CAVING: Lucky I had an Arc around my neck

I was caving in lovely Tasmania, Australia, crawling through dirt with pretties above and beside me I didn't want to break. And of course- My head lamp went out! The thing was, we had left our packs further back in the cave: this containing my secondary light source...a pi**y petzl. (As they are known- no real harm intended)
Also, the rest of my fellow cavers had headed back which left me of course in a situation. Ah ha. I knew the Arc LE around my neck would someday come in handy! So with Arc in my mouth and a dead miners light at my side I made my way back to my pack. This was actually through a rock pile which is half submerged in water. Mmm. May I say the Arc LE is a great light to cave by! That is...if it doesn't fail on you. Which is of course what mine attempted to do. So I was standing in water trying to squeeze through a tight spot when darkness surrounds me again. Hmm. Thought I had only just changed the batteries, and even so, it should've switched to moon mode.? It only lasted for a few seconds till I switched it off and on again. I have used it since and it seems it wasn't the battery. I suppose it was a little lesson one should learn. You can never have too many lights on you at once. I for one will be taking two lights as on-person backup for caving from now on!

Nice Story!

I bet caving would be a GREAT place to show off an ARC.

The less ambient light available, the better the ARC does at showing off, and I would think a cave is pretty close to as little light as one can find!

Melmso -

Take the foam battery retainer off the head and give that little guy a roll crimp! If it goes out like that, but works a bit later, the culprit is usually a poor ground path to the head.

Also, FYI, the AAA really has no "mode" of moon. It just begins to dim a bit faster. Almost impossible to discern the Moon section of the discharge curve.

Put an LED bulb in that Petzl, if it is a Zoom or Zora (4.5 or 6 volt) Tektite has the 3 LED for the plain Zoom and LEDcorp has 1 and 2 LED for both the 4.5 and 6 volt Petzls (E10 aka candelabra base). Don't know if anyone else has them. I have a single LED from LEDcorp in my Zoom and am happy with it: perfect focus and smooth flood. These are white LEDs.

melmso,

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-YC