Planet X lights?

[Rob S]

https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/LIPXBBB10 ... bike-light

I've never had a proper light before, only a 'here I am' one. So I may give this a go, has anyone else tried one of these?
It's very cheap, so I'm not expecting great things from it. I just wondered if I was wasting 20 quid or not. Would use it on and off road, when on road is it just a case of tilting it forward a bit so you don't blind drivers? Thanks.

[slarge]

I think you aren't wasting your money - the lamp unit is going to be great (700 lumens is an "OK" output - plenty for the road and OK for slow off road), but don't expect great things from the battery pack. The chances of achieving the claimed runtime are going to be slim, and you may find the battery pack lasts a year and is then toast. Cheap lithium ion batteries are generally cheap for a reason. Good lithium ion cells are expensive. However in time you could replace the battery pack.

The market is awash with cheap lights, and my only recommendation with these is to make sure they are CE marked - that way you have at least some confidence in their safety (there used to be reports of cheap lights causing small fires when plugged in to charge - either the fault of a poor quality charger or crap batteries without thermal cutout.

[Lazarus]

You will get a better light on eBay but it's the battery that costs so expect to buy a MTB battery at some point
Personally I would want 1200 lumens( min pref more) and many exaggerate the lumens esp on eBay

[voodoo_simon]

Not used this light but 700 lumens should be fine for riding, I’ve used much less over the years and it’s been fine. The only time you need loads and loads of lumens is on group rides as it becomes a bit of a battle of lumens (mainly a brighter light will cast a shadow on your dimmer light).

I always take battery life with a pinch of salt, so 2 hour 30 battery life would be more like 1.45 in my head. Don’t forget you can increase battery life by using a dimmer setting on climbs and switch to max lights for the downs.

As I said, not used this light but for under £20, it seems a good introduction to night riding

[johnnystorm]

While PX don't always have the best rep I'd probably trust their £20 lights more than a random seller on ebay or amazon. 700 lumens isn't massive but rarely do you need full blast from a brighter light and there's more chance this is a genuine 700 lumens rather than a "X thousands" lumens that's just 700 anyway! The 4.8Ah claim from 4 18650 batteries also seems quite modest a claim so again a good chance it's genuine.

[Rob S]

If anyone's interested, I had a punt on this light.

My verdict is it's good value for £20. Planet X says you get a run time of 4 hours on the mid setting, after 3.40 minutes it was still showing over 10% so battery life is as advertised when it's new at least. Visually there's bugger all difference between the high and mid setting, so you may as well have the 4 hours rather than the 2.30 minutes on high.

On high it should be 700 lumens, so I imagine the mid setting is 400-500 maybe. It's ok for me with my pitiful pace to see by anyway. The low setting is ok on the road if there's a moon out, and you can ride off-road with it if only doing 10Km/hour or so.

You get a USB charging lead that changes from red to green when the battery is fully charged and the button is easy to use with gloves on. My only gripe with it is that you have to cycle through "off", to go from low to high or medium. If you can live with that I'd say it's a good buy.
2021-11-08_09-59-24 by Robert Smith, on Flickr
On the mid setting

[voodoo_simon]

Good to hear

Worth carrying g a head torch too for fixing punctures etc (as well as having a back up)

[javatime]

Just seen this, and the light / battery / usb cable is now £12

They are claiming 4800mAh from a pack that contains 2x 18650 batteries.

Don't know how it compares to :

https://chilli-tech.com/content/960-lum ... -mode-dip/

But their 5200mAh battery pack, available separately, seems to contain 4 X 18650 batteries, and costs £25.

[Rob S]

12 quid, darn it! I feel gazumped.....

[jameso]

Just seen this, and the light / battery / usb cable is now £12

They are claiming 4800mAh from a pack that contains 2x 18650 batteries.

Don't know how it compares to :

https://chilli-tech.com/content/960-lum ... -mode-dip/

But their 5200mAh battery pack, available separately, seems to contain 4 X 18650 batteries, and costs £25.

18650s can have up to 3600mAh capacity, over 2000mAh normally. So the PX pack sounds about right for non-expensive cells. 5200mAh seems low for 4 of them?

Still. £12 for a light like that. I wouldn't expect anything from the beam pattern but it's certainly cheap. Alarm bells sort of cheap.

[whitestone]

Just seen this, and the light / battery / usb cable is now £12

They are claiming 4800mAh from a pack that contains 2x 18650 batteries.

Don't know how it compares to :

https://chilli-tech.com/content/960-lum ... -mode-dip/

But their 5200mAh battery pack, available separately, seems to contain 4 X 18650 batteries, and costs £25.

18650s can have up to 3600mAh capacity, over 2000mAh normally. So the PX pack sounds about right for non-expensive cells. 5200mAh seems low for 4 of them?

True - I happen to have a 3-cell 10,000mAh battery pack on my desk so those have just over 3300mAh capacity. That's sort of the capacity I tend to work on for decent 18650s, knock 10% off for transfer losses and you've 3000mAh per cell.

[javatime]

Thanks everyone, not familiar with 18650s yet, still generally with AA and AAA through out here.

[benp1]

Don't forget 18650s are often run in a two in series, two parallel format. So it's both twice the voltage and twice the runtime of a single 18650

That 5200mAh pack is probably that set up, 8.4V at 2600mAh

Lots of variables with 18650 batteries - capacity, how much current it can deliver, whether or not it has protection. Generally better quality cells cost more than the cheap ones. Laptop batteries are often 18650 so sometimes old laptops get butchered for their batteries

[jameso]

Don't forget 18650s are often run in a two in series, two parallel format. So it's both twice the voltage and twice the runtime of a single 18650

That 5200mAh pack is probably that set up, 8.4V at 2600mAh

Lots of variables with 18650 batteries - capacity, how much current it can deliver, whether or not it has protection. Generally better quality cells cost more than the cheap ones. Laptop batteries are often 18650 so sometimes old laptops get butchered for their batteries

I did. Good job I don't work on e-bikes eh (there are actual battery engineers around, thankfully)