From: Marty Goodman MD KC6YKC MARTYGOODMAN@delphi.com
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 14:18:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: CatEye NC-200 vs VistaLite VL-4xx (13K document)
Message-Id: CatEye NC200 vs VistaLite VL430 a comparison based on a field test
(c) marty goodman Feb 1996
Introduction
VistaLite VL-430
CatEye NC200
Comparison
Bottom Line
My basic night lighting system includes a customized Cateye NC 200 lighting unit, equipped with a modified handlebar mount, 6 and 10 watt bulbs in the two lamp heads, and my own 6 volt 4 AH NiCd battery pack and charger. I'm extremely pleased with it. I'm also pleased about the fact that Cateye is willing to sell any piece of this system to a tinkerer, facilitating constructing ones own custom system. Unfortunately, the NC200 does not seem to be very widely available either in the US or internationally.
The VistaLite VL-4xx series is widely available in the US and elsewhere. It is in many respects a very similar system to the NC200 from CatEye, for like the NC200 it uses small, highly efficient halogen bulbs, and is a 6 volt system. If a tinkerer takes the VistaLite VL-400 lamp head, available for around $22 all over the US, and pops in a VistaLite 6 or 10 watt bulb (available for for $5 to $6) one gets the core ingredient of a custom lighting system, to which a tinkerer can easily add a power cable, battery, and charger. If one uses two VL-400 lamp heads, one winds up with a system that is similar to the stock product from VistaLite that they call the VL-430. VistaLite, now owned by Bell Products, has demonstrated to me over the last several years extraordinarly conscientious, generous, and professional customer service, and an open willingness to sell (or even in some cases GIVE AWAY) pieces of their system to those who wish to customize, repair, or modify their products.
In this comparison, I'm actually comparing my customized NC-200 to the customized VL-430 I made up for a friend. We rode together recently, and I had occasion to observe the performance of these two systems literally side by side, in actual night road riding conditions. What's really being compared here, more than anything else, are the lamp heads. The cords, battery packs, and chargers used in these systems in the comparison were NOT those that are commercially supplied. However, in my experience I can say that one can expect rather similar overall performance from the stock VL-430 and NC-200 systems to the performance of the customized systems I was testing.
VistaLite VL-430 (stock system and my customized system):
The VistaLite stock VL430 is a lighting system that consists of two separate lamp heads, each of which accepts a small, screw-mount halogen bulb. These bulbs have the advantage of being somewhat more efficient than the expensive sealed beam MR-11 bulbs used in NiteRider, VistaLite 5xx series, and G-Wiz products, tho at the expense of having asignificantly shorter life expectancy. The small halogen bulbs used in the VistaLite are of the sort that typically have rated life of 50 to 250 hours, compared to the 2000 to 3000 hour life rating of the MR-11 bulbs. The current version is supplied with clamp mounts that go on the handlebars, and to which the lighting heads can be quickly twisted into or out of.
Each lamp head in the stock VL-430 unit has a frosted 10 watt 6 volt bulb, but VistaLite sells for $5 to $6 a 6 watt 6 volt unfrosted bulb for this system. The lamp heads have a parabolic reflector whose position in relationship to the filament can be varied by twisting part of the lighting head, thereby allowing for focusing the beam from narrow to somewhat wide. The entire system, supplied with a decent quality (tho slow) charger and a 5 amp hour 6 volt lead acid battery pack is typically available in the US for around $100 via various mail order suppliers, making it one of the lowest priced decent quality dual lamp serious night lighting systems available for bicycles.
The actual VL-4xx system being tested here was quite close to the stock VL-430 sold by VistaLite. Like the VL-430, it used a 4 amp hour 6 volt lead acid battery. Unlike the stock VL-430, I had installed a 6 watt bulb in one of the two lamp heads, to facilitate lower power use during low speed uphill riding. Thus, this system used a 10 and a 6 watt lamp.
CatEye NC-200 (stock system & my custom system):
The stock CatEye NC-200 comes with a 4 amp hour 6 volt lead acid battery, but my system is powered by a 4 amp hour NiCd battery. The stock NC-200 is supplied with a 2.4 watt and a 10 watt lamp, but my system is equipped with a 6 watt and a 10 watt lamp. CatEye sells 2.4, 6, and 10 watt lamps for their NC-200. The NC-200 uses a small bayonette mount halogen bulb, which, apart from the mounting, appears pretty much the same sort of bulb as the bulb used in the VistaLite VL-4xx systems. The stock NC200 comes with a their "H-23" mount, with is absolutely worthless trash, for it mounts the NC200 so far forward and off balance that it vibrates and bounces even on relatively smooth road rides, utlimately shaking the two lamp heads from their positions. CatEye supplies, as an option, their H-19 mount, which works reasonably well. Anyone getting the CatEye NC200 should immediately THROW OUT the stock H-23 mount, and obtain their H-19 mount! My own system uses a somewhat customized mounting system, based on that used by the old CatEye HL-500 battery lamps, which is somewhat better balanced than even the H-19 mount. Note that the NC200 has two lamp heads on a single main body, tho each lamp head may be independently adjusted up and down. This is in contrast to VistLite's VL-430 system, which uses two entirely separately-mounted lamp heads, each with its own bracket.
CatEye's stock NC-200 comes with one "broad" (NC-200-BH) and one "spot" (NC-200-SH) beam lamp head. I found their "spot" beam head to be utterly uselessly narrow (even for road riding, where one has more use for narrow beams than with mountain bike night riding) and found their "broad" beam to be a reasonably useful narrow angle beam. I therefore obtained and installed "broad" beam heads on both side of my NC-200 unit, thus further making it different from the stock NC-200 system CatEye sells.
I also modified my CatEye NC200 so that I had a push on / push off button placed near my thumb in normal riding position controlling my higher power (10 watt) beam head, so that the extremely inconvenient switch on the CatEye NC200 mother unit was used only to turn on and off the low power beam when we stopped to rest.
CatEye's "broad" beam head uses a combination of a parabolic reflector AND a complex, ingenious, sophisticated lens (CatEye has specialized in making such lenses for car and other headlamps for many years, and is quite good at it) to achieve a very even beam pattern.
The Comparison:
I and my friend had the systems installed on our road bikes, and did a 2 hour 26 mile ride along totally unlit back roads in the East San Francsico Bay area, on a warm winter evening (temperature between 55 and 50 degrees Farenheit), on a moonless night. There was a total elevation gain of about 2000 feet along this ride, with some quite rapid downhill stretches and numerous moderate, gentle climbs.
The bottom line was that the two systems seemed very comparable. None of the differences were of overwhelming significance.
Both systems provided quite adequate light for the ride. Both battery packs held up more than adequately during the duration of the two hour ride.
Both I and my friend, tho, judged that the beam pattern of my CatEye NC-200 was somewhat more pleasing than the beam pattern of the VistaLite VL-4xx system. It should be noted, tho, that he was using unfrosted bulbs in both his high (10 watt) and low (6 watt) beams. In defense of that "unfair" test, I must note that while VistaLite now supplies a frosted 10 watt bulb (which results in a more even beam pattern) their 6 watt bulb is NOT currently available in a frosted version, and for long rides one will want to use the 6 watt bulb alone most of the time.
The problem we found with the VistaLite was two fold: First, the beam was not quite as flat and even as that of the CatEye. There were rings of bright and dark areas. This can be significantly rectified by using a frosted bulb, but as I noted the 6 watt bulb, which I believe to be the proper power level for one's main, "on all the time" bulb, is NOT available as a frosted bulb. Second, the overall pattern of the VistLite reflector resulted in a large, parabolic pattern for the beam, in which some of the far area from the bicycle seemed inadequately widely and dimly lit, and the near area got a bit too concentrated. The CatEye NC-200 had a far more dense, exactly circular pattern ON THE ROAD in its illumination. This was no doubt a product of its curious and ingenious lens. I want to repeat that these differences were not earth shaking, and both systems produced decent, useable beams. I'm here describing somewhat subtle distinctions. NOT make or break differences.
The CatEye NC-200 has its own ideosyncrasies. The sophisticated lens they use sends streaks of light up and down, producing odd and at times disoncerting lines of light in the air when one rides in a fog. It produces less disconcerting, but still rather curious streaks of light on overhanging trees one passes.
The mounting of the VistaLite VL-4xx system is, overall, more rugged than that of the CatEye NC200, especially the stock CatEye NC-200. CatEye's light heads attach to a main body, which in turn mounts at a single site on the bike handlebars. The light heads are somewhat vulnerable to losing their position if one is travelling on a rough road, especially if one uses the stock H-23 mount, which mounts the system in a very unbalanced fashion. I'd not recomend the CatEye NC-200 for off road riders. My modified mounting (which is more balanced... more torward the center of gravity of main NC200 unit) works quite nicely for the road riding I do. VistaLite's VL-430 has very secure, easy to install clamp mounts on the handlebars, one for each of its two lighting heads. The VL-4xx lighting heads twist and lock into the handlebar mounts using a clever locking ring arrangement. Once locked onto the bars you can adjust both the angle up or down they point at (by rotating the main mounting on the handlebars) OR the angle left or right that they point at, for the main beam head may be rotated. By tightening or loosening a screw in the VL-4xx head, you can adjust how easy or how hard it is to turn the lighting head left and right. The tightness or looseness of the NC-200 heads may also be adjusted, but you have to open up the unit to get at the adjustment screws.
Note that MOST, if not ALL, of the problems with the CatEye NC-200 system mounting are removed if one instead gets two CatEye NC-210 lighting heads. The NC-210 uses the same reflectors and bulbs used by the NC-200, but is a single lamp / mount system. By having a single lamp per mount, and by being better balanced in its design, the CatEye NC-210 gets around the problems of the NC-200 design.
The stock switches on both the VL-4xx system and the CatEye NC-200 are both irritating to use, tho I'd say that the VL-4xx stock system is a bit better designed. I personally recommend to those using either system that they engineer a push on / push off button switch for the high beam of their systems.
Conclusions and Recommendations:
The CatEye NC-200 and the VistaLite VL-4xx systems are both very similar systems, similarly priced, with similar capabilites. Most differences between them are minor. Each system has its strong and weak points.
By carefully building up a system using selected components, and with a few minor custom modifications, truly fine bicycle lighting systems can be economically engineered by tinkerers starting with either of these system.
Both CatEye and VistaLite have indicated they are amenable to selling pieces of their systems to tinkerers.
VistaLite's VL-4xx has the advantage of being far more widely and easily available than the CatEye system, and featuring a better mount.
CatEye's NC-200 / NC-210 system has a somewhat more pleasing, useful light beam pattern. The NC-210's mount is almost comparable to that of the VistaLite VL-4xx system.
Interestingly, BOTH the CatEye and the VistaLite systems use the SAME type of barrel power connector (and NiteRider also uses this exact same connector in their 6 volt Cyclops lighting system).
This piece is a first draft, totally unedited, which no doubt contains numeous spelling, gramatical, and stylistic errors, as well as, no doubt, numerous needless repetitions. It may be freely distributed and reproduced in electronic and printed and other media on a NOT FOR PROFIT basis. Any use or reproduction of it on a FOR profit basis is expressedly PROHIBITED without prior agreement with the author.