new photon fusion with red auxiliary light?

Anyone tried the new photon fusion with red auxiliary light? Does it works well? Here is the descrption the on photon's website.

Auxiliary Red Light: All white Fusions (with the exception of the chemical resistant version) feature an additional single red LED which can be operated independently of the array of white LEDs. Pressing and holding the "Hyper-Bright" (left) button turns on the red light at a low level and gradually increases the power until it reaches maximum brightness. Releasing the button at any point allows you to select exactly the amount of illumination you need.

I'm into amature astronomy so the red light feature is very appealing. I currently use a red photon 3 to read my star charts, which is not as convientient as a headlamp.

Furthermore, anyone have experience purchasing non-stock item from vicomptel? They seems to have the best price on photon fusion.

It sounds like a great idea, but my biggest concern is if LRI redesigned the battery door hinges, which were breaking very often on the original version. Anyone know if it's been resolved?

I just got my Fusion last week from BrightGuy. The red LED ramps smoothly when the hyper-bright button is held down. There is a quick blink once max brightness is reached. The light pattern for the red LED is a roundish diamond shape with a little dropoff in the middle with a large ring further out. The red LED does not illuminate as smoothly as the white LEDs but should be useful for reading your star charts.

This my only fusion, so I can't compare the battery door (tough to close, but apparently that is intentional). Brightness of the fusion is similar to my EternaLight X-Ray Elite.

I am sort of looking forward to the next power outage (already lost power about 10 times this winter including 1.5 and 2 day outages). Power in the Santa Cruz mountains is not the greatest...

The fusion costs more than other headlamps, but worth the price. Regulated lights rule.

Erik.

Yes it has been redesigned! (batt.latch)

Battery latch/clip has been updated long ago. I did told LRI a year ago about this hinge. But they didn't upgrade the hinge area when I got my replacement half a year ago. See how thin is the little hinge, that's why after 2 replacements I finally gave up and returned it for refund.

Anyone have the hinge or other parts broken after extended use? I will also use the light for backpacking. These make me worry about the durability issue with the fusion.

I have a good hinge,I cannot even think of how you could break the hinge unless you tried to shove in C cell batts. where the AA`s go!
I use this light constant! I rig lights run lasers
in the roughest area you can imagine from smoke filled clubs to huge outdoor events rain or shine
this is the best choice for me! the others fall
off my head, batts go dead fast or rain kills them!
As a fact I was just out side coiling cables with
rain storming down a inch a hour!

For the hinge in the picture, you can see it's still the QC problem. Look at one side is thicker than the other and the thickness is comparable to the original battery latch/clip thickness. Look how much bigger the clip thickness than the hinge. The fact that it's hard to close the battery cap already assert lots of tesion on the hinge area. After all they're all moving parts. I do not abbuse the product. In home use and careful use. And this happen on 2 units I recieved. It start off with fine cracks not normally visible. Since I used the light a lot, therefore I go for Nimh, so, I changed the battery regularly. That may be why the cracks grow faster and fail faster. So I would like to know whether the new Photon Fusion with red LED has a thicker hinge?

It's hard to tell if the hinge has changed much since mine is not broken in two. It looks rather similar to your pictures. The material is less shiny though. Perhaps they improved the plastic?

The hinge area looks positioned such that there is little risk of impact damage. There must be a bit of stress on the hinge since closing the unit required so very much force.

Erik.