Upgrading BD Lunar HL HELP!(Incandescent guys can step in.)

[eebowler]

All right guys. A friend of mine has a Blackdiamond Lunar headlamp and complained to me about the 'really dim' beam recently. Upgrading to LED doesn't make sense since the cost for heatsink, driver, LED etc is just too much. (I'm not US based.)

The best bet would be to use rechargeables (3AA) with a 'high current' bulb but, that is where I'm stuck. The stock bulb seems to be one of these and I don't know which bulb would be best suited to replace this.

:thinking: Would something from streamlight fit? What about one of the 3.5V WA bulbs from litho's unpopular bulb group buy? Are there any other suggestions?
SL stinger/polystinger bulb?
Strion bulb?

Thanks a lot guys. :twothumbs

 

[TMorita]

BD already has multiple bulb options for the Lunar HL. Look at the options on that page.

Just use a "superbright" bulb instead of the regular bulb.

Toshi

 

[eebowler]

Arnt' those bulbs designed for use with alkanline cells?

 

[eebowler]

I asked BD about weather the bulbs are designed for alkaline or rechargeable cells and the response was "It is recommended that you use new batteries with the Lunar headlamp. Although it will run on rechargeables. which I assume means it runs on new alkaline cells...

 

[mdocod]

Even simply switching a basic xenon headlamp to rechargeable cells will improve the headlamp 3 fold in my opinion. Reason being that on a set of NIMH cells, the light will run with semi-steady output for the duration of the run, instead becoming dim early and giving hours of dim uselessness on alkaline cells.

Ok.... so we need bulbs to jam in there.. Here's my thoughts:
It appears to take some sort of bi-pin bulb, I'm not really sure about the spacing... but here's some ideas:

So.... I was going to suggest the Kaidomain 3.6V 2.1A bi-pin xenon bulb. A pack of 5 is only a few dollars... I know they used to sell em, but as far as I can tell, they have disappeared off the site. I know they used to carry them because I have a bag of them in front of me.

OK.. managed to find a link to them.... but I am betting that since they are not something you can "click on" in the flashlights/DIY section they are probably out of stock or something...

http://www.kaidomain.com/WEBUI/ProductDetail.aspx?TranID=3075

those should run at least 3x as bright as the stock bulb, and give about 1 hour of runtime on NIMH cells, (depending on which cells are used)