Homemade medium bright trail running headlamp
- Thread starter Jagge
- Start date
gillestugan
Enlightened
You might want to add a RC-motor heat sink. Like the one in this helmet light at MTBR.
They are cheap, come in different sizes and colours.
Maybe you should add a Finnish flag to your avatar before you post pictures of terrain that looks identical to the eastern part of central Sweden. Must have hurt badly to be mistaken for a Swede.
They are cheap, come in different sizes and colours.
Maybe you should add a Finnish flag to your avatar before you post pictures of terrain that looks identical to the eastern part of central Sweden. Must have hurt badly to be mistaken for a Swede.
degarb
Flashlight Enthusiast
DX drop in (sku 11836).
Does this drop in have a driver or resistor on it? Will it be easy to remove so I can add my own?
Still no reply on tint and color rendering of this drop in. I hate the green Cree's. They do well outside, but try to use them to work inside, and many colors are not visible. (My energizer hard case cree is almost blue scale, my coleman cree is sickly green, my colman xr-c is very yellow and not too bad at most colors though worse than any of my rebel leds.)
I good p7 driver to buck 6-9 volts with settings, I think will be over $20. So again, I am thinking of building a second duel head,
using two dropins in parallel, running off a $10 6-volt agm 1lb on belt (in series with 2 parallel AA=33 watt hour lsd ) with 3 watt pot (a cool 100 to 400 milliamp typical, under 3 watt) The cost of this head light will be around $40 with these parts and offer about 230 lumens at 2 watts (2.5 watts probably more typical) for 10 work hours. With variable pot, I get more like 14 hours. But my last project was xrc ($20) and rebel 80 ($26) with 160 lumen at 2 watts; This would be cheaper and 70 lumen brighter. My concern is color rendering and lux. That coleman xrc is about 5 times brighter than a sloppy xr-e and 8 degree reflector, which allows me to see runs, dust, minor skips at night like day from 25 feet away. I am guessing this drop in is a tighter 6 or 7 degree. 3.5 squared is 12.5 and 2.5 squared is 6.25 So a 5 degree reflector is twice as bright as a 7degree (plus xrc lumens go foward better than xre), in detail viewing lux respect. Now you need 4 times brighter to double throw distance. So, to not use my paltry 80 lumen/watt xrc and still keep throw (3 squared is 9 v 6.25) a 120 lumen/watt xre with 6 degree should be as bright (lux) as a xrc with 5 degree reflector.
Where I gain is in second head that will replace the 8 degree rebel 80, and yes, price. Though it all hinges in efficiency and degree of the reflector.
Then also, how long is the DX shipping time now days? Chinese new year (when) might be best considered each year.
Does this drop in have a driver or resistor on it? Will it be easy to remove so I can add my own?
Still no reply on tint and color rendering of this drop in. I hate the green Cree's. They do well outside, but try to use them to work inside, and many colors are not visible. (My energizer hard case cree is almost blue scale, my coleman cree is sickly green, my colman xr-c is very yellow and not too bad at most colors though worse than any of my rebel leds.)
I good p7 driver to buck 6-9 volts with settings, I think will be over $20. So again, I am thinking of building a second duel head,
using two dropins in parallel, running off a $10 6-volt agm 1lb on belt (in series with 2 parallel AA=33 watt hour lsd ) with 3 watt pot (a cool 100 to 400 milliamp typical, under 3 watt) The cost of this head light will be around $40 with these parts and offer about 230 lumens at 2 watts (2.5 watts probably more typical) for 10 work hours. With variable pot, I get more like 14 hours. But my last project was xrc ($20) and rebel 80 ($26) with 160 lumen at 2 watts; This would be cheaper and 70 lumen brighter. My concern is color rendering and lux. That coleman xrc is about 5 times brighter than a sloppy xr-e and 8 degree reflector, which allows me to see runs, dust, minor skips at night like day from 25 feet away. I am guessing this drop in is a tighter 6 or 7 degree. 3.5 squared is 12.5 and 2.5 squared is 6.25 So a 5 degree reflector is twice as bright as a 7degree (plus xrc lumens go foward better than xre), in detail viewing lux respect. Now you need 4 times brighter to double throw distance. So, to not use my paltry 80 lumen/watt xrc and still keep throw (3 squared is 9 v 6.25) a 120 lumen/watt xre with 6 degree should be as bright (lux) as a xrc with 5 degree reflector.
Where I gain is in second head that will replace the 8 degree rebel 80, and yes, price. Though it all hinges in efficiency and degree of the reflector.
Then also, how long is the DX shipping time now days? Chinese new year (when) might be best considered each year.
Jagge
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2008
- Messages
- 87
I just took it off. I never planned to use it, never bothered to take a look what it is was.
P7 I used is DSXOJ. I can't say much about the R2. I never bothered to try dropin with R2 much because single R2 just can't give enough light for me, no matter what the beam shape is like. Note, trail running with tight spot is really annoying.
Jagge
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2008
- Messages
- 87
That figures :cool: Sometimes simple is best.
pacificfit
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2009
- Messages
- 1
how much to make one and sell it to me?
Jagge
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2008
- Messages
- 87
Sorry, will not happen, I don't have time at the moment.
But consider getting a pre made P7 or MC-E dropin (P60), like DX sku 21037 or one from Nailbender. Both P7 And MC-E have nice large spot, single emitter drop-ins has too tight spot. All you need to do is solder (or find someone to solder for you) some wires and connectors and make for example a AA battery holder belt pack. And find a hose clamp to attach it to a head band of a cheap head lamp. And you are done. It really isn't difficult at all if you do it like that, no need to work with any led components or drivers. It will make really nice, wins hands down most if not all commercial headlamps what it comes to trail running use - if that is what you are after.
---
If someone likes to know all headlamps shown above are in use and are doing great. Lots of training use and also fFor example one 84.4 km ultra trail run done (with the 1A version) and also 10mila and Jukola races. And even one national (Finland) night orienteering champs gold medal was won few weeks ago using one of these lamps (not by me). So I'd say it was worth it :)
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