Headlight Test: PB Blaze vs PDW Cosmic Dreadnought 1W

I was excited to read about the new 1W headlight from Portland Design Works, especially after reading Kent Peterson’s review. My favorite headlight was the Planet Bike Blaze 2W, and here was a new light that sounded even better. Extra points for the name which brings the Uchusenkan Yamato to mind.

I agree with a lot of what Kent says; the new light is smaller, lighter, and it does throw more light on the road than the Blaze 2W. Also, even though the two mounts are basically interchangeable, the PDW one is easier to use, and the knob is very handy for tightening down on the handlebar so the light will not move. Given the nominal run time of 10 hours on high, it really sounds like a winner (The Blaze 2W runs nominally 5 hours on high).

Here is a video of both lights throwing light onto a road in the middle of nowhere:

The PDW has a brighter, more concentrated center spot than the PB Blaze, but there is still enough light in the halo that I felt more comfortable riding with the PDW light. I was surprised since the PDW is called a 1W light, but I repeated the test with the batteries swapped between the two lights, and the PDW was still brighter.

Next test: runtime. For this I used Eneloop AA rechargeables. I did the test twice, again swapping the batteries between the two lights to make sure that they were not a factor. On the eneloops, the Blaze ran 17 hours on high, the PDW 5 hours.

Here are two pictures: After a little more than four hours, the PDW is not very bright, and fades out totally at five hours. I was quite surprised since the published runtime on high is ten hours.

What I suspected is that the runtime for the PDW was especially sensitive to the voltage at which the light cuts off. To test this theory, I repeated the test with fresh alkalines, that have a voltage slightly higher than the rechargeables. Sure enough, the PDW ran longer, being still barely visible at ten hours: However, I would note that at 6.5 hours, the PDW had already faded to the point of being totally ineffective as a bike light, and it was dimly lit for a long time. This was probably a reflection of the different discharge curve of the alkalines versus the rechargeables. The Blaze had faded at 20 hours, but was still a more than adequate “be seen” light at this point.

Here is a video of the tests with the rechargeable and the alkalines. One second equals about 90 munites.

Bottom line: In view of the much shorter run time of the PDW light, especially on rechargeables, I am going to stick with the PDW blaze 2W.

Epilogue:
Here is a picture 2.5 days later. The lights are still on with the alkalines! (this picture was taken with a different camera and so the lights look a bit brighter than in the other pictures)

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