Well I've had a quick play with the Cree (ebay) LED light, and so far I've got to say I'm impressed......for something that cost £27 inc delivery.
Of course, the cheap cardbox box is a bit different to the quality of the sort of thing you get from the likes of Exposure etc....but I guess it is cheap.
Here it is on the bike:
And the way I've routed the cables and battery (I may redo this after a ride if something gets in the way or whatever). The battery is the little black case under the top tube just incase you're wondering. The cable is pretty long, hence why I've had to wrap it around the seat tube a couple of times.
And so what's it like....well the only real thing I could do was to compare it to a pretty good benchmark...and my workhorse....the Exposure Diablo (mk1). It's not a cheap light, but you DO get what you pay for, and it's never failed me for the past two years.
I did a quick test earlier, pointing my bike down the bottom of my drive. It's pretty big, the bottom gate is a good 50 meters away or so. Certainly way further than you would ever need to see when cycling.
I've tried to edit the photos so it's as accurate as possible.
Here's the Cree light on high and low: (the dark line on the left is my gear cable creating a shadow)
Like I say.....pretty good no?! The only obvious issue is apparent when you compare it to my Diablo:
The Cree light seems to focus everything at a very small point. Whereas the Diablo is much more diffused, and wider.....and softer too, so no big hotspots to look at.
I have ordered the wide angle lens, which apparently does help with this, and softens the light a bit. So I'll post another pic when that arrives.
The low setting on the Diablo is much dimmer than the low setting on the Cree. It's hard to photograph, but you can see a bit more around the hotspot in real life, than in the photo. But the Diablo does have a medium setting which I find perfect, only sometimes do I switch up to high.
So overall, I got this as a backup light for my Diablo, just incase that fails and I need to get home. Even on the LOW setting, the Cree still does better than most cheaper 'brand' lights (with regards to output), so I think I'm perfectly safe there.
There is another mode on the Cree, a strobe mode, which is frankly ridiculous. You certainly will NEVER be missed being seen by a driver, but considering every passing driver will be blinded or have an epileptic fit, he may hit you after all. I can confidently say I will never use that mode.
So I havent actually been on a ride yet, but so far I can only think of a couple of cons:
- annoying green light on the back of the unit is ALWAYS on, even if it's switched off.
- battery/cables are fiddly to put on the bike (to be expected though)
- Probably TOO bright on full output. If you tilt the light up so it's directed at cars, you will get flashed a lot.
Of course the other thing to consider is the battery life. It comes with a claimed 3 hours life on HIGH, which seems very impressive to me, considering the Diablo only has 1 hour on high.
How long the battery lasts is another thing. But for £27, if I buy one of these every winter, it's still a bargain!
Looking forward to trying it out next week, perfectly coinciding with the darker evenings
Hope this helps
whar dsl did u use?