Hey everyone, thanks for taking the time to help me out in my search for a new headlamp (or a few )
I’ve been trying to look through reviews and see which thrower would be best for me to bring on my nighttime hikes, and best for spotting wildlife among the trees, and off the trail.
So far, I’m really liking the Acebeam H30, but the Thrunite TH10 V2 seems comparable at nearly half the price.
I’m looking for consistent power, runtime, and an integrated charger (preferably micro usb).
My budget is around $150.
What do you think? Are there any others that may be better than the 2 above I am missing?
There aren’t a lot of real throwy headlamps, because what makes it throwy is typically reflector size and it doesn’t fit so well on your head. I like to have a headlamp (balanced flood vs throw) and also carry a handheld thrower. Not sure if that is even an option for you, but throwy flashlights are much more common than headlamps.
That Acebeam H30 has a candela of only ~10,000, where a small(ish) thrower like the GT Mini is ~130,000.
My other thought is you could go with an aspheric option. I know Led Lenser isn’t always held so highly around here, but something similar to a H14R.2 might be more like what you’re looking for.
My throwiest headlamp is a Nicron H30 (22kcd stock) and that’s with an XML. Easy enough to swap xpl-hi or sst20 if you need more throw. Build quality is good but stock UI is horrible. For L shaped light my Amutorch AL1 out-throws my Nitecore H30. Does not come with a headband though.
XTAR built the H3 Warboy. It was often criticised for being too throwy for a headlamp, but I loved it. It packed quite a punch for a small 18650 lamp. And it had a cold-white XM-L2 U3 emitter but no PWM. After a while a H3W version, with a warm white emitter, was introduced. They are still available on Ebay.
I bought the the Thrunite TH10 V2 awhile back. No complaints for throwy applications such as mountain biking at night. For the money you really can’t go wrong. With the standard thrunite 20% off coupon price comes to $47.99 with battery.
Nitecore HC33:
Max Output 1800 lumens
Max Beam Distance 187 m
Max Beam Intensity 8750 cd
The Eagletac ph10lc2 with CREE XP-L HI V3 LED option claims to offer just over 22% more throw:
Center lux: 13,100 lux
Beam distance: 250 yards / 229 meters
…but only at 1090 Lumens (60% less than the Nitecore) so there is a trade off. You will have more light and detail at medium range as the hotspot will grow larger the further you go, but you will receive less overall light at shorter ranges and the hotspot will wash details out at short range.
You really would need a large reflector to go truly long range, and most the time its not too practical, so I haven’t seen any produced except those large reflector lights on ebay/amazon, but they look like cheap quality LEDs, so I would be wary of that for sure.
The Nitecore HC33 or that EagleTac should be solid and suit your needs. I really liked Nitecore HC30 as an honorable mention for the price, it should be cheaper.
One thing to keep in mind is that the nitecore will have to run at about double the power to match the Eagletac, which means more battery consumption and likely overheat and step down much faster.
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