karstonaut
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2012
- Messages
- 13
Hello all! Glad I found this forum and I hope it can help with some questions in the future, right now I just want to kind of rant, but I'm trying to get to a point, it just my take a few posts. I'll just say I've been a caver for more than 12 years now, everywhere from my original home of TAG to the western mountains, the Andes of Peru, Puerto Rico, blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying I've used my fair share of headlamps on many month long or more expeditions in far out hard to reach places. I expect durability, ease of repair, simple mechanics, and good light. When I started I had the original headlamp, my grandfathers carbide light he used as a coal miner in Kentucky. Great throw, simple mechanics, stinks like ***, but carrying an explosive around (carbide) does have its downsides. Thus, not many people use them much anymore.(except in Europe) My next was the original Petzl Zoom. It worked, that's all I can say, but it was the LAST incandescent light I have ever owned. My first LED was the Petzl Zipka Mk I. That thing was indestructible, dropped it in water, ran it over with a truck, took it apart, cleaned it and reassembled it (after resoldering some wires) and it worked great until I lost it. So I got another one...and was severely disappointed. Obviously over the years things had changed, the housing was no longer as tight fitting, condensation and corrosion came soon afterwards, and it just wasnt what it was. So I branched out. As a caver I get to see so many different lights on everyone's helmets, and after alot of deliberation I chose the, at the time brand new, Apex. What a horrible disappointment! I took it to the wilderness of Montana for two months of caving and on the last day before heading back I ceremoniously put it out of its misery with a very large rock. Battery power not what I expected or even close to what was published, more leaky than a sieve, I had corrosion on the terminals after one week. (and I dry my headlamps with batteries out after cave trips, though our trips do last upwards of 30hrs sometimes...) All of that aside there were two things that sealed the deal. The first was the wire leading from the batt to the lamp was not robust enough for caving and was short circuiting after a few trips. The second was the idiotically slow three flickers that was supposed to tell you to change your batteries. I will say that if I have a headlamp on and its THE way i am seeing, one flicker is enough to get my attention! I don't need 3 one second blackouts over a 8 second cycle! The clincher was when I was traversing a wall in a wetsuit over a 60ft pit and the damn thing decides to flicker while i'm placing a foothold, and then goes on the fritz. I had to slam my helmet against the wall just to get it to come back on so I could safely get to the other side. That was the last PT light I ever owned. Then the STEN came out. My friend was one of the product testers for it and they did a great job on repairing it when it was needed and keeping him updated on new upgrades and such, but it does have some flaws. As well as most lights I have used the main issue is the power cord where it enters the lamp body. It is not robust, in Puerto Rico last year 3 Stens failed because of this one problem, and I was handing out my spare BD plastic Icons like candy. Second, those silly allen wrench screws that keep the cover on, could they have found a more difficult fastener than that? I have witnessed many times people using whats at hand to drive those little wrenches into the socket, and usually to no avail. The final third, and this is purely caver related, as cool as the magnetic switch may be, it really destroys its usefulness as an all around caving light because that switch messes with the compasses we use to survey caves. So in order to read the compass, which you must put up to your eye and sight through, you have to take off your helmet and hold it arms length away. Well, that's not always possible or feasible. So what light, after all this ranting and complaining DO I use? The BD plastic 3W LED is hands down the most reliable, bright, spot and flood light I have ever used. But I hope to change that.<br><br>Coming Soon "what about the Little Monkey, Scurion, Hurricane, Rude Nora, SureFire?"<br><br>Karstonaut<br>Alpine Caver