Lights: what's good?

[Ian]

Thinking of upgrading my lights to something lighter, brighter and possibly with a helmet mount option. Currently using some old Exposure Race and Enduro, but know little of their more recent offerings, or anything from othe manufacturers.

Any suggestions/ recommendations?

Cheers,

Ian

[Taylor]

My Diablo mkII is great and I believe the new one has the same battery life with iirc 300 more lumens.
Defo worth a look.

[d45yth]

I'd stick with Exposure too, you'd miss them if you choose something with a separate battery pack. I like it that you can now charge other gadgets up from them too. I'll be upgrading my Maxx D to a newer one as soon I've some spare cash.
I'd considered the Diablo and the 3-cell battery as a stand-alone helmet light. I don't know if it's good enough on its own though? (Bothered about the beam pattern, not the brightness!). I'd be losing the advantage of an all-in-one then too.

[Taylor]

Forgot to mention, I have the single cell piggyback to strap to my hat too.
The triple cell is quite big(not sure on weight) from the one I saw.

[Cheeky Monkey]

If you want insane brightness, made in the uk (ish) and ok for the performance prices the Troute Lights are good.

Whilst I like my Hope R4 it is not as bonkers bright as others. Nice system though, even has a headband.

MTB batteries also does some good stuff at not thar much more than the Asian direct brands (magicshine etc).

Never used exposure though I can see the appeal of all in one unit systems.

[99percentchimp]

Was using Lumicycles halides which have been very good for a few years (but a big heavy battery eventually failed) so now using replacements in the shape of Hope R4s - excellent and light weight - no issues with amount of light for me (and you can cycle through two sets of 3 levels) and battery life seems good. They were great on MnB in the cold too.

[Stevemorg]

If you want an all in one unit then ATM I think you are going to be limited to Exposure if you want a decent output (though I may have a custom all in one unit coming soon). If you are happy with a seperate battery then there are masses options - budget chinese kit, decent chinese stuff with UK quality control (have a look at the V2 at http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk which is very good) and then stuff from the likes of Hope (the R4 is a great light), Lumicycle etc.
ATM I'm running a Troutlite Lumen Liberator which is outstanding (http://troutie.com/)- really well made, superb output and with excellent customer support - if you email him he'll discuss options and ATM I think he has some of his 1200 lumen mini set ups to sell off.

[Cheeky Monkey]

I'm looking forward to seeing smudge's (mtbbatteries) "luminator" (and the price). See top artcle on his news page:

http://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/news/

Chris (Troutie) will also do upgrades to some lights, particularly Vision 2s, that make them much brighter. He's also just moded the driver on a mate's R4 to up the output. Still in the testing phase so may not be something that works / he'll do on a wider scale.

Regarding single units. I got some of the 800 lumen (IIRC) torches from one of the asian sources last year. There was a lengthy thread about them on STW at the time. It runs on the slightly larger cells (18650s?) but were <£20 each (torch, charger, converter plug and pair of batteries - it ran on one). TBH I got them for work doing tunnel inspections in Gibraltar but they were excellent. A bit of a pronounced hotspot in the beam but I'd imagine you'd head mount it and a spot is fine for that, IMO. If you're after the cheap option then these were great and I imagine the beam spread / optics / battery / emiter / driver have all moved on this year in the constant lights arms race

[Ian]

Thanks all for the input. I think I like the look of the Diablo best, and ability to mount on the bars as well as helmet is a bonus. I can see a definite benefit for the BB200 with that option for sure.

Now, what would some used, but well cared for Exposure Enduro Race and Enduro Turbo lights be worth?

[Stevemorg]

Another option may be to drop Troutie an email to see if he can upgrade the lamp units you have - he's already done some Joysticks so he may be able to sort out yours - certainly they'll be brighter but probably not lighter!

[Cheeky Monkey]

Another option may be to drop Troutie an email to see if he can upgrade the lamp units you have

What he said.