Speleo Nova 5 Watt LED head lamp

Has anyone heard of or tested the Speleco Nova? According to their website they have a 5 watt LED headlamp that has 5 light levels! I know that head lights look silly but they are useful and this one looks like it has it all...

http://www.speleo.co.uk/NOVA.htm

I've heard mixed reviews of this light.

I have some caver friends who have tried this light out and they haven't been happy with it. At least one sent it back.

For one thing, you can't actually turn it all the way off! Apparently they just turn the boost level down, so if you are using 4 AA batteries, it will put out light in the "off" position. It would probably be best to use it with NiMH batteries. I would think it would put out light with those too.

I've looked at their run time tables, and it seems like the converter (boost regulator) isn't that efficient.

Scott

Oh well thanks for that, excited for nothing again /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

I've wrote wuite a lot about it:

First, the company's name ist 'Speleo Technics', not 'Speleo' or 'Speleco' (just in case you look for it somewhere).

As Scott states, it has quite a high quiescent current (up to more than 5mA), empting you batteries/cells when connected. As it also has no thermal shutdown, it is very smart to disconnect the battery for transport (when switchend on accidently on a higher level and packed into your rucksack it will get too hot quite fast).
The 5 brightness levels are not spaced very well, the have a constant step instead of taking care about how your eye responds. The lowest level is still quite bright. To go to another brighness level you had just been in before, you have to cacle through all the other levels before, which is just a pain in the *** (absolutely everybody complained about that). When you switch it off and on, you find yourself in the next level of the 'circle', either a lower or a higher. The 'cycle' is: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-2 and so on. As the whole light is controlled by a micropocessor, it should be easy to change this (and evem the light levels), but we know it will not be done too early.
The reed switch uses a magnet, so it is completely unuseable for the person who reads the instruments (Thats why I do not use mine for serious caving).
Maximum inpunt is 5V, so you must NOT use 4 LiFe AA cells.
Best source, IMHO, is their 5.5Ah LiIon cell with one big drawback: The cell has built in protection, so it switches off when reaching the deep discharge treshold at 3V. The cell is still able to drive the light at full power then, that means, there is absolutely no warning, just darkness.

The light itself has no protection against overtemperature, reversed voltage and overvoltage.

The 'empty' battery pack takes one 4.5V battery or a holder with 3 or 4 AA cells. The holder has a diode built in to protect the light from reversed polarity. I have an rechargeable battery which replaces on of these 4.5V batteries and with it and at full power, the diode wasted almost 1V! So it is just a plain silicon diode, nothing better. When you use AA cells, be shure you have a good battery holder, not one of the cheap ones available everywhere, they cannot withstand 2A.

The good things: It is a typical Speleo Technics light, quite undestructable, waterproof (with the correct battery), small lightweighted, relyable. Available with headstraps or standard hook. Front lens/dome is interchangeable.
And it is full 5W when needed, a lot of light. Spareparts are easily available. And it is relatively inexpensive.

When you need more, just ask, I could look through my emails and post it here.

Thanks a lot for that. Looks like they have a way to go with it but a galant first effort.

Peter, thanks for the note regarding using 3AA vs 4AA batteries in the light.

I wonder why they did that... My 5W headlamp can use up to ~7.1V, at which point the regulator isn't doing much of anything. But, that means you could use a 6V gel-cell, or 4AA's, or 4 lithium AA's, or 2 lithium D's, etc. Why they would choose to have a cutoff of 5V is beyond me...

And, the diode protection scheme... That must waste a lot of power, which is what I heard.

Scott

Scott, 'they' is not the right word, as Keith more or less alone is the main brain behind it .-)
And as we know him, he will not change the things soon, he wants to have it more stable and not changing features too often. Which also led to very good products. Speleo Technics lights have earned their reputation for being really cave proof.
I regret also that there is no possibility for a software upgrade (like on an Arc4) and that you cannot just remove the magnet and put it into somewhere else (I realy would accept this inconvenience for the time we survey).

And I forgot another drawback: you cannot change the cable, the whole housing is just mold.

The best power source will be a homemmade Li-Ion power pack, taking one of the 4.5V battery boxes and putting 4 18650 cells into it (they fit, I use them with 18650 NiMH cells). If you get the best ones, you end up with 30Wh in a small box.
With NiXX cells you get some kind of a warning, as the light switches back to a lower level when the voltage goes down.
The original connectors are probably the most cave proof ones available, they have stainless steel pins.

The original LiIon cell is the SAFT MP176560 with 5.5/5.8Ah (depending on vintage).

I visited a British caving forum and the opinion of Speleo Technics lights wasn't quite as glowing as yours. They basically said really good ideas, not necessarily well implemented.

Scott

I just did not want to put it down. At least it is available and affordable. A big difference to other caving lights.
Actually my first reviews were more or less excoriate.