Black Diamond's now with Crees

[Supernam]

I was at REI tonight and found a cardboard box of various Black Diamond headlamps waiting to be hung on the shelves. I picked up the Icon and looked at it... It had a CREE P4! Then I picked up the SPOT and found that it too had a Cree! Both of those headlamps had new reflectors which were faceted instead of smooth. Good move in my opinion considering the ugly cree beam in smooth reflectors. They had the phosphor around the die which makes me assume that it's a P4 in there. If anything like the old SPOT, there should be a star inside. I modded my own SPOT with a Seoul star. I'm guessing it wouldn't be hard to swap in Q5's or R2's for that extra edge.

 

[PhantomPhoton]

Yes, I also thought I saw a cree in a BD headlamp last week (at REI as well). But it was only in one model and I couldn't find any actually available for purchase at the time so I couldn't read the box (in vain I'm sure) to see if there was any other information. I don't remember the model.

 

[kaichu dento]

subscribed!

 

[Outdoors Fanatic]

Excellent news!

 

[cave dave]

Now if only they have fixed the low Hz rate PWM.

 

[BSBG]

Now if only they have fixed the low Hz rate PWM.

You mean the one that stops falling snow with its strobing effect?

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

I think I'll hold out for Princeton Tec to update their Eos and Quad headlights. I have a BD Spot and was immediately disappointed when I read it was stormproof and found out that meant it could function being lightly sprayed for 5 minutes. Opening it without breaking it was the next difficulty. Mine now has stress cracks all over it and the lens is partly broken. It has never been crushed in a backpack. I've only had small flashlights and headlights next to it in the small outside pockets of my backpack. It's too delicate for backpacking and that's what I bought it for. I was hoping it would be like an EOS and Quad combined with less weight. I was disappointed. It's great that Crees are getting into high end lights, but I want one I can trust. I can't trust a "waterproof" light with no O-rings or gaskets, plastic pivot points on the bracket instead of metal, holes leading from a water entry point through the battery compartment to the l.e.d.s, no regulation, no heatsinking, and plastic casing that breaks on it's own. I want an EOS with a Cree, Seoul P4, or K2 TFFC l.e.d. and a Quad with Nichia GS l.e.d.s. If the light isn't built to last, it doesn't matter if the l.e.d. will last 50,000 hours, and I won't pay over $40 to get it. Sorry if this is off topic, I really am happy to see headlights with Cree l.e.d.s.

 

[Supernam]

I think I'll hold out for Princeton Tec to update their Eos and Quad headlights. I have a BD Spot and was immediately disappointed when I read it was stormproof and found out that meant it could function being lightly sprayed for 5 minutes. Opening it without breaking it was the next difficulty. Mine now has stress cracks all over it and the lens is partly broken. It has never been crushed in a backpack. I've only had small flashlights and headlights next to it in the small outside pockets of my backpack. It's too delicate for backpacking and that's what I bought it for. I was hoping it would be like an EOS and Quad combined with less weight. I was disappointed. It's great that Crees are getting into high end lights, but I want one I can trust. I can't trust a "waterproof" light with no O-rings or gaskets, plastic pivot points on the bracket instead of metal, holes leading from a water entry point through the battery compartment to the l.e.d.s, no regulation, no heatsinking, and plastic casing that breaks on it's own. I want an EOS with a Cree, Seoul P4, or K2 TFFC l.e.d. and a Quad with Nichia GS l.e.d.s. If the light isn't built to last, it doesn't matter if the l.e.d. will last 50,000 hours, and I won't pay over $40 to get it. Sorry if this is off topic, I really am happy to see headlights with Cree l.e.d.s.

The SPOT too delicate for backpacking? Do you headbutt things when you backpack? No regulation is a great thing for headlamps when backpacking. Wouldn't it suck if you were hiking along a ridge at night and all of a sudden your EOS or other regulated headlamp drops out of regulation? Also, how do you know the SPOT needs heatsinking? Do you know how much current it is being driven at? Do you have a heat vs. time chart somewhere? So are you happy to see headlamps with cree's or are you disappointed in the headlamps with crees?

If you want an EOS with Cree/Seoul/K2T, why don't you do it yourself? Everyone else has.

 

[beautifully-stupid]

I think I'm going to reserve judgement on the new Spot and Icon until somebody actully buys one.

Granted there were stress cracks near the switch on my spot after 9 months or so, but none that ever turned into a more serious issue.

I'm just happy that Mfg's are listening to us on the forums and adding cree's, making more useful beam patterns and so on.

Power of the pen

 

[xcandrew]

No regulation is a great thing for headlamps when backpacking. Wouldn't it suck if you were hiking along a ridge at night and all of a sudden your EOS or other regulated headlamp drops out of regulation?

I don't agree, at least with the Princeton Tec lights. If you are happy with an unregulated headlamp on the high setting that is actually putting out the same amount of light as the same light does on a lower setting (such as medium or low) with fresh batteries for much of the battery life, I don't see why you wouldn't be happy just using an equivalent regulated light on a lower setting to start with in regards to runtime.

Once the Eos can no longer hold a certain setting, it behaves like a near end of battery life unregulated light and gradually fades. It doesn't cut you off. In the high setting after the regulated life, the brightness will gradually fade towards the regulated medium setting. Once you notice that it has dropped out of regulation, you can prolong the remaining run time by switching to medium, low, or even blink depending on how much longer you need to "milk" the light. I once did the last part of a run on a pitch dark trail "milking" an out of regulation Eos for the last 45 minutes or so.

 

[Kestrel]

Doing a bit of thread-necro here, I did a pretty decent search (there doesn't seem to have been much written recently about this headlight) & this thread was the closest match.

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to find a Black Diamond Spot (the newer Cree version, with the faceted reflector) that had been lost & abandoned at a campground. It had been sitting there for some time, as there was a little algae growing under the lens plate where condensation would be expected to form. I took it apart, cleaned it up, & put in fresh cells, and now I finally have a (somewhat-) decent headlight to replace my Petzl Zipka (please be nice, I'm a certifiable flashlight nut but not a headlamp nut).

I was curious as to the actual runtimes for this light. The best I could come across was in this thread, although these are manufacturer-claimed runtimes that are simply not possible IMO (50 hours for the '1W' emitter on 'high' - yeah right, 3x AAA doing a claimed ~47 lumens for 50 hours, I don't think so).

I know that the main issue is the fact that these are direct-drive, so it's a judgment call when the gradual decline in output is considered to be 'over', and of course the marketing department has a different opinion on this than the engineering department. :ironic:

Anyway, I wanted to share news of my good fortune, this is the nicest thing that I have found for quite a while. I will hopefully be getting 3x NiMH LSD AAA's for it sometime this summer, but simply have no idea what to expect for runtimes.

Thanks,
K

Edit: The new addition to the family:

 

[jirik_cz]

Here is the runtime of BD Spot (Cree version) compared to Fenix HL20. Hope that helps

 

[Kestrel]

Here is the runtime of BD Spot (Cree version) compared to Fenix HL20. Hope that helps

Sweet, thank you, exactly what I was wanting. :thumbsup:

Gotta love how the NiMH discharge curve helps out the unregulated lights.

Does this data exist for the medium & low outputs and/or the 5mm LED's high output mode?
Thanks again,
K
Edit: 2000th post, whoot!

 

[jirik_cz]

Sorry, I didn't measure other modes of BD spot.

 

[Kestrel]

No problem, thanks anyway. That runtime graph you did was helpful, thanks again.
K