Cateye Volt 300

[HLaB]

This light (The Cateye Volt 300) is new on the market for winter 2013 and is similar to the Leyznene Macro Drive in being a self contained, compact and light, and usb rechargeable bright light but had the advantage for me in that it had an easily replaceable battery (you have to send the macro back to the factory). It was slightly cheaper too (can be had for £40) and potentially had a more secure mount than the Macro. I selected the light based on my criteria and the Road.CC Light Test, to me the Volt 300 offered best bang for buck, without a battery pack.

I opted for a version with a spare battery and a rapid charging docking station. The unit looks very robust to me, the front section being aluminium and the rear battery pack easily unscrewing for charging (It can be charged insitu without unscrewing but that takes 6hours, the docking station does it in 3). The mount is very simple to screw on and remove without tools. its quite clever too as it takes the narrow light mount but will also accept wider cateye mounts of their older opticube range.

From initial experience, this is a very bright light and will certainly get you noticed in traffic but compared to the Cree XM-L, its beam is a bit narrow and not as bright, but the Cree has a battery pack and compared to others on the market the Volt is far better. (I might of had it on the wrong mode as I'll explain in the following paragraph.

The power button is quite easy to find illuminated slightly by the main beam but the operation for me wasn't intuitive (now I've read the manual its obvious ). You press and hold to turn it on to Hyper flash (constant beam but flashing) and touch to cycle between that, high -> medium -> low. In honesty there not much difference between high and medium so I might have selected the wrong one If you double click the power button it goes to flashing. What I quite liked was that you couldn't easily switch the volt off (my previous lights you had to switch off to switch between steady and flashing and back again).

On the whole I reckon I've got a good piece of kit which fits my criteria (mainly its self contained, bright and didn't break the bank) and the fact its got a easily changeable battery is a welcome bonus. To balance things up this is the BR Review.

Edit: Took it out again tonight to get an idea of how it performed on its own on country lanes and it done very well. Its brighter than I thought and the beam spread is good too (I could clearly see the edge of the road, verges and hedges. It was charged up fully for yesterdays ride of more than 2 hours (at a guess it was on hyper flash for a 1/6 of the time and the rest was on solid (may or may not have been the highest setting though ) for over 1hour 50mins and it lasted over 2 hours on the highest setting tonight before the low battery indicator came on. Over an hour and 3/4's later despite the low battery indicator, its still producing a beam I'd be more than happy with

Edit 2: Impressed again with it, left about 5:30 tonight and had it on hyper flash for 30 mins until I got out of town. 3 hours 9 mins from the start the low battery warning came on (at a guess 8:40pm) and the light finally died at 10:27 (circa 1hour 45 mins )

Edit 3: It was pretty wet on Thursday night and as you expect of a good light/ cycling product that never fazed it

Edit 4: Another good review http://road.cc/content/review/108798-cateye-volt-300-front-light

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Thanks for this review @HLaB might treat myself in the January sales.
Love CatEye lights.

 

[Andrew_P]

I love mine, I had thought I should have gone for the 1200 but more than happy, the Volt Rear is just as good the only draw back for some might be that it is Saddle mount

 

[A Cyclist]

@HLaB, good review there mate.
I bought the Volt pair i.e. 300 front and 50 rear from _bay, yet to put them on test. Will update this thread after a
week or two.