JiK

Having just acquired some push bikes - one a folding for portability for me and a similar one for a friend, and one a refurbished old 18 speed for more general use, I have been investigating small lighting units.

When a kid, you just got a 'dynamo' and a head and tail light set that used incandescents - man, you could FEEL the load... :-) can't find them now - but there are tiny expensive 'hub dynos' that use the newer far more powerful magnets and work well with LED headlights - but the prices are high - not as high as what you quote though...

Far more common here are battery led units at $20-30 - I have one that claims "half-watt" (you can get more expensive ones - and even nastier cheaper ones for $5-10) each for headlights (using a couple of AA or even AAA cells) - and $3-5 for tail lights using a tiny watch battery. Both types usually have a steady and flashing setting. From experience, I think they are more intended, even the 'headlights' to let cars know that 'something is there' and perhaps not run you over, rather than the rider actually seeing what is on the road... :-)

But perhaps you might like to investigate - the only hassle is that they are mostly all cheap nasty plastic, and they usually tend to fall off or break the cheap nasty plastic mounting brackets if you sneeze....

I wondered if the lack of visual discrimination with LED types is related to the fact that there is no continuous spectrum as per incandescents (hot body radiation) but a 'sampling' of a few wavelengths that the eye pretends is 'white'.

Have you tried looking at those expensive headlights from expensive cars that use HID units? Heavy and big drain I think.

How about a couple of 'Dolphin torches' - they use a 6V square battery - you can even get those with multiple LED heads now. Would need to work our some way of attaching them though. There used to be a cute little torch that used those batteries that had a high power bulb and a 'grain of wheat' style bulb that ou could switch between - mine broke - and with a bit of clever painting and card positioning, you could use it as a 'boat light' - colored nav lights or a white mooring light. :-)

Our Auto Design Regs (ADR) prohibit one from using on the road - packaged labeled 'only showroom use' or similar LEDS - any aftermarket tail or flasher LEDS bulbs unless they have been approved - because the direction of the light output is very different from the original incandescents that the fittings were designed for.

Another thought - a wrecker yard may yield the auto headlamp reflectors that take the 55Watt H style lamps that may fit inside a coffee tin or cake tin - perhaps not pretty, but functional, if heavy drain.