[Closed] Multiple cheap lights vs one more expensive one

What’s people’s experience?

Something on your helmet is useful if you are doing technical stuff

In the end it's best to match your brightness to roughly what everyone else in your group has brightness wise

After years of using cheap lights that worked randomly I've just got a single Exposure unit now that always works.  Wish I'd just bought that at the start

I run two Solarstorm X2s with a Y-cable to an MTBBatteries pack.

I don’t have the need for any more light on the bars tbh but I’m not competing at any level. Just recently wrecked the battery pack leaving on the radiator, so faced with decision of splashing out £50 for a new pack or upgrading my Ravemen PR900 to a 1200.

For me it's in the mounts. Decent lights have decent mounting systems. I've got old cheap Chinese lights that are plenty bright and reliable but the mounts alway seem to let them down.
Anything using a rubber band is crap off road.

^. Agreed, was going to say...

Solarstorm X2’s + mtbbatteries pack initially cost me £45 (used from Classifieds) and have seen me through over a decade of riding. Caveat:

Either

- put some grippy tape on the bars and get quality O-rings that go tight enough...and they stay put much better. Otherwise they can ‘wander’.
- Or get a GoPro adapter mount. About £7

2 decent lights.one bar.one helmet.doesnt need to be that pricey if you don't get mega bright.

I have had a couple of bar lights, the first an early Exposure at just over 1000 lumens replaced with a Troute light at 2000 lumens. Both incredibly high quality and high price as well and at the time a bit niche.

Today the choices are wide with technology being more stable

As with most things you pays your money you takes your choice, the cheap Chinese lights deliver a lot for the money but come with the big but, that being quality as well as realistic light and battery quality

If I was buying now I would consider something from magicshine such as the mj-906, that’s 5000 lumen in a good package for £129 !!

I don’t think you could get a quality package for less than that

For tight corners something on the lid would be an idea, recently I went for the four4th scorch giving 2000 lumens in a neat package for £135

The two combined would be £265, not cheap but high end and a reliable set up

The best part of singletrack is there will be more ideas than you can shake a stick at, all considered and from experience

Happy shopping

I have a Magicshine 906 as mentioned above. Lots of width and depth to the beam with no hot spots, combined with my ancient Exposure Diablo Mk2 up top, I’m basically riding at daytime speeds.

I recently tried the Magicshine back to back with my old (hugely expensive) Lupine Wilma - not much in it brightness-wise but the spread on the Magicshine blows it away.

They claim 5000 lumens, but it’s really not - there is another version of the same light but with Bluetooth programming that claims 3200 lumens, which is probably closer to reality.

I'd always run two lights after running just one and it going off during a fast descent! It gets dark very quickly when your only light source stops working.

I'm firmly in the "spend a bit more for something good" camp now.

For me that's an exposure Toro on the bar and diablo on my helmet,

I'd expect black Friday to be a good time to look for deals on them.

The all-in-one units are fantastically convenient and although the cost was high-ish (compared to my previous cheaper lights), I expect not to have to replace them for five or ten years.

They claim 5000 lumens, but it’s really not

road.cc said:

Looking at our light beam comparison engine though you'll see that when measured the actual output is slightly less than the Niterider Pro 2800 with, yep you've guessed it, a claimed output of 2800 lumen.

https://road.cc/content/review/217521-magicshine-mj-906-light-set

Cheap lights don’t necessarily perform much worse out on the trail (at least, not in terms of the amount of light), so adding more cheap lights for more power solves a non-existent problem. Cheap lights might fail and give me (probably unfounded) nightmares about setting the house on fire, though.

I’ve got a decent light with a decent O-ring setup (Gemini Duo) and it’s great. The O-rings are v lightweight and IME don’t slip. They’re not necessarily bad per se, but they seem to be exclusively used on cheap lights.

But certainly a (cheap) head light + bar light combo would be better than a single posh light IMO (for anything remotely tech).

First reply nails it.

A load of lights and batteries on the bars isnt gonna be light.

Since I went exposure, the previous lights lie unused. The Lumenator was a good light, but I just won't use anything with cables and separate batteries now.

I’d expect black Friday to be a good time to look for deals on them.

Do you think it will this year?
I'd assumed there would be sod all this year due to lack of stock... Especially as Exposure don't seem to be selling anything direct any more, which I guess is to do with having low stock?

BH1000 on the bars, Solarstorm X2 on the noggin, both bodged onto slightly better GoPro mounts.

The Helmet light is more use off road IMO/IME so I tend to leave the bar light on a lower setting throughout a ride than the helmet light and just turn the helmet light off when trundling on roads or flat open fireroad type trails to conserve battery...

You don't need to spend the earth these days, but you do need to think about how best to mount your lights.

Standard response. Halfords 1600 on the bars with a GoPro mount, Halfords 500 on the helmet. Seem to have got the brightness / beam pattern / quality / price equation spot on.

I bought a £25 Cree 5-6 years ago and it has been fine for a bar light. Tried a few helmet lights and the most used us a Fluxient which has one 18650 and cost £30.
So £55 for a decent set up but I probably only get out twice a month at night.
If you are out 2-3 times a week doing hard stuff you might want to invest more but I am from Yorkshire so am always looking for the cheap option

Monty whereabouts is the magicshine for that price please? It sounds ideal for what I want.

Another fairly recent convert to Exposure here, after many years of separate batteries on leads. On pure financial terms I guess they're hard to justify but my decent previous lights have tended to fail at the cables and also been just less good mounting wise, although that's not to say they haven't lasted well enough. Previous cheap ones have sometimes had poor batteries too. I also wish I'd done it sooner. They just avoid lots of little niggles, work well and some have immense burn times. I wouldn't bother with Sync again though. In fact I'd actively avoid it.

Always light on both bar and helmet for me for MTB. Helmet only creates an issue with depth perception which for me is significant. Back in the day I was bar only for years but nowadays I hate losing the ability to see round a corner.

Multiple lights on the bar would p me off just for the clutter and extra charging faff.

I also have a Halfords 1600. The major limitation with that, for me, is having to cycle through so many modes. Otherwise fine. I use it on a gravel bike where I leave it largely in the same setting for the whole ride. Needs a 3rd party mount though - I've fitted a Hope which is fine. Added bonus of being a backup battery for an old phone that won't last a whole ride on GPS, and the 2 can sit neatly together on the bars connected up.

https://magicshineuk.com/collections/bike-headlights/products/magicshine-mj-906-bike-light-combo

My current "go to" light set is the Lidl set I bought for ~£13 around the time of lockdown v1, after someone on here bought a set (TINAS?) and reckoned the front complies with the German StVZO standards, it's great as a commuting light to be seen without dazzling drivers and to see where I'm going.

Other working lights I own (Magicshine MJ900, Moon Nebula, old Aldi "Moon Meteor - alike" set) haven't had a look in so far this autumn. The Magicshine needed quite careful positioning, because it is quite bright in more powerful modes, but might not be appreciated by motorists.

I'm rarely organised with redundancy lighting fitted, but when I do, a pair of those PX silicone CR2032 battery lights have been great as backup for several years... They were 50p each IIRC, replacement batteries cost more! 😆

Cheers Monty.

Have had a few of the cheapo chinese lights over the years. I found it illuminated well enough in use and dont think a few of them on the bars would improve vision much. I did worry about them when charging them up though and this is why i dont use them now. They were good(cheap) enough to dip my toe into night cycling to see if i liked it first. I've now got a Lumenator on my bars now, which i like. I dont mind the cable/battery and just stick them in a top tube bag which will also keep some of the chill of them too. Two lights are better in case one runs out of battery (ive had this happen, more often with the cheap lights) and also for the different shadow perspective if its on the helmet. I have now got an exposure joystick on the helmet and can agree with others that these are great. Easy to use, self contained, good light, but expensive. I would recommend getting as good as you can afford, maybe a new bar light and use the one you already have as a helmet light

I would second aide, the Chinese lights get you in the game to experience night riding before you blow £400.00

A few pals of mine have wanted to give it a try so I put them onto some £35.00 lights off eBay

For that sort of money no one can loose out

Once you have had a go and decide is for you the real work starts, separate battery vs all in one etc etc

One on the bar and one on the helmet (and something for emergencies in the backpack/pocket).

I've got a Nitefighter bt70, its a great light, but it's bloody huge and top heavy so tends to break mounts which is a PITA. Buying again I'd get a physically smaller lamp.

Headtorch is a mtb batteries lumenator. Tempted to get a 2nd one as a bar light.

I’ve done cheap chinese, exposure 6 pack and most recently a Halfords 1600.
Cheap were ok, in terms of light output, but the mounts are poor, and the separate battery is frankly a pain.
Exposure wins by a country mile for actual performance, this includes the mount, which is solid.
But bang for buck, the Halfords 1600 is hard to beat, a lot of power for £50.

Nice as my Diablo is, it only gives an hour on full power, if I forget to change modes after technical sections it is my cheap Chinese bar lights that save the day, no issue with the bracket either.

Just a thought...

I agree in principle that that a self-contained unit is less faff than a battery and cables faff. Used to have an Exposure MaXx D Mk something or other and it was just simplicity itself. Same goes with the Ravemen PR.

But they don’t run for so long at full chat.

So wouldn’t an all-in-one unit with swappable/replaceable rechargeable batteries be better? For runtimes and backup? Just refresh batteries mid-ride and it would double the runtime?

Can’t think of any that do this other than Fenix BC30, what others are out there?

Nice as my Diablo is, it only gives an hour on full power

A valid point, I've started taking a wee cheap Lidl rechargeable light on the bars, as my local trails are 20-25 mins cycle away on back roads and paths. This then frees up the Diablo and Joystick for full power, local trails are built descents, an hour of descending is rare given the amount of climbing back to the top.

P7eaven, aye, I'd appreciate a spare battery for my exposures.

Whatever light system you use, it's a compromise.

@p7eaven
Yeah that works, i have a Lezyne one that takes a standard 18650 cell, and tbf it’s ok.
But you still need to carry a spare battery.
That wouldn’t bother me, but could be a deal breaker for some.

^ I can see how a light with a short runtime would be a deal-breaker. But the option to refresh makes it less of a deal breaker than one without, surely?

I’d say the PITA with your Lezyne isn’t it’s ability swap batteries, it’s the small design capacity of the unit?

Ideally am talking about MTB lights, ie with two or more 18650 cells.

The BC30 for instance takes two. Riders aren’t duty-bound to carry two spares, but how much easier would that be to double your runtime? And to maybe extend the service-free life of the unit? (This could be the reason we don’t see more of them. Business model? 😎)

Take an Exposure unit. Imagine unscrewing the back of a unit and popping three fresh cells in there. Not really a lot of extra weight to carry is it? Again, this isn’t to add problems, it’s to add benefits.

Options are always good, look at the variety on this thread for example, some swear by exposure type, others are perfectly happy with £20 ebay specials with separate battery packs.
Frankly, even an ebay special ‘10 billion lumens’ is absolutely miles ahead of the ever ready niterider which was almost all that could be found in any shop when i started biking, they were absolutely crap.
Modern lights are ****in brilliant.