and the Bikehut 1600 all-in-one does seem bloody tempting option, for not a lot of money