vomit_stain
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2001
- Messages
- 9
I recently asked if anyone would help me in acquiring the ultimate caving light. The thread can be found in Headlamp discussion. I am posting my latest findings here as I felt it would be more appropriate.
As cavers, the lights we use are lifelines.
They have to be: robust,longlived,and finally bright enough to cave with. Our lights need not be as bright as the average flashlight as we are in COMPLETE darkness.
The LED promises to be the future in caving because of its bulb life,current draw, and useful light output.
That being said I want to give you the latest report on Luffokc's design.
As said before,it is Wheat Lamp mining light with 20 LED's mouted around the standard bulb in a circular pattern. You can choose which lightsource you want to use via the headiece
mounted switch. Turn one way for incandescent,the opposite for LED. Very simple and straight forward.
When I sent the light to Mark, the 15AH SLA battery was dead. He actually brought it back to life with some TLC. I was pretty impressed but had my doubts because we all know how Lead acid batteries don't like to be completely dicharged.
I got the package back and I was thrilled at the workmanship he put into this light.
It was simple which means reliable. Unfortunatly the 15AH battery was leaking acid and had to be put to sleep. This turned out to be a blessing in diguise. I couldn't find a replacement 15AH sealed battery and Batteries Plus was out of the 10AH units. They did have a 9AH and since I had to have one,I ended up with it. I have to say, I was leary of such a small battery. Like I was saying before I was using a much larger battery and burntime was sufficiant. I like to have a little reserve for getting lost,uh' I mean exploring.
I did a preliminary test on burntime and was really impressed. Of course the real test was in an actual caving environment. So I went to a couple of local caves to try her out.The light was more than adequate for the large caves as well as the smaller passages.
I haven't tried it in any vertical caves (pits) as there arn't any closer than 20mi. And I was short on cash last week. But I don't see having any problems because as stated earlier, I can always switch to the incandescent buld which is very bright.
When I got home I put the light back on the charger to "fill 'er up"
The charger read .2amperes, whatever that means. I'm pretty sure that means "full"
The test started: 20MAR01 4:20AM
At 7:20 PM the light was still too bright to look into. It lit up my small 10'X12' bedroom easily.
21MAR01 6:20AM the light was still easily lighting up my bedroom.
21MAR01 6:20PM light output was considerably less but still brighter than the PT Matrix which I have caved with before. I discontinued the test at this point because I felt that the light had been on much longer than I have ever been in a cave.
The total time of usable light amounted to 38hrs. This is a continuous use time which would be stretched even further because some cavers tend to turn their lights off when not needed to try to extend battery life. Remember the light is our lifeline.
If I needed more, I could always strap two 9AH batteries together. They are small, don't weigh much, and from what Luffokc says, it would more than double my burntime.
If you are a caver I feel you should give a long, hard look at LED's as a primary light source. I feel that they are indeed the best of all worlds.
BTW the original thread is under "Need help in creating ultimate caving light" in the headlamp discussion. I give a little more in depth desription of light output in the caves.Plus there is a picture of the light.
Link: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000470
As cavers, the lights we use are lifelines.
They have to be: robust,longlived,and finally bright enough to cave with. Our lights need not be as bright as the average flashlight as we are in COMPLETE darkness.
The LED promises to be the future in caving because of its bulb life,current draw, and useful light output.
That being said I want to give you the latest report on Luffokc's design.
As said before,it is Wheat Lamp mining light with 20 LED's mouted around the standard bulb in a circular pattern. You can choose which lightsource you want to use via the headiece
mounted switch. Turn one way for incandescent,the opposite for LED. Very simple and straight forward.
When I sent the light to Mark, the 15AH SLA battery was dead. He actually brought it back to life with some TLC. I was pretty impressed but had my doubts because we all know how Lead acid batteries don't like to be completely dicharged.
I got the package back and I was thrilled at the workmanship he put into this light.
It was simple which means reliable. Unfortunatly the 15AH battery was leaking acid and had to be put to sleep. This turned out to be a blessing in diguise. I couldn't find a replacement 15AH sealed battery and Batteries Plus was out of the 10AH units. They did have a 9AH and since I had to have one,I ended up with it. I have to say, I was leary of such a small battery. Like I was saying before I was using a much larger battery and burntime was sufficiant. I like to have a little reserve for getting lost,uh' I mean exploring.
I did a preliminary test on burntime and was really impressed. Of course the real test was in an actual caving environment. So I went to a couple of local caves to try her out.The light was more than adequate for the large caves as well as the smaller passages.
I haven't tried it in any vertical caves (pits) as there arn't any closer than 20mi. And I was short on cash last week. But I don't see having any problems because as stated earlier, I can always switch to the incandescent buld which is very bright.
When I got home I put the light back on the charger to "fill 'er up"
The charger read .2amperes, whatever that means. I'm pretty sure that means "full"
The test started: 20MAR01 4:20AM
At 7:20 PM the light was still too bright to look into. It lit up my small 10'X12' bedroom easily.
21MAR01 6:20AM the light was still easily lighting up my bedroom.
21MAR01 6:20PM light output was considerably less but still brighter than the PT Matrix which I have caved with before. I discontinued the test at this point because I felt that the light had been on much longer than I have ever been in a cave.
The total time of usable light amounted to 38hrs. This is a continuous use time which would be stretched even further because some cavers tend to turn their lights off when not needed to try to extend battery life. Remember the light is our lifeline.
If I needed more, I could always strap two 9AH batteries together. They are small, don't weigh much, and from what Luffokc says, it would more than double my burntime.
If you are a caver I feel you should give a long, hard look at LED's as a primary light source. I feel that they are indeed the best of all worlds.
BTW the original thread is under "Need help in creating ultimate caving light" in the headlamp discussion. I give a little more in depth desription of light output in the caves.Plus there is a picture of the light.
Link: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000470