I am looking for a good LED Headlamp

I am looking for a good led headlamp to use for night hikes and other nightime outdoor activities. I have looked at the Streamlight Septor and the Petzl Zipka. Does anybody have any reccomendations or better choices? I want something that is pretty bright and good on batteries and is still comfortable to use.

I have the Streamlight Septor and really like it. You can toggle among one, three, and seven LED's depending upon your lighting needs.

The strap fits comfortably, and the assembly pivots to direct light where it's needed.

The price is good too. I bought mine from Bright Guy, and I have always gotten good service from them.

I have the PT Aurora 3 X 5mm LED headlamp, and like it alot. Three brightness levels, and two blinking settings. It is nice and bright (close up) but being LED based lacks throw; compact; not very heavy and appears pretty solid.

I have a Petzl Tikka which is more comfortable as a headlamp. Very light easy to adjust angle, just move it up and down on your forehead. Zipka is a clever idea but not very comfortable to wear on head in my opinion. However for hiking you might want somthing a little more powerful.

I also like the Petzl Tikka. But my friend swears by the Black Diamond Moonlight. It might be better for your purposes with 4 LEDs and a swivel head. Powered by 3 AAAs it is still very light and perhaps better weight distribution with the batteries carried on the back.

I just bought a Responder 4AA headlamp from Brightguy. It wears well and isn't as heavy as I thought having 4 batteries on the front. While it wasn't an led headlamp when I bought it, it is now. This is now my favorite headlamp.
http://woodbender.freeservers.com/photo2.html

I like the Princeton Tec headlamps(aurora and matrix) for off the shelf lights.

I would recommend the Photon Fusion. See the following thread for a previous discussion of your question and my response:

Link

Battery compartment on the rear is much more comfortable.

However, the Lightwave Illuminator is a good one, even though the batts are in the front. It uses 3 AAs and can use Lithium AAs. It has 4 white Nichia LEDs, with an easy twist on/off.

If you have a Petzl Zoom series, you can get 3 white LED bulbs from C. Crane www.ccrane.com and they have them for 4.5 and 6 volt Petzls.

If you have a 3 volt (2AA for instance) incandescant, that is PR based for the bulb, you can get the Versalux PR-2 from www.techass.com (alkys only for this bulb).

So, there are alot of options available.

I have a Zoom Adapter and Zoom Mega Belt with LED bulbs installed (these are custom 9200 MCD single LED bulbs), PT Solo w/Matrix Module (regulated, but not really bright), Coleman Peak 1 Expedition Headlamp (2D) with a Versalux PR-2 (really bright), and an Illuminator, which is the only 'made as' and LED headlamp I've got.

What you get, depends on your backpacking philosophy, time, and expedition type.

Any one tried one of these www.tadgear.com/x-treme%20gear/flashlights%20main/petzl_duo_led.htm in standard or 8 led trim?

I don't suppose anybody makes a *regulated* one yet do they? All the LED bike products on the market have the same limitation, I'm afraid.

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Darell said:
I don't suppose anybody makes a *regulated* one yet do they? All the LED bike products on the market have the same limitation, I'm afraid.

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If they were regulated, they couldn't claim their "over 150 hours" runtime.

Gotta love marketing.

There're quite a few of regulated LED headlamp in the market such as Petzl (8 LED), foresight (24/48 LED), Lupine (26 LED) and HDS (24 LED).

Alan

What kind of price range are you looking for? The least expensive regulated headlamp I have found is the 6 white/1 red LED Photon Fusion for about $45 on ebay. It also has the advantage of using any type of AA batteries (making NiMH a possibility for cost or lithium for weight)and has variable brightness settings so you can trade off brightness with runtime. Can also be modified to be used as a flashlight or table lamp. You can see it here:

http://www.photonlight.com/fusion/

Yes the hundreds of hours of battery life claim is confusing. But it's an important advantage of LED flashlights that they don't die on you, like incandescent and regulated lights do. When using regulated lights, you may want to carry extra batteries, lest you find yourself left in the dark.

Except in rare cases, I'd rather have a fully-regulated light (especially if I can adjust the brightness) than a constantly-dimming unregulated one.

Any flashlight can die for any reason, not just batteries. Plus, many fully-regulated lights have a moon-mode, like the Arc AAA, SF KL1, and others, I'm sure. The change from sun to moon is a nice indicator that the battery is dying, and should be changed soon. Most of the sun/moon mode lights have several hours of runtime in moon mode.

I am looking to spend somewhere around $50. I have looked at the photon fusion that you recommended and think that it looks like a great light, just haven't been able to find one under $80. I have also decided that I might try the luxeon star mod on the rayovac headlamp that you get at wal mart. I found the info on it in the mod forums, and it looks pretty cheap and easy. It would be really nice to get a regulated light though.

Arc AAA is not fully-regulated. It will just fade in time, i.e. if you start with a new battery you get less light after 1 hour, then even less after 2 hours, and so on. I don't have the exact numbers, but I guess you have after 5-6 hrs. about half the original brightness (depends on the battery brand). And at some point you decide to change the battery . And it has no real "moon mode" (well, it has, but is the same thing as "depleted battery").

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Blikbok said:
Except in rare cases, I'd rather have a fully-regulated light (especially if I can adjust the brightness) than a constantly-dimming unregulated one.

Any flashlight can die for any reason, not just batteries. Plus, many fully-regulated lights have a moon-mode, like the Arc AAA, SF KL1, and others, I'm sure. The change from sun to moon is a nice indicator that the battery is dying, and should be changed soon. Most of the sun/moon mode lights have several hours of runtime in moon mode.

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tgardiner said:
I am looking to spend somewhere around $50. I have looked at the photon fusion that you recommended and think that it looks like a great light, just haven't been able to find one under $80. I have also decided that I might try the luxeon star mod on the rayovac headlamp that you get at wal mart. I found the info on it in the mod forums, and it looks pretty cheap and easy. It would be really nice to get a regulated light though.

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If you like the Fusion and have a $50 budget you are in luck, as they are still available on Ebay as I write this for $45. See:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2319270352&category=20760

I'm a fan of the Streamlight Trident. Having the option of the incandescent lamp for more intense light can be extremely helpful at times. If you don't want incandescent at all the Streamlight Septor is a good option.

Brightguy has spare battery cartridges you can load up and carry with you if you need a quick change. The cartridges work in either headlamp. They fit well in T-8½ perscription pill bottles from Eckerd. This protects them from moisture and keeps them from shorting (they have exposed contacts.)

I'm just finishing up a headlamp review for a Princeton Tec Aurora. This is also a nice headlamp with dimming capability.

I want to pick a fight with Blikbok. Just kidding.

Any flashlight can die at any time, but it seems to me the traditional cheap lights usually died because of weak batteries, a broken or burned out bulb, or a flaky switch, or dirty contacts.

I really like the reliability of my unregulated LED lights with twist on heads, because they seem to eliminate most of the problems I've had in the past with flashlights.

I guess the moral of the story is there are as many flashlight preferences as there are members of CPF. And hundreds of flashlight makers to please most of us.