Any headlamp with an asymmetrical beam?

TweakMDS

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Jun 18, 2012
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I realize this is kind of a long shot, but when I was looking at some beamshots combining the SC51 and H502, I made the connection to my car's headlight and wondered if any headlamps (or simply flashlights) exist that have a beam that's floody on the bottom and throwy at the top?

If you take a look at a car's headlight, that's exactly what they do: throw a wide, oval beam in front of you and then throw kind of a low beam straight forward (angled down a little).

Seems like a great idea to optimize the light output for a headlamp, especially in the single AA / CR123 lights, where max output is rather limited by the available power.
 

degarb

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Oct 27, 2007
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The PROBLEM is battery limitation. I have a wide hgih def cree. Great wide flood, but no use for it, with its forty min of useful lux. Floodier means more current to do things. I would be happy if rather than flood v. Spot debates, we would be asking wide v. Spot. I say this as the wide disciplined beam is all you could ever ask for in vision, with no wasted light.Also, keep in mind that car headlamps are not mounted on you head, so the light does follow around where you are looking. That is the beauty of hl over flashlight. If you use a flashlight plus hl, you get foot flood. I make my own wristlights that I wear on watch wrist, from flash lights and a better battery source. There is a new fenix 4 aa that I wonder would work.
 

jonathanluu2

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Jun 14, 2012
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Sorry, thread necromancer here as I brows some of the older posts. Ahorton makes a floody/throwy headlamp, now on his third version of the design. Only issue that I have heard is that the floody and throwy LEDs have a different tint to them, so it makes for an interesting blend. His design uses two 18650's mounted on the back of the head, so while the flood may be more "wasteful" there is enough juice to compensate for convenience. Dunno if that's the type of light you're looking for. Its more of a "throw on the top and flood all over. Its $300 too...

Thread is....

here
 

uk_caver

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Feb 9, 2007
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Central UK
If the original question was about beams with a spot and downward throw, there were 'Dosun' headlamps, which, used an optical arrangement of an LED firing downwards into half a reflector, giving a spot beam with floody downspill (from light missing the reflector) but no upspill.
Not sure if they're still making them (couldn't be bothered trawling through their website).

It's a nice geometry for some uses - I was using it myself for some caving lamp inserts well before they invented/patented it.
 
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