@alpg88
oh thank you, throw is what i need, actually the more flood you have looking up into a tree, especially with leaves ON, it tends to reflect back to you in such a way that makes you blind to what is beyond the foreground, which is where i really want to see. i might look at those higher throw LED's. but foremost, the main concern is battery life, it doesnt have to keep my hands warm, but it needs to be able to run maybe 15min at a time possibly, probably not on high, but at least 60% or so. it would be great if these LED's could run for hours and hours on lower lettings, and still provide very bright (in comparison to current incan coon lights) light. current coon lights can go 10 hours on low, and maybe 2-3 hrs on high, on a 21v belt light, not sure of the output, but its so bright that a racoon will not look at you, so it kinda defeats the purpose. a warmer LED will not make it so black and white, and easier to distinguish between tree/shadow/game.
i might start at der wichel and peep out the newer LED's after i figure out the wiring from the head to the batt mags. that is all good info, thank you so much. of these newer LED's, do any of them come in a warmer color, not sure how to term it. like the MCE warm led model.
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sst come in warm tint as well, so do almost all leds, warmer ones loose in output a bit, and harder to find. for your purposes i think sst50\90 will fit the bill imo. even p7 will, it is also bright, also if you get new rebel led mag 2or3 D and use that for your coon light build, you'll get good throw.
p7 would be easiest to find multimode driver for, der witchel sells them , great drivers, also dx\kd sell them too, as do pbly few more places,
sst are harder to find multimode drivers, DW sells 1 mode drivers for those leds.
i looked at coon lights on the net, most are 4-6v headlamps, with sla batteries. they look exactly like mining lights. i'm pretty sure they not as bright as p7, not to mention sst.
imo you should go with p7 build, easy cheap, and parts are widely available.
as for batteries, li ion have largest capacity\lowest weight for the size, i'd go with it, thou there are plenty of cheap ***fire cells that are of a poor quality, you wanna stay away from those, they sometimes blow up, if you have the pack on the belt, you will get hurt if they blow up (thou some trust fire gray and black protected cells have good reviews) also you wanna get protected cells, or if you building a pack, get good quality unprotected, and add pcb circuit, battery space sells pcb's some even have balancing option, they also sell cells, and chargers.
nimh are also good alternative, they are cheaper, safer, eneloops AA cells are great cells, they lack capacity of li ions, or even some other nimhAA cells, but they have very slow self discharge (i doubt it is important to you, since you pbly will charge it before each hunt anyway) and consistent high quality from cell to cell, also sanyo 2700 are good,
read up reviews here on batteries.
as for battery, i doubt canister or a tube will be ideal for your purposes, few flat boxes on the belt would be better than 1 tube, i build few battery belts before, i used housings from mcmaster carr.com they sell tons of boxes\enclosures, any size, any purpose.
