Cheap Bike Lights

[Micdanson88]

I use a light I got for $13 bucks, and a handlebar mount I got for $2. The light is plenty bright (400-500 lumens from a single T6 LED), So why would you pay more for something else?

[ironbrewer]

If you are riding fast on dirt and need more than 400 lumens. If you want a rechargeable battery pack that will last for 3 hours on an 1800 lumen light.

If you want a high quality light that will last and be dependable.

Right now money is tight for me so I took the cheap route and got some an ebay and Deal Extreme light. I always carry 2 or 3 light sources, and just figure I'll see how it goes.

[Micdanson88]

Im with you there on carrying 2-3 cheap ones...

[Waldens]

1. The circuit board of the cheap lights are not trustworthy, they always uses cheapest electronic components and without enough test. When you riding in dark place but the light shut off inexplicable, that is not good for rider;
2. A good aluminum bike light case must uses aerospace grade aluminum(6061,7075), perfect CNC maching and type III hard-anodized anti-abrasive finish. If you check the cheap lights carefully, and compare with the good lights, you will found the cheap one's maching is really bad and also not good for finish;
3.Battery. The cheap lights always advertise wrong battery capacity( In other words, they cheating customer, because they know the truth). For example, they advertise the battery is 4400mAh, but in fact, it's only around 3000mAh. The good lights are uses BAK or Sansung battery, which is trustworthy!
4.Warranty. As far as i know, the cheap lights will not provide warranty.
5......
6......

[Scott Novak]

A quick, cheap, and easy way to add a bike light is to use two hose clamps to hold an LED flashlight. The one pictured is a 120 lumen light that I got at Sam's club for about $6.00.

Wrap something around the handlebar to keep the hose clamps from digging into the handlebar. I used a piece of polyolefin heat shrink tubing. Then use one hose clamp around the flashlight and another hose clamp to hold the hose clamp around the flashlight to the handlebar. The only trick is to buy a much larger hose clamp so that the two hose clamps mate together away from the slots in the hose clamp. Cut off the excess hose clamp and deburr the edges. If the junction of the two hose clamps is made at the slotted secton, the hose clamps will crack prematurely at the slotted section.

Scott Novak

[Grinderz]

A quick, cheap, and easy way to add a bike light is to use two hose clamps to hold an LED flashlight. The one pictured is a 120 lumen light that I got at Sam's club for about $6.00.

Wrap something around the handlebar to keep the hose clamps from digging into the handlebar. I used a piece of polyolefin heat shrink tubing. Then use one hose clamp around the flashlight and another hose clamp to hold the hose clamp around the flashlight to the handlebar. The only trick is to buy a much larger hose clamp so that the two hose clamps mate together away from the slots in the hose clamp. Cut off the excess hose clamp and deburr the edges. If the junction of the two hose clamps is made at the slotted secton, the hose clamps will crack prematurely at the slotted section.

Scott Novak

No offense, but looking at the wear on your bars, it doesn't look like the clamp method works very well.

[Scott Novak]

The paint is missing because for a couple of years I used the hose clamps directly on the handlebars. Wrapping something around the handlebars underneath the hose clamps avoids damaging the finish.

Scott Novak

[Waldens]

A quick, cheap, and easy way to add a bike light is to use two hose clamps to hold an LED flashlight. The one pictured is a 120 lumen light that I got at Sam's club for about $6.00.

Wrap something around the handlebar to keep the hose clamps from digging into the handlebar. I used a piece of polyolefin heat shrink tubing. Then use one hose clamp around the flashlight and another hose clamp to hold the hose clamp around the flashlight to the handlebar. The only trick is to buy a much larger hose clamp so that the two hose clamps mate together away from the slots in the hose clamp. Cut off the excess hose clamp and deburr the edges. If the junction of the two hose clamps is made at the slotted secton, the hose clamps will crack prematurely at the slotted section.

Scott Novak

The mount is good, but flashlight are not good for MTB riding...

[Scott Novak]

A flashlight may not be perfect, but a pair of these 120 lumen flashlights does a fairly respectable job on the road and they illuminate better than many far more expensive bike lights. It's cheap, quick and easy solution to bike lighting, especially for someone on a budget.

My main light source is a 540 lumen Stanley spotlight. I added spacers under the reflector to defocus the spot as it was too tight. I gutted the electronics as a dimmer was useless and just made it more difficult to use. Also the original run time was only 50 minutes with the AAA battery pack that the light originally used.

I used the original internal magnetic reed switch to turn a power MOSFET off an on to supply power to the LED. The MOSFET drops less than 0.1 Volt across it. The LED works great on 4 AA NiMH rechargeable batteries. The run time is over 3 hours now. The battery voltage remains fairly constant until the battery is nearly drained. No convertors are necessary.

I removed the handle from the spot light, turned it upside down, relocated the Knob/magnet assembly (Which switches the internal magnetic reed switch off and on) so that the hose clamp could better hold the spotlight.

I bought the spotlight for $15.60 on a closeout at Sam's club, added a battery holder inside, the power MOSFET was a free sales sample, and with two hose clamps to hold the light I've got about $20.00 into it.

The spotlight is supposed to be waterproof to a depth of 6 feet under water.

Scott Novak

[Cat-man-do]

Kudo's on the cheap set-ups! I love seeing stuff like this. All things considered, for maybe $10 more you could of bought something like this and gotten better bang for the buck ( about a 700 lumen output, adjustable output modes, included mounting hardware, battery and charger, free shipping ).

Yeah, you can use cheap X-mart flashlights and rig up a DIY mount but you aren't going to get the output and runtime that one of these cheap Chinese bike lights can offer.

I've got the cheap multi-led flashlights that I paid maybe $4 for. I could run those on the bars but the output pales in comparison to a decent XM-L base light source. Not to diss your effort at stretching a buck but sometimes it makes more sense to spend just a little more money.

[ironbrewer]

When I said cheap I meant I spent $24 US on a 1 XML T6 lamp with cheap battery and charger from ebay. I have a 3x XML T6 light head coming from DX for $30 and a $50 Xeccon 6600 mah battery to power the 3x light head. I got a really good deal on the Xeccon battery though.

[Carlos Fandango]

The mount is good, but flashlight are not good for MTB riding...

Really? I ride all the time with a Trustfire TR-3T6 and it works fine. It has a nice mix of throw and spill for a bar lamp. Combined with a helmet mounted lamp it's pretty ideal.

[ChrisTreleaven]

I just got a set of Cree Q5 lights/torches, brackets, recharge kit, and a free rear LED light on eBay, only £25 ($38), next day delivery... Looks great, works well, and is super bright.

I recommend getting a set if you're on a tight budget.