need a head lamp

[lessing]

I need to buy a head lamp for caving for my brother in law. He lives in NY state and does a fair bit of caving in caves that do not usually require ropes and harnesses but are very tight chest compressors. He currently has a ray-o-vac that is not waterproof enough.
What I am concerned with is a long enough burn time, I do not know what this should be for this application and that it is bright enough to see into the deeper expanses that he encounters.

I personally respect Petzl for climbing gear and Princeton tec for flashlights. If these are good choices, which models.

 

[Gone Jeepin]

Lessing, I can tell you about the two I have, the Petzl Mirco, and Petzl Zipka. The Micro is an older model incandescent w/spare bulb included. The beam is yellowish but throws well. I get about 3 nights of general camp site use per battery set. The Zipka is the new LED style that has a nice white light that is bright but does not throw well IMHO. I like the Zipka for close up work and small area lighting. I am not sure on runtime for that one yet, not enought practical field use.

If I were in your position, I would look for a headlight that offered me 4 main points:
1. Long beam throw, need to see what is ahead and around me in all the shadows and pockets.
2. Decent side spill (?) to preserve my depth perception in the dark.
3. Easy battery change, need to be able to do it in the dark.
4. Small profile, as small as possible to get through small spaces.
I am not sure if those features exist in one light. I would be talking to other cavers and climbers for opinions as well.

Have fun and be safe

 

[socalrunner]

I would look a the princeton tec models. The Vortec with a long burn krypton bulb will burn up to 8 hours. This is the best compromise of power and energy savings. It is a 4aa model and work very well. The standard bulb which is much brighter will burn 3 hours. They also use pr based bulbs which can be bought anywhere and are very inexpensive. You can also overdrive the bulbs for max brightness, lots of options. They are waterproof to 500feet and are similar in brightness to the TEC 40 flashlight, you can find lots of review on CPF. You can see there products at:

www.princetontec.com

 

[hairydogs]

black diamond moonlights (4 led) are both extraordinary light with good running time. One other incandescent headlights with regulated power supply (wiht 1 led backup) seems handy for caving purpose.

 

[papasan]

this question gets asked about once every couple weeks or so, you may want to do a search for 'headlamp' and see what that gets you.

if most of what he does mostly small, squeezy caves then he doesn't need a whole lot of light, a small LED might be just the ticket.

some things that _i_ look for in a light, as each person has their own list of priorities when looking for the perfect light: water resistance or, even beter, waterproofness; dependability; takes common batteries that can be bought anywhere (all of my main gear uses AA batteries for interchange-ability and i try to use pairs of batteries so it's friendlier on rechargables); size and weight.

if you want to stick with incandescents one of my favorites is the black diamond's supernova (http://www.bdel.com/backcountry/headlamps_supernova.html) because it has a 3-way willie hunt LVR in it.

if you want to stick with LEDs...well, the only manufactured LED lights that i'm partial to are the lupines, speleo-technics, etc. which would run you around $300.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

The Petzl Duo is specifically designed for caving and comes in a Duo Belt, plus LED modules for the non Xenon side are made by Petzl.

The Princeton Tec Switchback is a good choice for its use of either internal baterries (2AA) or plugin series/parallel 4C pack. It uses 2 LED and Xenon bulb, and is waterproof.

You had better talk with your brother in law and what his specific needs are. Particularly mounting on helmet. Does he use helmet clips, or does he use a Blade Mount??????

Most of the cavers here say 12 hours is enough for runtime.

When doing a tight crawl, you don't want Xenon light blasting back into your eyes, so the Switchback may be the better choice with its mode choices.

A good place to look at both manufacturers and others, is a CPF favorite retailer: http://www.brightguy.com/

 

[kev1-1]

I've got a Princeton Tec Aurora which is waterproof and uses three LED's/3xAAA. Not living near any caves (that I know of!) I've no idea if it would be bright enough for this sort of purpose! How useful!

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Kev1-1, the Aurora isn't robust enough for caving. Headlamps tend to get scrape and bumped against rock.