Aldi Specials - 3watt LED Torches

[AlanW]

Here



For less than a tenner they are brilliant, if you pardon the pun. All you need then is a Twofish Lockblock here and you have a top quality front bike light for less than £30.

Ideal for mounting on the top of your lid.

I have just bought a couple from the Redditch store and they still had plenty left.

[AlanW]

Hey presto.......

[AlanW]

Reckon you'll look like a plane coming into land

The £5 torch thingy arrived today, 5 days from despatch in Hong Kong. Compared with my 3 LED Blackburn it's about the same brightness in flashing mode but when fully on it has the same bright centre spot, maybe brighter, but also has a wide halo which is nearly as bright - this is what I really wanted, to get me back through the lanes from the Coach & Horses because I was relying on knowing where all the potholes are. Handlebar bracket looks OK but I haven't tried it on the bike yet. Screws on the bracket are probably the weak point but if they eventually fail it'll still make a good torch.

Good grief that didn't take long to arrive did it??

I went out with my new helmet set up this evening. Sort of odd and weird riding experience really.

Because of how I have them mounted, the left one shines over to the right, and the right to the left. In the cross over of light you have a huge patch of white light just where you need it. Then further up the road you have these two very clear and sharp white "eyes".

Who remembers the Mysterons, from Captain Scarlet?

The down side is that when a car is coming towards you, you must avoid the temptation to move your head upwards.

On the plus side though, if they don't dip their lights, give 'em a good 'ole stare.........

[born again cyclist]

i bought a wind up torch from halfords. set me thinking why can twe buy bike wind up torches. that way you never need a battery

[George]

Someone gave me a wind-up torch for Christmas a couple of years ago. It's OK, but nowhere near as bright as even a cheap bike light. I'm not sure why that should be, but my guess would be that it has something to do with the power of the battery (all/many of these wind-ups have rechargeables in them, that you charge by winding). Presumably, if you have a more powerful battery, you need to do more winding to charge it, and the whole set-up becomes impractical.

In short, a wind-up bike light isn't really viable until someone comes up with an LED that uses so little juice that you can illuminate it for several hours with the little bit of power you can squeeze into your rechargeable battery in a few minutes of winding.

[Dave Cox]

Isn't that a dynamo ?

[George]

Yes.