SONlight bike light

About a month or so I saw someone post on here about a new local (Perth) company that was selling a bike light. I decided to have a look into them and from what I saw, sold my Ayups and bought a twin set of the SONlight SL2000 Mk2. I have also decided to do a rambling review which is a little lengthy, but gives my personal observations about the lights. I haven't done a lot of Mountain bike riding with them yet, just one trip out, but I have found these awesome for both road and MTB.

Feel free, or not, to read my review.

Review of SON Light SL2000 MkII

After a few hundred km’s with the new SON Light SL2000 Mk II light I’ve decided to write some thoughts that I’ve had about the light. I am by no means a professional tester, so this is more my observations than a proper review. I have no connection to the company at all, I just want to provide some feedback on what I have found. SONlight can be found at www.SONlightbikelights.com/

First Impressions
First thing I have to say is, damn this thing is bright!!! I had seen the video that Nat; the owner of this new WA based company has posted on Youtube about the SL2000; and I was impressed. One must realise that it is hard to see how well a light works in a video as the light capture of a camera is never as good as what the naked eye can see. So when I first saw these I knew it was bright as it lit up a garage door from 30m away like he was using a 240v floodlight instead. I think that sold me on the fact that I needed to get my hands on these lights, as my eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be. I decided to buy 2 lights, one for my handlebars for general riding, and one for the helmet when I go out mountain bike riding at night.

The kit
For a very reasonable $120 plus $7 for postage, my lights arrived by express post the very next day. $120 for a light that is touted to be over 1000 lumens? It’s nice to finally have a company that provides a bright light at a reasonable cost AND is located locally, meaning instead of having to wait days or weeks for low cost international order to turn up I’m supporting local business, and I have them straight away.

After unpacking the boxes I pulled everything out for an inspection. The box holds everything nicely, and everything goes back in once you’ve pulled it all out. Inside were the SL2000 light and battery, a nice little 2 strap battery case, charger, helmet mount and a diffuser lens, plus a couple of SONlight stickers. Nat had pre-fitted one of the diffuser lenses for me; a quick 2 minute exercise; but a nice touch from him.

About the light
The CREE T6 LED light sits within a very tough looking and apparently waterproof aluminium case. The light itself is about 45mm diameter, and about 60mm long, so it isn’t exactly on the small side, but the diameter of the light is critical to being able to produce the long throw of light. Weight is ok; not being overly heavy but definitely not the lightest on the market, the entire unit with battery is about 160g heavier than an Ayup setup, which is a very light set indeed.

On/off is by a rubber push button on the back of the light which lights up a nice green when powered. The colour changes when the battery gets down to 20% capacity, which is a handy feature.

The battery is cluster of several smaller batteries connected together, about 70mm long by 40mm square. It fits inside a nice little double strapped carry case with a handy cable eyelet to poke the cable through. The battery is also waterproof, so shouldn’t have any problem in the wet, either road riding or mountain biking, and can apparently handle being washed after a dirty ride.

The cable for the light is about 1m long, which is a little long for my liking, but can be easily wrapped out of the way. My preference would be to either have the longer lead on the battery side, so that extra cable length can be hidden in the battery pouch. Even better would be have a very small length for both the light and the battery, just long enough to allow for the battery to be mounted in the usual spots around the cockpit, and then a long extension lead which will allow for helmet or headband mounting if so desired. But that would be a personal preference more than a requirement for the unit. The connectors click together very nicely and should provide a good amount of water resistance.

Mounting the system
Fitting the light to the handlebars is a very quick operation; the mount is integrated to the bottom of the light and has a small rubber seat to avoiding damage to the handlebars. A rubber O-ring then wraps under the handlebar, stretching over saddles on the back and front of the light. My handlebars are an oblong shape and taper down to round very closely to the stem, so on occasion I get a little movement due to one side of the mount sitting on the oblong section of my bars, but if I mount it on my mountain bike with a standard type bar I get no movement or bounce at all.

How it performs
Brightness is something that this light has in spades. With the high power setting rated at close to 1000 lumens, it was always going to be. Medium power drops down to 450 and low is a still quite reasonable 250. The strobe light gets the highest rating of 1200 lumens, but I very rarely use strobe, only during that gloaming period of not quite being light, but not really dark enough to warrant a light to see by.

There are 4 light settings, high, medium, low and strobe. Battery life is claimed to be up to 3.5 hours on high beam, although I haven’t yet had it run for this long on high. I will check this and update the review with the findings. Medium and low will obviously be an extension of these, so I am hoping that low power will provide at least 7 hours of light.

In my opinion, I would highly recommend the use of low power during commuting or group rides. As mentioned in my opening statement, this is a very bright light. High power should be reserved only for riding in the bush when you need something with the power to blast shadows away, or if you’ve dropped something on the ground and need as much light as possible to see it…..from 20 meters away. The power that this light gives off on high beam is very strong, read: eyeball scorching.

Spotlight
As a spotlight, the light produces a large halo of light that extends out past the primary “spot” of light. This is effectively light leakage which will light up the surrounding area above, below and out to the sides. It also is what gives headaches to oncoming traffic. On occasions whilst out riding you will always come across at least one person who either sets their light high intentionally, or doesn’t realise how much leakage their light produces. This can create a very blinding light for oncoming traffic, until they are past. I like my beam to be far enough out that I can spot obstacles easily at 40kph on the bike path, so I set it accordingly. The morning I took the light out for the first time, I didn’t have the diffuser fitted and accidentally had it pointed up a little too high. Even on low, both an oncoming cyclist and pedestrian complained about it being too bright. A quick readjustment prevented any more complaint and I could still see quite well due to the halo.

Diffuser
Fitting of the diffuser lens helps to rectify this issue. It works by spreading the light in a tight narrow beam which creates a distinctive “edge” to the light. Depending on how the diffuser is fitted, this narrow beam can be side to side, or long and skinny pointing forward. Loosening off the red bevel on the light and a quick twist of the diffuser will allow this to be adjusted.
There is still a little leakage past the “edge” that the diffuser creates, but it isn’t as harsh and is a little more controlled than what the spotlight produces. The diffuser is well suited for road riding, or for the handlebar mounted light when out Mountain bike riding.

Visual Test
One thing I like knowing about my lights is what it looks like from the other side, ie what does oncoming traffic see. I decided to do some testing out the front of the house, so set the light up with the diffuser fitted, focused the leading edge of light about 10m out walked about 50m up the street.

On high beam the light was unbearably bright even from 50m away. Getting closer was difficult from straight on, and this was with the light pointing almost right in front of the front wheel. I didn’t even want to try with the light “accidentally” pointing high, but I did. I adjusted it up to give an extra 5m of light, but even from 100m away I couldn’t see in front of me due to the light. Any oncoming traffic be it car bike or pedestrian would definitely have a cause for grievance. From behind the handlebars I could see everything down the street, easily. It was like turning on the spotlights on the front of a 4WD. Medium power was much easier to view from afar, though walking from about 20m was still bright. On low power I had no problem walking towards the light, using it to see what was in front of me instead of being blinded by it.

Hitting the Bush
As I mentioned at the start of this rambling commentary, I bought 2 lights so that I could do some Mountain bike riding at night. I decided to do a little mixing and matching to see how different beam spreads affected my ride. First off I decided to try diffuser on the handlebars and the spotlight on the helmet. Fitting the helmet light was simple with a mounting plate that straps through the vents of your helmet. The battery can either mount at the back of the helmet or the cable gives enough reach to fit down in your pocket.

Having the diffuser on the handlebars worked well, power turned up to high, and the spotlight on the head set to medium. This gave me more than enough light to see by even on an overcast night. I found that turning off the headlamp and keeping the handlebars on high provided more than ample light to mountain bike ride. Swapping the lights around, I found the diffuser on the helmet gave me a great field of light due to its elevated position. Cornering was great as the light spreads sideways and almost bends around the corner. Turning off one light I found that the diffuser on the helmet was my preference due to the wide spread of light. Again, high beam provides ample light to work with, so one light is almost more than enough.

Final Thoughts
I can’t say that I found much in the way of negatives about this light system. If you are a weight weenie, or like sleek, unobtrusive lights; look elsewhere. As I mentioned, I’ve had a little issue with the mounting, but I think some of that is down to my bars, though I also think that the rubber O ring that straps it all down stretches a little after a few uses. Overall though, I would recommend this light to anyone who is considering either purchasing their first light, or are looking for an upgrade to an integrated battery powered light. For $120 and the 12 month warranty that you get with it, I think it is a great investment, and I am happy to support a local business that is trying to provide what the customer wants, rather than tell them what they need. Nat has been great in willing to listen to feedback about the light, with several new products focused at different disciplines coming in the near future.