Powerful Dual Beam Headlamps

Looking through the posts here, and across the worldwideweb for powerful dual beams, at least 300 lumens. not chinese knock offs. The list below are some I have found, feel free to add your .02 or point me to more info on them. Looking for true dual beam, some flip down diffusers would work but not ideal like the HP11, I have the SD52 which can switch but not at a moments notice. Let me know if Iv missed some options. Most of you will tell me to just bring a handheld thrower to match a floody headlamp, but my use is for wildland fire I just dont want to deal with it, I have too many things going on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Kfled H120- not much info on it, horrible runtimes
http://www.karbonabikes.com/kfled


Petzel Ultra Vario- new , not much info on it, uses its own battery pack, $$$
http://www.petzl.com/en/pro/headlamps/high-performance/ultra


5.11 SAR H6- very new, no info on it, or who's making it for 5.11




Fenix HP25- Not out yet, although only 170 lumens each side


Lupine Piko X
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00903GBVU/?tag=cpf0b6-20


Custom CPF headlamps- not sure of durability due to the nature of being custom.

Kavelight p60 - great setup but I dont really have need for 4-18650 used for caving
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?332747-Kavelight-P60-Headlamp

Spike V3
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?325352-Spike-Light-V3

Lupine Piko (various models) $expensive, durable

I think you could figure out a configuration with the Kavelight that only uses 1 or 2 batteries. I don't know of a really nice commercially made battery holder, though. You can always build your own with a stock plastic holder (digikey p/n BK-18650-PC4) and then waterproof it with something like plastidip. Then you need to figure out how to attach it to the headband.

Couple other possibilities (though possibly involving mods to make them into a wearable unit) here: http://reviews.mtbr.com/2013-bike-lights-shootout

The Stenlight is one of the best by far.

I think he wants a light with both flood and throw.

borrower said:

Lupine Piko (various models) $expensive, durable

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thanks I updated the list

Lurveleven said:

I think he wants a light with both flood and throw.

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you are correct, depending on the UI, I a can use film on one half.

El speleo, a really powerful caving headlamp with both flood and spot beams: http://elspeleo.com
You can get a headstrap for it, but battery is too heavy to have on the head so you have to have it in a pocket.

U forget Petzl NAO

Maybe it's worth distinguishing between lights which allow only flood or spot and ones which allow useful blending (like the Scurion series)

uk_caver said:

Maybe it's worth distinguishing between lights which allow only flood or spot and ones which allow useful blending (like the Scurion series)

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Good point, however for my use, it would be either not both. I stay away from true cave lights, because generally have high cap. battery packs= heavy, and get bolted on the helmet. For Wildland fire, I cannot alter the helmet in anyway to pass inspection.

Providing blends can help on the capacity front - the better a blend is suited to a particular function, the lower the overall power consumption can be while providing sufficient illumination.

For a lot of uses, including general walking around on the surface, a flood with a little added spot can be as useful as a much brighter flood.

Petzl Pixa 3 seems to fit a few of the criteria you posted.

The Pixa3 isn't exactly powerful.

There will be a new player in two-three months, but I cant speak about it because I developed it for a german company... But Ill let the flasaholics know before it is released. All I can say by now is that it is going to be quite innovative and different to the existing ones. It was really hard to achieve some of the engineering solutions.

Then I guess we should all be nice, and not ask you any questions.

Barbarin said:

There will be a new player in two-three months, but I cant speak about it because I developed it for a german company... But Ill let the flasaholics know before it is released. All I can say by now is that it is going to be quite innovative and different to the existing ones. It was really hard to achieve some of the engineering solutions.

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Big tease Iv been leaning toward the spike v3, unless Im impressed by the SAR h6 or Ultra vario

Yep, sorry guys... I just have been quite rude with the tease. I told the company I would not say anything....but on the other hand I just couldn't keep silent. Well, looking at the thread you have some keys about the light, for example that it is going to be a power dual beam headlamp. ... Then, if you followed my work during the last years, you will know that if it was made according to my philosophy, it has to be "world-proof" and world wide useable. And as a caver... Well, I was checking some of the threads here, and I must say that I was surprised with some of the people describing their ideal headlamps, as it seemed they were exactly thinking same way as me.
I will try to influence the german guys to send a few samples to people here before they start distribution.

... OK, here is some info: Big surprise on the batteries!

In fact Im kind of stupid talking here, specially when thinking on my last experience with a sneaky chinese, some not so chinese people, and my late designs on dive lights.

Don't let yourself get manoeuvred into saying more than you should just for our benefit.
We'll survive not knowing for a little while.

Not-so-subtly attempting a distraction, as far as ideas about twin-beam headlamps go, I think one of the key things is the nature of control. Leaving aside infinitely variable control (or some digital simulation of it), there seem to be 4 main types of control.

a) There's either/or control (no blended beams), possibly with multiple levels per beam.

b) There's independent control of the two LEDs (effectively two lights in one headset) allowing on-the-fly beam blending.

c) There's independent control of beam-blend and overall power.

d) There's what I'd call 'programmed control', where either the designer chooses some set of power level combinations for both LEDs which the user can switch between ('hard programmed'?) or where the user can change the settings ('soft programmed').
That covers anything from a Pixa3 (hard programmed, 3 settings) to a Scurion (soft-programmable via the switch, 10 settings).

I've used the first 3 arrangements in various caving light inserts I've made, as well as a few variations which are easy with inserts (like having jumper-selectable fixed blending ratios, or internal configuration switches/jumpers to give more flexibility) or adding the odd extra UI feature where it doesn't complicate the light.

Personally I'm not sure I'd get on with a programmed light, (at least, not with a hard-programmed one), since I've used a type b) independent-control one for 9 years now, and I'd likely get repeatedly annoyed by the settings someone else had decided I should use.
Having used a type c) light on and off for a while, I could certainly get used to that, though flipping backwards and forwards between b) and c) for both caving lights and headlamps can get confusing for the fingers when they've got so used to b) on a freely-rotating rotary switch (which some people find hard to learn).
If I hadn't got used to type b), I think I would have found type c) significantly better for my uses - much of the time I'm looking to increase or decrease power while keeping the same beam blend.

From experience, c) also seems easy to describe to other people, and for them to use even though it's new to them.

Totally agree with you, one of the keys for a succesfull dual beam type headlamp is a simple, intuitive, easy to use and fast control to select the modes.. And you must be able to to it with cold, wet, gloved, muddy hands... (well, single hand) Again something not seen before.

Personally I would choose the one that Im able to program, but this is just my personal case, as I would love to play with different levels and configurations to choose the right one, to know on each different environment and situation which one is the perfect lighting... But this is more for research or for very advanced users, and having this feature is just an extra source of complexity-lack of reliability for the average user.

Well, so, by now, I wont speak more about it. I do have a personal project for a one "non-sense" beast, kind of 30-50 Watt flood monster, after my experience with a 100 Watt LED on a cave I though I knew before I switched the beast. But that is a different topic.

BTW, a always, a pleasure to share with you.

Barbarin said:

Totally agree with you, one of the keys for a succesfull dual beam type headlamp is a simple, intuitive, easy to use and fast control to select the modes.. And you must be able to to it with cold, wet, gloved, muddy hands... (well, single hand) Again something not seen before.

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Well, not in a commercial surface headlamp.

Barbarin said:

BTW, a always, a pleasure to share with you.

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Same here.

For me, the disadvantage of user-programming (in a Scurion-type sense) is that the various selected modes are in a two-dimensional space, and there isn't any intuitive ordering when moving to a one-dimensional sequence.

Also, given that someone doesn't necessarily know where they are in a sequence of modes, it can take a few switch operations for them to find out. That seems like an accelerating issue with a larger number of choices - if I could select 4 or 5 modes it would be fairly quick to cycle through them all, and relatively easy to remember the mode sequence and locate myself in it. If I had 7 or 8 modes both those could be disproportionately more difficult.

Given a light with 4 levels per LED (plus off) an independent control (type b) would give 24 possible combinations, accessible via a fairly intuitive interface that was simple to remember. Some of the combinations would be of limited use (like a bright spot with a flood 2 or 3 levels lower), but many would have some use - I'd probably be likely to use something like half of them.
With a type c) control and 4 levels (plus off) and 4 well-chosen beam blends there'd be 16 output levels of which I'd probably use most - likely only avoiding the dimmer versions of pure spot, and maybe seeing little difference between some blends at the lower power levels.

Certainly, with any UI, someone doesn't necessarily know where they are, especially in power terms, but with type b) and c) lights, they do at least know the direction of change for the variables, rather than having a 2D set of power levels squeezed into a 1D sequence.

If anything, user programmable lights might better suit the user who only wants 3 or 4 settings than the advanced user who wants more - the advanced user could probably get more control and simpler operation by having good non-programmed control.