Do you want a really, really bright taillight to get the attention of overtaking drivers when you're jetting about town on your bicycle? I certainly desired such a thing, living and bike commuting in Long Island and all. No good off-the-shelf options exist, unfortunately. The industry's current offerings are either cheap and weak (e.g. my 1W PDW RadBot 1000 with its ~50 lumens) or bright and ridiculously overpriced (see the $209, 300 claimed-lumen DiNotte 400R and the $259, 500 claimed-lumen DesignShine DS-500).
Those latter prices are outrageous enough to begin with, but are even more galling given the existence of the $45 DealExtreme headlight that dante favors. Even after accounting for bald lying ("900-1200 lumens") and advertising material exaggeration inherent to an off-brand Chinese product, 600 lumens is quite possible per LED geeks.
So I had a known, bright, cheap 600 lumen headlight and no good taillight options. What to do? The answer clearly was to rig something up myself! I took a DealExtreme SSC P7 LED headlight kit, a Tiffen #25 Red filter that I assume to block 25% of transmitted light per its name, and jerry-rigged a mounting setup to get it pointing backwards.
Here's how my hacked-up ~$60 setup looks on the bike, turned off:
The DealExtreme light, the subject of this post, is the one piggybacked atop the PDW RadBot 1000 below.
Doesn't need moar shimz! Yes, that's a piece of wood that I threw in there to level out the light, along with a zip tie, random rubber bar shims from my toolbox, and the two OEM rubber bands provided with the light kit.
The proof is in the pudding, in how it performs, of course. So how does a ~450 lumen taillight look? CRAZY BRIGHT, that's how. Below is a static photo with both lights on full, showing that the top lamp easily saturates my dSLR's sensor:
Note the much larger lit mirror area and sensor-saturating brightness from the top DealExtreme light.
Finally, here's a potentially seizure-inducing video (720p, enlarge it and hit full screen!) showing off both the constant-on and super-crazy-flashing modes:
Those latter prices are outrageous enough to begin with, but are even more galling given the existence of the $45 DealExtreme headlight that dante favors. Even after accounting for bald lying ("900-1200 lumens") and advertising material exaggeration inherent to an off-brand Chinese product, 600 lumens is quite possible per LED geeks.
So I had a known, bright, cheap 600 lumen headlight and no good taillight options. What to do? The answer clearly was to rig something up myself! I took a DealExtreme SSC P7 LED headlight kit, a Tiffen #25 Red filter that I assume to block 25% of transmitted light per its name, and jerry-rigged a mounting setup to get it pointing backwards.
Here's how my hacked-up ~$60 setup looks on the bike, turned off:
The DealExtreme light, the subject of this post, is the one piggybacked atop the PDW RadBot 1000 below.
Doesn't need moar shimz! Yes, that's a piece of wood that I threw in there to level out the light, along with a zip tie, random rubber bar shims from my toolbox, and the two OEM rubber bands provided with the light kit.
The proof is in the pudding, in how it performs, of course. So how does a ~450 lumen taillight look? CRAZY BRIGHT, that's how. Below is a static photo with both lights on full, showing that the top lamp easily saturates my dSLR's sensor:
Note the much larger lit mirror area and sensor-saturating brightness from the top DealExtreme light.
Finally, here's a potentially seizure-inducing video (720p, enlarge it and hit full screen!) showing off both the constant-on and super-crazy-flashing modes: