Cap Lights

[Pacecar]

Where's the proper forum to discuss cap hat lights? Some of these are pretty neat, up to 30 lumens, different led colors, swivel features, etc.

 

[cistallus]

This seems like an appropriate forum to me - the cap is the mounting for a lamp on your head - a headlamp.

I've only seen baseball-type caps that are pretty much novelty items, with relatively small low-power LEDs in the bill. Have you found something better?

 

[Hondo]

I have done this a lot, with a clip-on light. The Gerber Infinity Ultra was my first "ready to use" solution. The Arc AAA is much lighter, though. For higher performance, I have made a complex fixture to attach an LD01 or LF2XT. The apparatus consists of a wooden closepin and a rubber band. Most of the labor involved was attributed to sawing the closepin handles shorter. A very handy solution, when I am wearing a hat anyways.

 

[cistallus]

... a wooden closepin and a rubber band ...

Thanks for the inspiration! Not many small lights come with a reversible clip that allows them to clip to a brim forward-facing, been looking for solutions.

This is a good solution with common household materials. Just tried with an unmodified plain wooden clothespin, works pretty good with my LF2X, would probably work well with my Mini 123. The grip is OK but could be better, maybe there are better clothespins that will grip tighter.

 

[GlobalPlayer]

The ITP A3 EOS has a reversible clip, so you can attach it to the cap;
I use this very good and simple solution often while running at night during winter

 

[fishx65]

Good thread! We don't seem to talk about cap-lights on here very much. Being "hair challenged", I usually wearing a baseball cap. I've got a few of the clip-on style cap lights but they all seem to run on coincell batteries and have angry blue tints. I went on a night fishing adventure last week and forgot my trusty EOS headlamp but I did have one of my 1AA Energizer Cree lights in the truck. Clipped it on the bill of my old baseball cap and it worked awesome! Much brighter then the EOS and easier to operate.

 

[Hondo]

The grip is OK but could be better, maybe there are better clothespins that will grip tighter.

If you want "infinite" grip, try this: Get a small (4-40 or 6-32) thumb screw from the hardware, and a nut. Jamb the nut all the way down the screw as a load applicator. Now drill a clearance hole in one side of the closepin between the fulcrum and the pinch point. Then drill a smaller hole the rest of the way through the other side of the pin so that the screw can be threaded into it (ideal if you actually have the tap for the screw size to run through, but not absolutely necessary).

Now after you clip it on, you can crank the thumb screw down, and the nut will apply pressure to the two halves of the pin, making it absolutely "loss-proof". Adds a bit of weight, and a few seconds to the installation/removal time, but it is going nowhere. I have found that with the older closepins I have, the fairly strong metal spring and the rough wood surface on the hat brim hangs on tighter than most metal clips I have, without the thumb screw mod.

 

[Pacecar]

Normally, the best button battery cap lights are up to 14 lumens.

Recently, I found a Cyclops Orion 5 white led cap light (button batteries) that advertised 150% brighter on the label.... but it really seemed to be much brighter than that! Not yet shown on the Cyclops website. Appears to output about 25 lumens. I like this simple, lightweight cap light. Seems like this particular model sold out at the store in only a couple of days, and haven't seen it restocked yet.

Then there's the Browning NightSeeker PRO, which has a single Nichia 0.5W white led for 26 lumens, plus some weak color leds (either red or green). The Nightseeker PRO pivots, but it is clipped under the bill of the hat.

Seen the Energizer Trailfinder PERFORMANCE cap swivel light, with 3 leds outputting 30 lumens. Also has a couple of small red leds. This cap light pivots above the bill of the cap. Has anyone bought this light and can comment on its performance?

 

[JAS]

I have a cap light. It is rechargeable via a USB cable. It has a total of four white LEDs and two red LEDs. It isn't a bad light, but I, too, want to know if anything better is available. I would like another rechargeable, if possible, and brighter. I think it is a Master Vision 6 LED Rechargeable Cap Light

 

[Solscud007]

Actually you guys should buy the Larue Tactical Ball cap. it has a sleeve or a hole where the bill meets the cap. You can slip an E1B thru the hole and secure the light. there is no way for the light to come out.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=259961&highlight=Larue

 

[JAS]

Thank you for the tip. I have added some URLs for those that want to read more.


http://www.laruetactical.com/

http://stores.homestead.com/Laruetactical/StoreFront.bok

http://stores.homestead.com/Laruetactical/Detail.bok?no=322

http://stores.homestead.com/Laruetactical/Detail.bok?no=7

http://www.surefire.com/

http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main...=6&prrfnbr=24511&sesent=0,0&search_id=2084566

 

[Solscud007]

if you check out the link in my post, I mention that this hat can use any flashlight. not just the E1B. however there is a caveat. The lights that work best with the Larue ball cap have to be short. or the two-way clip has to be as log as the body of the light. So like the new LX2 clip on an E2DL could work.

I have a solorforce 2way clip on my SF 3P and it works just fine on the hat.

 

[JAS]

Thanks for the update. Do you have any idea of any less expensive lights that might work well with a cap like this? As much as I love Surefire, if I can get a less expensive light for this application I would be interested.

 

[defloyd77]

Seen the Energizer Trailfinder PERFORMANCE cap swivel light, with 3 leds outputting 30 lumens. Also has a couple of small red leds. This cap light pivots above the bill of the cap. Has anyone bought this light and can comment on its performance?

Sure can, just got it at Wally World an hour ago for 14.88, the very first thing I noticed is the way you put the batteries in, there are 2 red tabs that hold 2 halves together that you pull outward, they're kind of hard to pull outand I don't feel they go outward enough, there's not much clearance between the half that pulls away, I'm not too confident that these will not break. The clip itself seems pretty sturdy with plastic on the top and metal for the bottom and it doesn't feel like it's going to fall of easily (later I'll do some :rock: to see if it stays on) and has 4 swivel positions 0, 30, 60 and 90 degrees and it seems to stay in each postition pretty well.

The switch is a reverse clicky, but it's purely mechanical, you have to actually click it to change the modes, half pressing just turns it of momentarily. This also means if it's clicked without batteries, it might come on in high or any other mode when the batteries are replaced.

I'll comment later on the red mode, which comes on first, when my eyes are adjusted to dark to see how pleasant it is to use. The white LED's use small aspherics which gives it a pretty nice circular moon beam in the middle and there is a pretty decent amount of artifacty side spill. The output of the white LED's is also not too shabby, I'm willing to be this uses the Nichia GS as Energizer uses them in a lot of their other lights and the 30 lumen claim seems pretty accurate. There does not really seem to be too much of a difference between low and high, I'll charge up some of my NiMH's and make sure that this is actually how the modes are spaced and not low batteries.

I honestly don't know weither or not I reccomend this light, I definately need to play with it more. I'm sure I left some details out, so anything you want to know, just ask.

 

[JAS]

I am also looking for a bright LED caplight, preferably LED. What is the brightest one available?

 

[obriencr]

Reverse the clip and try the ITP A3 on the brim of the cap.

 

[JAS]

Thank you for the tip. I have never heard of that brand before. My attention was sort of drawn to the iTP R01, since it is rechargeable. It looks like the:

A3 is Size: Length 66.5 mm *Diameter 14 mm,

R01 is Size: Length 126mm (4.96'') x D 30mm (1.18'')

As much as I might like the brighter and rechargeable R01, is looks like it is bigger than the A3.





http://www.itplight.com/

 

[romteb]

Pretty much every single AAA light with a reversible clip will make an excelent cap light.

I, for exemple, use this Akoray K-102 with a fenix clip on caps

 

[d1337]

I really like the county comm Maratac AAA. It has a great reverse-able clip that holds the light to the brim of a hat. The killer feature though is that it is small enough to keep on my key-chain everyday. When I need hands free light I just clip it to my hat and I'm all set. It will put out 60 lumens on high or run for about 30 hours on low. :twothumbs

 

[d1337]

Thank you for the tip. I have never heard of that brand before. My attention was sort of drawn to the iTP R01, since it is rechargeable. It looks like the:

A3 is Size: Length 66.5 mm *Diameter 14 mm,

R01 is Size: Length 126mm (4.96'') x D 30mm (1.18'')

As much as I might like the brighter and rechargeable R01, is looks like it is bigger than the A3.





http://www.itplight.com/

The size difference between those two lights is massive. The entire A3 is much smaller than the battery is the Ro1. You can just use rechargeable AAA LSD batteries in the A3 eos to make it rechargeable. Also good to note that the A3 eos "upgrade edition" is much more useful as it has three modes.
http://goinggear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=14_19&products_id=255