Has the "off center" Zebralight ever been noticeable?

I've been doing some experimenting with night rollerblading via Quark Mini 123 literally duct taped to a hat.

What I've noticed for this application is that CENTERING the light is very important. Having the beam off center one bit gets really annoying when you're trying to skate...

I've been wanting to get a Zebralight but now I'm wondering if the natively off center positioning is really noticeable?

If so, how badly? Could it be easily corrected?

I have an SC50w+ and after reading your post, I checked it to see how well centered the emitter is. It is off center by a very small amount, so much so that I hadn't noticed it before.

But with respect to your question, I never even considered checking it to see how well centered it was until I saw your post.

So short answer; no, unless it's really bad, it shouldn't be noticeable.

If it is, you'll have to send it back and ask for a new unit; ZL lights are fully and completely potted, so I don't think there is any way of modding them without ruining the light.

B0wz3r said:

I have an SC50w+ and after reading your post, I checked it to see how well centered the emitter is. It is off center by a very small amount, so much so that I hadn't noticed it before.

But with respect to your question, I never even considered checking it to see how well centered it was until I saw your post.

So short answer; no, unless it's really bad, it shouldn't be noticeable.

If it is, you'll have to send it back and ask for a new unit; ZL lights are fully and completely potted, so I don't think there is any way of modding them without ruining the light.

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I think the OP is referring to the headlamp series when mounted on the forehead and not the centering of the LED in the head.

FWIW, I've only had my H31 for a day but it seems centered to me. You can also position the lamp so that the head is on the centre line but I've just tried it and I don't notice any difference.

I had a sc50w. and i remember easily noticing the LED was not centered in the reflector. but the beam was flawless, even on white walls, so no complaints. I think the heavy OP reflector smoothed it all out.

Assuming you are not referring to the alignment of the led within any reflector present (as many Zebralights have no reflector and are 100% flood), but simply to the direction of the light output from the torch, obviously the more directional the beam, the more critical its alignment relative to your head is when used as a headlamp.

But consider the off centre position of the zebralight. if it is pointing perfectly forward, but is two or three centimetres over to one side, will you really notice that two or three centimetres on the ground? I doubt it.

With a 100% flood headlamp it can be quite badly aligned with no noticeable effect, with a directed beam, the tighter the beam the more important the alignment, but being off to one side (as in the example of a Fenix headband and LD10 where the torch is actually on the side of your head not at the front) is not a problem as long as you have it pointing forward and down at the correct angle for your task.

Do some people have better vision on one eye versus the other?
So, depending on what you are doing, bias the light either toward or away your good eye.

I would imagine for up close tasks, bias toward.

I've used my H30 a ton and have never noticed the off-center beam. I'm sure it is simply because the LED is off to one side.

I just came in the house after using it in very close quarters (closer than arms length) and didn't notice it one bit.

Summary: Zebralights rock.

I thought about the reflector being a little off-center (relative to my forehead) before I got my H51, but in use I immediately forgot about it, i.e. it's not noticeable...

Yes I was talking about the design of the Zebralight, not an off center LED.

In our night rollerblading experimentation we found out rather quickly that a light mounted to the side of the head is quite inferior to center mount.

This is why the question arose in my mind about Zebralights.

Obviously the design wouldn't create nearly the problem as a light on the side of the head, but I was curious to see if it had caused any issues for anyone - which I did rather doubt.

Dude Dudeson said:

Yes I was talking about the design of the Zebralight, not an off center LED.

In our night rollerblading experimentation we found out rather quickly that a light mounted to the side of the head is quite inferior to center mount.

This is why the question arose in my mind about Zebralights.

Obviously the design wouldn't create nearly the problem as a light on the side of the head, but I was curious to see if it had caused any issues for anyone - which I did rather doubt.

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Sorry, I misunderstood you.

I'm surprised you'd find a side mounted light inferior to a center mounted light. I find when I use one of my flashlights on the side of my bike helmet while cycling, the slight offset to the side actually aids my depth perception rather than hindering it. Indeed, I find I get more tunnel vision, not less, when center mounting a helmet light.

Have you considered using another light attached to the opposite side ? You will get the balance that you need, as long as it's the same light as the first, with the added advantage of twice the outout. Just a suggestion.

B0wz3r said:

Sorry, I misunderstood you.

I'm surprised you'd find a side mounted light inferior to a center mounted light. I find when I use one of my flashlights on the side of my bike helmet while cycling, the slight offset to the side actually aids my depth perception rather than hindering it. Indeed, I find I get more tunnel vision, not less, when center mounting a helmet light.

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With night rollerblading into driveways and porches it's different.

You want to be able to see anything and everything that is directly ahead of either you or your possible new path.

Having a light on the side of your head both:

1. Cuts the output down because it's lighting up a portion of your head

2. Makes you have to compensate your aim for left and right - which under most circumstances wouldn't be too big of a deal, but when night skating the last thing you need your brain saddled with is having to make compensations.

You want to be able to look, and see, instantly.

Furthermore, we've discovered that a light mounted to a hat bill is much better for scanning possible paths. The Zebralights could be mounted this way.

With any form of head mount (we've now tested this with some cheapo dedicated headlamps too) you have to twist your head more to see.

Depth perception isn't a concern - there was some talk about shadowing (or rather lack of) via head mount in another thread I posted.

It turned out this was completely irrelevant for this application. At least for us anyway - we all have decades of skating experience, so we apparently know how to identify hazards via center mount head lighting and shadowing isn't necessary...

It's far more important for us to have a beam centered exactly where we look...

We actually NEED "tunnel vision" - but with the ability to sweep it around as needed...