Which helmet lights with a built in battery give a long life with a good beam for rides over a couple of evenings, flash and can be charges up from a dynamo or a power back battery.
Links please.

Exposure Diablo Mk9? Doubt it will charge from a dynamo but it does from battery packs.

You can allegedly get 24hrs from it on the lowest power setting, but Ive not tried as the lowest setting barely lets you see past the front wheel. On full power it will blind badgers and melt tarmac for an hour. For normal riding, where you're toggling between outputs, it will give you 3-6 hrs and then without warning suddenly go dark ... at least mine does. It has a fuel gauge light but that's on the back of the light, which is on your head, not where you can see it..

The tap function - where you give it a whack to move between settings - is brilliant, and you can get accessories like support cells and rear lights. And if the Diablo is too much, the smaller/lighter Joystick is great too.

https://exposurelights.com/products/bik ... diablo-mk9

What sort of riding are you looking at doing at night? If you want to be blasting round trail centre type stuff then you'll need something decent but if it's more steady riding then something like the Exposure Joystick will do. Is it to be used on its own or along with a bar light?

I used one on last year's Highland Trail on the lowest setting for the most part, unlike Brown Dog finds that was more than good enough. I moved it to the medium setting for downhill sections. After three nights of a couple of hours and the last where I rode through the night, I still had more than 50% charge remaining. I probably could have used medium all the time.

I’ve just bought a Moon Vortex Pro, which is claimed to produce 900 lumens on full and seems to have a good spread of usable output levels. It comes with quality bar and helmet mounts and a remote switch. Not used it yet but it looks top notch.

Annoyingly, one reason I picked it over a Joystick was that it uses a replaceable 18650 battery, of which I have lots, but Moon use a weird format with both terminals at one end, so I can’t use my spares.

Still, it was a third of the price of a Joystick so I can afford to buy some.

2nd vote for the joystick. I also have a support cell (Exposure's external battery) that I can plug in to double to run time. I think the joystick is the sweet spot of light output v's weight v's run time.

Link as requested

https://exposurelights.com/products/bik ... mk12-black

If you shop around you'll get it cheaper than the rrp, especially as summers coming up. Evans usually have some good deals if you keep an eye out. This is the support cell

https://exposurelights.com/products/bik ... -cell-31-a

the joystick, axis and diablo all have the same size battery in. the max power goes up and the burn time comes down.

if you are happy running them on low most of the time and turning them up for the faster/trickier bits I can eek a good three hour ride out of my axis. for me the low power setting is perfectly fine for fireroads, climbing etc.

The Equinox was the other Exposure model (like a fat Joystick) but seems to have been discontinued. It also works with the external Exposure batteries.

I have a diablo and a joystick. The joystick has a 36hr mode (confirmed as mine is in front of me), the diablo only a 24hr mode (both for the longest running settings)

Charge fine with an external battery pack

Smudge at MTB batteries can do a generic support cell for a good few quid less than an official exposure one.

John, if you are at either the WRT or JennRide then you can check out my light (had to be careful with my words there )

whitestone wrote:John, if you are at either the WRT or JennRide then you can check out my light (had to be careful with my words there )

"you can turn on and play with my joystick"

You also need to Bear in mind (see what I did there ) what bar light you're pairing it with.

I would think that your Six-Pack would swamp the light from a joystick & a Diablo would be a better pairing John. Also the tap function on the Diablo is well ace for trail riding.

If you can stretch also get a piggy back battery for peace of mind as it'll almost double the run times.

I've got a older Diablo & the latest mk12 Joystick if you want to try one before sploshing you're dosh..

Joysticks for me - one on the bars, one on the helmet. Great runtime and weight. Enough light to spot wild boar in the bush whilst on the move.

Greetz

S.

Budget option
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Soshine-TC12 ... SwX9FZIYBw

Crap mounting bracket.

Scattamah wrote:Joysticks for me - one on the bars, one on the helmet. Great runtime and weight. Enough light to spot wild boar in the bush whilst on the move.

Greetz

S.

After the other weekend outing with Scott he's right ,there's way more than enough light from the joysticks ,so I ditched the portable sun on my bars and got one , used it last week on the commute and on program 2 on medium (10hrs) there was way more than enough light for my 10mile commute along unpaved tow paths and canal tunnels , don't think there would be enough for blasting around the trail center/technical trails but for the natural stuff I ride over Cannock and bridleways it's perfect

It's only to back up my KLite bar light, setting up camp and commuting in the daylight on flash mode.

Not quite the question you asked; however, how about a separate head and battery?
Then no need to worry about the battery life, simply carry a spare battery or use a larger capacity battery.
I use a lupine pico, find the separate head/battery helps with weight distribution on the helmet. Also had a bar mounted remote control.
For charging, lupine make a tiny USB charger. Works very well, used on BB200 when I rode in 2016; when the first battery was flat swapped to a second and put the first on charge. To be fair, perhaps I shouldn’t have been using my then Lupine Wilma on full beam all night.

A diablo charges fine on a hub dynamo. I have done it many times.