Headlamp for employees

My company buys crap Energizer headlamps from Lowe’s. Our guys come up every day to get three AAA batteries. They really need six every night. I was trying to find a headlamp with the following:

USB rechargeable, under $30, 100+ lumens, reliable, run time of 8 hours

So far, I have found the Nitecore NU10, but that is about it.

Any suggestions will be appreciated. Even if they don’t meet the above criteria. The only thing I don’t want to mess with is 18650’s for a number of reasons.

What if it’s 18650 but USB rechargeable so you don’t have to take the cell out?

That’d work

That was my thought as well, especially with the many headlight deals for under $10. That leaves plenty of room to buy quality protected cells. I got a couple of Boruit headlamps and they are bright, adjustable and USB rechargeable for only $6.50. To get 100+ real lumens for 8 hours would take a lot of alkaline power.

KuoH

Would that be the RJ-02? I just saw a really good review on here for that.

Yes, also check out this similar model from boruit. Boruit Headlamp Review D10 (aka. EHL0628) - King of the Budget Headlamps?

Yup, it’s $10 right now, but I’m sure one of the GB deal threads will have a coupon again to knock that down a few bucks. You can buy one to test, then if your company needs bulk quantities, try and make your own deal with them.

https://www.gearbest.com/headlights/pp_251155.html

KuoH

Probably one of mine. :smiley: Think I should start getting commissions from Boruit…

I got like 6 of ’em. Figured for so cheap, they’d be “disposable”, but the one I’ve been beating on forever is still chugging along just fine.

I usually keep mine at minimum or as close to minimum as I can set it, and that’s usually plenty. But you can crank it up to about 300lm fairly reliably, and it should got at least 3hrs (about 1A draw, assuming a fully charged 3400mAH cell). That’s full tilt. Knock it down a few notches, and it should last all day on one charge.

I’m using ancient laptop pulls (2 dead of 6 cells in the pack, ie, really beat-to-Hell), and it lasts a long time between charges.

Anyhoo, you never have to open it up if you usb-charge it. Glows red when charging, green when done. Doesn’t overcharge at all from what I can tell, so no danger of cooking the cell.

Plus, if the stock TIR is a little too throwy, and you want a wider angle, you can grab 60° TIRs from Amazon (5pak or 10pak) and have something nice and floody, one for each person you’re getting them for. Unscrew that cap, pop out the old lens, pop in the new one, rescrew the cap. Done.

And you can go from 5° narrow angle super-throwy to 90° or even 120° TIRs for super-wide flood, ’though in my experience too wide of an angle (90, 120) can get a little ringy. (“halo” around the wide beam). 60° is perfect for me.

I’ve used a plenty of months, days and hours the skilhunt h03 and it never failed. With a coupon you can order under U$30 :laughing:

I think for corporate use you should invest in mid cost light with a good robustness to impact and “mistreat” of the users, I found that h03 very good :+1:

One thing to keep in mind is ‘T’ shaped vs ‘L’ shaped lights. An ‘L’ shaped light would just… grate. The asymmetry, shadows on one side, etc., would drive me buggy after a while.

Maybe get one of each, let those who’d be driven buggy by a side-light choose a center-light, or at least experience the difference first before “committing”.

Boruit is a Nitecore clone, but seems more like Nitecore products just priced right. :innocent:

No surprises that the Skilhunt H-03 and the Boruit RJ-02 are the recommendations, they are probably the two most recommended headlamps on BLF.

I have both of them, and am very happy with them.

The Boruit is cheap ($7 or so with coupon) and rechargeable, has ramping and memory, is simple to use, and has a nifty on-off with a wave of your hand feature…
Drawbacks are it is heavier, has a rather clumsy smelly rubber headband, and the usb charge cover will be lost very quickly.

The Skilhunt is still within budget ($24 or so with coupon) and is surprisingly small, light and screams quality, comes with all the bells and whistles in the packaging. Output ranges from moonlight to far too bright for a headlamp, very even floody beam though, perfect for most tasks that do not require far throw.

Drawbacks are it has a rattle when bumped, no charging.

If you are looking at $30 per employee for daily use it’s a no brainer for me. Spread over a few employees you can get an H-03 each, a good batch of quality 18650’s ($4 each roughly) and a good quality analysing charger, Lii-500 is the starting point ($15-20 with coupon) or Zanflare C4. Once introduced to that, no employee will ever want cheap crap again and the savings in battery costs should cover the whole thing fairly quickly.

Thanks everybody. I recently received the Skilhunt H02. I love it. We have about 160 employees. I think it’ll be easier to convince purchasing to get the Boruit.

Have you looked at the Nitecore NU20?

I have. I think it is definitely an option.

You also might wanna take a look at this thread, as it is for another budget Boruit light (despite it is also sold under other names):

:+1:

Skilhunt H15 might be worth looking at, too. AA/14500 powered, under $30, nice strap. Unfortunately, it’s NOT USB rechargeable, but the flexibility of being able to use rechargeable batteries AND primary AA’s in a pinch make it pretty convenient.

Ok, for a test, I ordered 10 of these:

BORUiT EHL0628

and 10 of these:

LiitoKala HG2 300mAH

About $14 each, so cheaper than the Energizers we get currently.

This was one of the reasons that led me to the rechargeable batteries: cost and the amount of cells laying around to throw to trash.
I still use some, but I try to use mostly rechargeables.

Let us know how they feel about the lights when they get the headlights :wink:

I bought the Yupard 18650 headlights from Gearbest and a mix of flat top Li-Ions for my drivers. I have had one fail and it was about 50 days after I issued it so no warranty. The charger is an 8 bank xtar where I have them swap out batteries for ones charged. It comes to about $18 a headlight with batteries and the charging system divided up.
Of course I have to buy a few batteries here and there but not more than 12 a year,