Recommend me a good 18650 headtorch for caving

Hello everybody, had some good advice on what main light to buy from forum members and went for Acebeam X45 Gen 2 it’s amazing for lighting massive caverns for photography, my headtorch is a cheap Chinese dual 18650 with unknown LEDs, I need a more robustb lamp with either single 18650 or dual 18650 capacity so

Parameters :

Single or dual 18650

Waterproof (not for diving)

Impact resistant or just robust

My own choices are:

Acebeam H10, H15 or H30

Olight H2R

Anybody recommend me a nice lamp my budget is up to 150 pounds, must have a runtime of At least 8 hours on a decent setting, I don’t need much lumens but would like 300-600 or so for 4 hours At least or anything close

Any recommendations would be great

Thanks everybody

Edit: preferably all aluminium or alloy and internally chargeable helpful for a car journey to a caving system

The Armytek Wizard Pro Warm would be an excellent choice for you, as a Zebralight H600 mkIV HI.

You are going to receive many responses but the best cost point in my view would be the skillhunt h03 series. I have three of them and have used an h03 for the last two years on a daily basis with no issue.There may not be any wrong answers just what you like the best. I have both zebralight and armytech.

I’d buy three or four H03s; they’re reliable, scarcely larger than the battery they contain, and very lightweight.
If one runs low, just pop another one into the headband and you have perfect redundancy without fumbling a battery swap - and you can probably buy four for the price of one ‘big name’ light that’s no more functional.
I’m not a caver, but I currently have one in each vehicle and I wouldn’t leave home without them.

Caving and diving is almost the same. If you diving to 30m you can buy any sports snorkeling flashlight.
If you are serious than need buy dive specific (big name) light.
Diver explorer vs underwater visitor :slight_smile:

> for photography

Is High CRI not important for cave photos?

can you share a pic?:slight_smile:

Been using the H2r for a few weeks and very impressed. I tend to use the medium 140 ish lumen the most. Double tap for turbo and super bright flood if needed. The head band is decent, good quality and importantly easy to remove/attach the light mounted. Magnetic tail is strong………….well unless a colleague decides to elbow it off a conveyor 15-20ft up! Dropped onto concrete floor, scrape/small dent on tail cap and scrape on head…………….not even a flicker!

I dont like the live tail cap(measured 4.2v with MM) so the supplied olight battery has been re-wrapped to cover the negative up top. I use a samung 30Q and 25R button top in rotation. One used, swapped out and charged etc etc. No live tail cap, easy lock out/in with little turn of tail cap for added protection when required.

Beam wise of course flood, would put the temp around 4000/4500k with a hint of rosy warm tint. Very nice and easy on the eye without tainting lighter colours. Also the xhp50 sups mah quite frugally, dont think i have seen a cell bellow 3.8v after a days on/off use. Most of the time its 3.9-4v at medium level use. Clip is removed for now, this is pretty decent as well. Can be used on the headband with clip, just not as nice fit/hold without it.

My experience is pretty limited with headlamps though, zebra are tempting as well. Must admit though(and i dont quite like it either), my flashlight use in work has dropped significantly. To a point i have to go out of my way and use one, more for the sake of it than needing. The H2r has just made working with light so easy and user friendly, holding a flashlight or balancing it on machinery is pointless now. Other negative would be weight , not heavy but you can tell its on your head! Also it gets a few cracks because if this, maybe partly down to me being a clumsy a55 .

These clips have been super useful, hold everything in place on a hard hat

Good luck on your hunt :slight_smile:

For serious cave ZL is good choice. It has no bild in chargers no magnets and other useless (in cave) things. If you go in caves not just for fun and for example want to make map the magnet create problems.
Unreliable headband like Armytek and H2R may cause that you see last time your headlamp falling after hitting the helmet on the rock.
Light weight , small size, economic modes also are big advantage.

For serious caving need use cave specific lights.
ZL is excelent sports headlamp.

I also vote for Skilhunt H03 in neutral white. Floody, lightweight, good reliable headband, no charger ports or other possible faulty parts. Had it with me on a caving excursion and it worked perfectly. Unsurprisingly, it was also the brightest lamp in the group, other visitors had “sport store” type of Petzl plastic headlamps borrowed by the caving guide. These looked like candles when compared to a “real” headlamp. For the price with coupon you can hardly find a better deal.

Can’t seem to find a skillhunt anywhere in UK, I can find Olight H2R though and AceBeam headlamps can’t find a big supplier of headlamps in UK

Although Petzl is a caving equipment company I personally don’t like their lights some Petzl lights are still using halogen so that says it all…

Stay away from Armytek lights.

I recently purchased 5 lights on discount and 3 lights fail out of 5. That’s 60% failure rate which unbelievable.

They do provide 10 years warranty but you pay the shipping fee which is load of crap also the hassles sending back.

I vote for Zebralight but it is alittle more expensive however they are reliable and their specs is accurate.

Any interest on AceBeams new headlamps as I have their x45 v2 and the build quality is Very good

Not what you are asking for, but for a caving light, a Petzl Duo, fitted with a Home module would be great.

I don’t go caving, but for sea-fishing at night it’s great. You won’t find anything else remotely as robust.

Buy a skill hunt for two reasons .. they are great .../have a UI that works as well as a zebralight ..1/3rd the price and ..4 years from now you can tear it down and pop in the latest and greatest emitter . All the expensive lights will soon become Petzl turds that used to be great lights .. Petzl can't buy a shovel worth burying itself with . I love lights and dropped an interesting headlamp on my brothers desk for him to try out and was excited to play with his old petzl ..... i 'm not sure I even made it out of the room . i went back and dropped it back on his desk ... eehhh

How bout Fenix? They have duel LED. One LED for throw and 2 LED flood for close up work. Best of both worlds.

Fenix HL55

Insider information : cavers in deepest cave in the world work with ZL and very like it. So it is good for serious caving.