Transport and storing headlamps

DisrupTer911

Enlightened
Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
269
Location
NJ
How do you guys transport your headlamps and store them at home when not in use?

I'm afraid to ball them up for fear of wrecking the wire on it.
 

reppans

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 25, 2007
Messages
4,873
I've never had an issue with the wiring from balling up my headlamps, but the plastic bodies, and especially the battery covers, always seems to crack and break from use for me (Black Diamond and Petzls).
 

ryguy24000

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Joined
Mar 17, 2011
Messages
398
Location
PNW
Ohh.....the troubles with external battery packs....simple solution....don't have an one of those?
 

uk_caver

Flashlight Enthusiast
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Feb 9, 2007
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1,408
Location
Central UK
Only three of my headlamps have cable-connected battery packs, and two of those are homebuilt with decent thickness cable.
I don't really do anything when it comes to storage or transport - just throw them in the car or stuff them in a bag. I wouldn't really want a light that wasn't likely to stand up to a decent amount of abuse.

If I was trying to keep a lamp neat, I'd probably just stick it in a small clear plastic bag
 

garbman

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
117
Location
Athens / Greece
I have never had a problem with my old Fenix HP10 with throwing it on the drawer or in the bags or everywhere else.
If you have bought a decent headlamp you don't have to be scared.
 

Henry50

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Joined
Sep 14, 2011
Messages
43
off the top of my head, why not buy a headphone hardcase and put it in there
 

degarb

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 27, 2007
Messages
2,036
Location
Akron, Ohio
I just throw mine into a book bag every day. The most useful lights, I for me, are the rear external packs, since they offer useful runtime: to do WORK. And being able to do work, you have them around in emergencies and unexpected situations. I also find these more comfortable than unbalanced front heavy lights.

My experience since 2005 is, no failures in the external wiring with store bought lights (remington, fenix, garrity). I have had several controller failures, which is the true weak link of the modern flashlight.

My own modifications is another story. Quite a high failure rate during 1 year of use on external wiring, when I convert from 3 AAA to 3 AA.
Probably, my soldering skills. Maybe someone has a thought on this.

The obvious solution is just spend the extra $30 on a Fenix HP11. But the waiting for a shipment is no fun, and also can be costly if the light can save you money on some task or offer you saftey. For fun, my last rear battery pack modification of October, I avoided this wiring risk, by using thin strips of aluminum flashing to shield electrical wires from undue movement by enclosing them (top and bottom). The wiring I did runs over top of head to rear pack, rather than the around the side.
 
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uk_caver

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Feb 9, 2007
Messages
1,408
Location
Central UK
My own modifications is another story. Quite a high failure rate during 1 year of use on external wiring, when I convert from 3 AAA to 3 AA.
Probably, my soldering skills. Maybe someone has a thought on this.
I guess it all depends on the mechanical nature of the job.

The only non-caving headlamps where I've really done cabling has been connecting Petzl zoom-sized headsets (variously branded as MFA/Gelert/whatever) to a large battery box (big enough for 3x18650), and due to the sizes of box and headset, for those it was reasonable to use decent 2 core mains cable, which seems pretty much indestructible, with the cable being thick enough to stand up to external abuse and the cores thick enough to be fairly immune to possible damage from tugging.
 
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