New line of lamps and My headlamp beefs-balance and battery life

[degarb]

I don't like the direction the newer headlamp manufacturers are taking.

First off, I never owned a flashlight until the led came out. Sure got them for Christmas, but threw them out, since every time I used them I only got 20 minutes to 1.5 hours on the D or AA bats. Even as an emergencies, they tend to be useless, as one may only need them once ever 3 years.

Then along came the Luxeon 1 watt with 15 hour light rating on 3 AAA (Really, 4.5 hours of great light, before I switch.) Then came the Garrity 3 AA with 9-11 hour of great light (probably rated 30 hours). And so, Daily I can use them as they help me with everything from weed whacking after dark, cleaning car, basement/garage work, getting ready for work quicker, painting, patching, autorepair, plumbing, and working on the inners of the computer.

I found the 3 AA in rear of head band to be more balanced and comfortable then 3 AAA in front with Lamp. Also space in book bag is relevant. I own one 3 watt lamp, which is 3 AAA in Lamp (not very comfortable to wear by comparison) but find it is no brighter than the 1 watt--just a larger hot spot, about 3 times bigger than eye focusing area anyway--which is only good for mowing lawn after dark (larger hotspot) but little usefulness in the way of slower activities.

Now, 2 to 5 hours is standard store battery life, Rear strap battery compartments look deceivingly cumbersome, while they are not. And no manufacturer, except tactical, will spring the extra $3 for a cree or souel.

 

[ACMarina]

The average consumer is going to look at "seoul" on a package and think -

"Man, enough stuff is made in foreign countries, and now Korea is getting in on it too??"

Show the manufacturers that there's interest and they might change, but they're not going to be quick about it in any regard..

 

[degarb]

Also, another direction is toward regulators. But It seems to me, that we should be able to turn this feature off in a pinch, as a way to extend use.

Lack of any reostat is another beef of mine.

 

[degarb]

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/led-duet_hlx-513aa.htm

Geez, this a regulated version of the Garrity that I get 11 hours of great light. This one has 4 hours. This sux. I will sooner give up flash light use than go under 9 hours.

 

[LED_Thrift]

Welcome to CPF.
The ZebraLight headlamp uses a Cree [or Seoul] and is very efficient. It uses a single AA and is very small, light and comfortable.

 

[degarb]

Zebra looks like a neat light. However, several concerns whereas I need extreme detail at 4 to 12 foot range (30 to 45 lumens with a good focuser, 3 inch diameter at 4 foot, works fine). The q4 and q5 appears to have no optics for focus, I don't like the settings of 90 lumens/2 hours or 15 lumens. If they make a 2 AA at 40 lumens with focusing lens to get 8 hours or more, I would buy.

I just don't believe that a battery light will ever give detail (dust, texture) without a focusing lens. Heck, a 500 watt halogen can't offer enough light to paint a room without skips--you really need about 2000, with closeup lanterning of a 500 watt too really see wall imperfections.

 

[electrothump]

Also, another direction is toward regulators. But It seems to me, that we should be able to turn this feature off in a pinch, as a way to extend use.

Lack of any reostat is another beef of mine.

LedLenser has a couple headlights that use a rheostat. That being said, I googled ledlenser so I could find the lights, and provide a link. The first hit was very interesting. If you click on the heading, it takes you to a german site. If you click on the cache link, it takes you to a different page describing what has happened to this person/dealer. Has anyone else heard of this or seen this? I wonder if this is true. I also wonder if this post should be in a separate thread

DN

 

[LED_Thrift]

Zebra looks like a neat light. However, several concerns whereas I need extreme detail at 4 to 12 foot range (30 to 45 lumens with a good focuser, 3 inch diameter at 4 foot, works fine). The q4 and q5 appears to have no optics for focus, I don't like the settings of 90 lumens/2 hours or 15 lumens. If they make a 2 AA at 40 lumens with focusing lens to get 8 hours or more, I would buy. ..

The Zebra has three levels so the medium would probably have the output/runtime you need for anything in the 4' to 12' range. The way the Zebra floods an area with light makes it appear brighter than the lumen numbers indicate compared to other lights. The Q5 emitter is one of the most efficient on the market today.

 

[GaryF]

If they make a 2 AA at 40 lumens with focusing lens to get 8 hours or more, I would buy.

While that should be obtainable with current technology, it's only the advent of the higher efficiency LED's that hit the market about a year ago that really makes it possible, and just barely at that. In handheld lights the Fenix L2D-CE is an example of an efficient 2AA design, and it gets roughly 65 lumens for 5 hours or 30 lumens for 12 hours in real world tests http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=155819 .
Headlamps are a much smaller market segment, and it will take longer before we see a great variety of choices in quality Cree, Seoul, or Rebel based lights.

Regarding front battery compartment vs rear..

Some advantages of front compartment:
-Simpler design, no external wires to break, less points of failure
-One compartment = less chances for water intrusion
-Smaller and lighter design is possible.
-No uncomfortable battery pack when lying on back and reading.

Advantages of rear battery pack:
-Better balance on head

I've got a preference for single AA lights that have the battery compartment on the front. This is the simplest, most reliable design, and a 1aa light doesn't weigh enough for weight distribution to be an issue. Runtime is less on a single cell, but it's easy to carry a spare battery.

For headlamps that use 2 or more AA cells, I'd rather have a rear battery compartment for balance.

 

[degarb]

...I have a preference for 1 AA..

For headlamps that use 2 or more AA cells, I'd rather have a rear battery compartment for balance.

(I reply a plea to defend the only real usefulness of led lamps: this is their real battery life, where 1 AA should last at least 4 hours at about 40 lumens. )

I see 1 AA as ideal for: college students needing to get to class in dark; joggers; an emergency light; and good marketing for timid new users, before they become hard core addicts, finding it useful for hours a day at many activities previously done at suboptimal lighting or not done at all.


For me, I might use mine 11 hours a day on some jobs and need 6 extra lamps for helpers. But even use mine 3 to 4 hours a day for personal tasks when not working a job. Swaping ever 1.75 hours doesn't appeal to me, when 3x 2650 nimh AA works fine for 11 hours already, and just as comfortable--really don't feel at all.


I owned several 1 luxeon modified with pack of AA in rear, and several Garrities where they are designed with this. Never broke one yet.

As a marketing perpective, I found that respirator masks are like headlamp, where the larger units are more comfortable yet shunned by stupid users. I can't get my helpers to wear an airsupplied hood, which is cool on a 93 degree day. Hood being cooler than fullface mask, which is cooler than a half mask which is way cooler than a dust mask. However, a dumber, less informed person would rate them opposite. I can rarely get any of my helper to wear more than a super hot dust mask in a dusty environment. I wear the hood, and can work 10 hours in the sunshine on a 100 degree day without removing it. But the helpers last about 10 minutes before breaks. But hells bells if I can get them into the larger, cooler, more comfortable resipators. It is a perception issue that seems to be impossible to over come. Advertising is all about perceptions and preconceived notions.

 

[Windscale]

I have found the Gentos (Nichia) 0.5 watt 1 AA headlamp fitting almost all my needs for a headlamp: Reasonably bright, good runtime, light, can run on eneloop and/or Nimh and no separate battery compartment.

 

[GaryF]

I owned several 1 luxeon modified with pack of AA in rear, and several Garrities where they are designed with this. Never broke one yet.

Count yourself lucky. I've had 3-4 fail over the years, including headlamps from Princeton Tec, Petzl, and a generic Chinese make. The wires only take so much flexing, being stuffed into packs, snagged by branches, etc. The wire on the Chinese one got crunched by a baggage handler.

Currently if I need a long runtime with some throw I go for my Seoul mod Black Diamond Zenix IQ and just use the lower levels most of the time, but I have great hopes for future ZebraLights with more focus or the Fenix headlamp that is supposed to be out in the first quarter.

 

[degarb]

My three Garrities (spring/summer of 2006), 1w 8led, have a telephone handset cord design, perhaps allowing more flex. Do the ones you have use a winded telephone handset style to battery pack?

While the modified Brinkmans (November 2005) that I made, have alligator clips --so simply re-clipping fixes any failure. Brinkman, I just soldered two small holes, one on each side of base of neck, through the plastic. Then I screwed conductive brass wood screws to touch the negative and positive band that run into light head, hot-gluing the screws into permanence. Then alligator clip to a 3 AA pack affixed toward read of center strap ( I used hot glue, which seems to work fine.) Naturally, a telephone handset winded alligator clip would allow most abuse. A plastic cover would be needed in damp areas, or redesign with permanent wires.

 

[GaryF]

My three Garrities (spring/summer of 2006), 1w 8led, have a telephone handset cord design, perhaps allowing more flex. Do the ones you have use a winded telephone handset style to battery pack?

Believe it not I have a collection of about 18 headlamps , including 12-13 different models. None of those have a coiled cord. Maybe half are battery and headlamp in one unit, and half have straight cords. I have replaced the cord on a couple of them with a longer cord that lets me keep the battery pack in an inside pocket in cold weather, as I used to do a lot of winter / snowshoe camping. The ones that failed had unmodified straight / round cords.


Before we argue preferences, it's worth noting that we probably have different needs. One reason I have so many headlamps is that I tend to pick them based upon their suitability for different activities. Then I upgrade when something that better suits a specific activity comes along.

[FONT=&quot]If you haven't seen it already, we had a recent thread where folks described their ideal headlamp http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=178502 . Lots of interesting ideas in there – but you see pretty quickly the diversity of needs and preferences. I could be very happy with something like a Fenix L1D-CE made into a headlamp with a flip down diffuser. It could do 60 lumens for 2 hours, 30 lumens for 5-7 hours, and 8 lumens for 24 hours, all on a single AA NiMH or L91 Lithium battery. That's MY ideal headlamp, but I don't expect it to be everyone's ideal headlamp.
[/FONT]

 

[hopkins]

My Petzl MYO XP power cord broke at the headlamp due to me endlessly
tilting the lamp up and down. Like some click a ballpoint pen over and over...
Anyway here's a pic on the repair.
I made it ugly to make a point to myself. Carry a 2nd light!

Say you're in the backcountry and the radio says storm so you pack-up at
midnight and ski out to the car and drive home, rather than waiting for the blizzard to hit. Just think how screwed you'd be if at the first rest stop you
drop your pack to get water and a snack and tilt the lamp and ZAP, its out
for good.
I think we CPF's all have one universal fear: the DARK!

http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff319/12eric/?action=view&current=PetzlMYOXPrepair.jpg

 

[GaryF]

I think we CPF's all have one universal fear: the DARK!

I had a wake up call on a trip to Nepal many years back when I got involved in an overnight evacuation of a sick trekker. Flashlight wise I was prepared for what I had expected on the trip, but was not prepared for an all night event, and of course nobody in their group had a working light after the first 2 hours. Things turned out ok, but I was happy to see the sun rise and I vowed to never get into a situation with such a low margin for error again. Nowdays it's pretty easy to carry a backup light and enough battery reserve for several overnights.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

Rear strap battery compartments look deceivingly cumbersome, while they are not.

You obviously haven't worked on your back under a car. After doing that a couple times I vowed to never buy a headlamp with a battery compartment in the rear. They are awkward and needlessly complex.

 

[LED_Thrift]

You obviously haven't worked on your back under a car. After doing that a couple times I vowed to never buy a headlamp with a battery compartment in the rear. They are awkward and needlessly complex.

On the other head, I've worked under my car parked on gravel and was glad to be able to put my head back on the relatively more comfortable battery pack of my PT Yukon HL. Plus it propped my head up a bit, but yeah it is less comfortable when reading in bed and in other places sometimes.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

On the other head, I've worked under my car parked on gravel and was glad to be able to put my head back on the relatively more comfortable battery pack of my PT Yukon HL. Plus it propped my head up a bit, but yeah it is less comfortable when reading in bed and in other places sometimes.

Try it on concrete in your garage sometime. I guarantee it will drive you crazy

 

[LED_Thrift]

Try it on concrete in your garage sometime. I guarantee it will drive you crazy

...too late - already crazy