But the dog chewed them. Not sorry to see them go, they were never that great. The best one I've come across is the Zebralight H50 (AA) but it is not a budget light. I think it cost me $59. Since I got it I've never even looked at another headlight. KD has Ultrafire more or less clones of these which might be worth a look, here's a note about them with links.
Here's a short review of the Ultrafire though I don't fancy something with an 18650 in it on my head, just too big.
My Zebralight ran for about a week of night-time use on an AA NiMH - and that was in a place with no electricity.
For the sort of things I use a headlamp for it'd probably be too bright. Since it's probably direct drive there should be no problem using a single lithium cell in it - or modding it for a belt mounted battery pack of rather better capacity than 3xAAA.
If you don't need much light they even have a $3 headlamp which I'm tempted to stick into the next order. Can't beat the price though it is quite possible a match could beat the brightness...
that might be worth a try i have 3 dogs and tying to hold a hand torch and them on there leads is not always easy so have found my little headlights good in this situation but not powerful enough a headlight with hand torch performance is what i am looking for at not to much money i will put this one on my list of light to consider
All makes sense now - I'd not really thought of the hands free aspect of headlamps rather than the close-up aspect.
Some of the indestructible cavers ones are very bright - but they are also a very long way from cheap - I think the Stenlight is over $200. It's bad enough keeping track of the two dogs I'm looking after just now - one small and white, one huge and black - I hate to think of the "fun" it could be with 3. The Ultrafire ZL clones claim to be a lot brighter (230 lumens) than the ZL but only appear to be available from KD. Funnily enough the cheapest of the three of them is the 18650 model. CR123 model. http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10235. 14500 model. http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10241. 18650 model. http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10294. They are also all flood where you might want some throw - especially if the dogs are off their leads.
I'd think along the lines of a 2" chunk of 20mm copper pipe hammered flat for a heatsink with a P7 or MC-E emitter thermal epoxied to it. Attach this to a headband or cheapo headlamp - the $3 one might come in handy for the headband. A reflector - doesn't even need to be perfectly suited to the job and direct drive it from an 18650/3xAAA/3xAA or whatever in your pocket. Very little to go wrong, can be weatherproofed with silicone sealant and a sheet of something transparent stuck to the front of the reflector. A P7 can be had for $14, a reflector for $5. I assume batteries and wire and the ability to solder.
Let us know how you get on with your final choice.
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Just want to give a word of warning about that Dx sku 20763: I thought it looked ok, and should have decent heat dissapation for the led + it had a Q5 (supposedly), so I bought it a while back.
But the only good thing about it is the headstrap system (which I might use as basis for a homemade headlight soon...).
The actual light is useless as is. Don't understand the good ratings it has on DX, unless it is from people with very low expectations.
Problem is that the LED star has no contact to cooling surface at all! - it is just floating on 3 plastic pins, and will overheat in a very short time. Terrible design - see pics:
On the bright side, the led does seems pretty bright, and is not to blue, so perhaps I can use it to upgrade some other light.
Overall verdict is a one star rating - perhaps two if you can use the led. Light is waaay overpriced though - should be $5.
It is a copy of Led Lenser H7, and a pretty good one, but it is a copy for sure - they are not made in the same place. I had the real H7 also (which my dad uses now), and have compared them carefully. There are small but unmistakeable differences in the shape and look of details.
But it works well, and the adjustable beam (zoom) function is pretty good. I have since upgraded the led to an XP-G R5, which was pretty tricky, but it worked out well in the end - much brighter now!
Only real flaw is the basic one, that most headlamps suffer from: It runs on triple AAA cells, which (as you all know) only holds the juice of one AA, but takes up much more room. So I am thinking of modding it to run on a single 18650 instead - which would also triple the runtime :)
Yes that doesn't look to bad that "Zooming Cree Q5 3-Mode LED Headlamp (1x14500)". If only it ran on nimh AA also - and the lens was a bit shorter, so there wasn't so much weight sticking out. Will it stay in place you think?