I want a headlamp for close range work - 30cm to 1.5m.
So I guess brightness is not a real issue here, but I think a hi/low modes are a huge plus.
I want it to be able to tilt (downwards, but upwards is a bonus), to be fairly light weight, to have a good flood, and to work with AA or AAA batteries.
I don't care if it's got disco modes, and build quality is not very important (I'll just use it around the house and I'll be careful not to drop it to the floor too many times :) ).
Price should be under 15$.
Maybe I'll just go with the Nitecore HB02 head strap, but I'd rather have a dedicated headlamp.
Current candidates (all are flood-to-throw for the close range flood demand, maybe I just need a diffuser?):
While I cant comment on quality and user experience and beam quality, I can say that BIC is probably the cheapest place to get the first one.
The third one could be won at Ebay for as low as 6.5$, which I did, infact twice in a row, so Ill be getting 2 of them somewhere in march :D
I think for your distance needs any <10$ lamp with lo-hi modes will suffice, unless there is something specific to what you do?
Im trying to find Don's post with millions of headlamps on his head to ask about one specific model and how good it is, it has 16 LED's and 3 modes, 4-8-16 and costs around 5$ with free shipping, so Im interested in whatever ideas people will post here for you, sorry for this little offtopic Haggai :)
I had the 3rd one and sold it because it has no flood at all and was useless to me. A couple people on here have the first one and they all broke.
I have this one and can recommend it also it can be easily modded to an XML for even more flood and total output. It runs on 3AAAs so run time isn't that good
I just recently got this one it is almost identical to the first one I listed but it is better than the first one because it has better run time since it takes an 18650 instead of 3aaas and is easily modded to an XML also. It comes with a charger also.
Not to bright at all with the XML mostly because the corona is so much bigger then with the XRE that comes stock. I use it on low when working inside soldering and such and use High when outside. Runtime on low with Duraloops isn't that great maybe 4-5 hours. I posted a small how to on the DX forum on the emitter swap it literally is a 5 minute job.
The 18650 version is almost identical but with twice the run time. Same deal with the emitter swap a 5 minute job I put on DX also. This one is a little bright for indoor work 250 lumen on low but I still use it when I have a job I know will take at least 4 hours and it blazes out 550 lumens on high 1.5 amps so you can use it as a bike light.
The default emitter is fine on both and they can be used in stock configuration very effectively if you don't feel like messing with them. The corona is extremely bright compared to the outer rings of the beam and the XML swap rectifies this problem.
The other good thing about these is they are very well balanced with the batteries mounted on the back and the third over the top strap so you don't even notice you are wearing them after a little while.
They both tilt up and down and the head is light enough so it stays in the tilted position you set it in even if you are moving round.
EDIT:
I just noticed there are 2 version of the AAA light maybe I posted the wrong one and the cheaper one doesn't tilt. I have to go look for my order to check it was well over a year ago.
I think I messed up the 12 dollar one says inclination is adjustable and the 10 dollar one doesn't say. So you might want to buy the 12 dollar one just to be safe because you definetly need it to tilt to be useful.
I finally got to mod this headlamp, but was a bit disappointed of the result.
It only draws 0.5A on high with the XM-L (didn’t measure with the original XR-E), so it’s almost acceptable for close range on high, a 1A draw would probably make it a lot more usable; and the low is much lower (didn’t measure amps though). It will probably help a little with soldering, but much less than I hoped for.
And it doesn’t use a standard driver, but a square one instead.
It doesn’t look like I could easily switch to another driver (it was hard enough to replace the emitter with the extremely short wires in the cramped space), because there’s no way I could use the switch then. (maybe I’ll desolder everything on the square board and glue the round driver on that board, connected to the driver, batteries and the LED? I don’t think there’s enough room for that)
Ultrafire UF-H2. Great flood, nice build quality and ramping so you can dim it to whatever you need. Takes 1AA and can tilt as much as needed in the head band. It may not be the cheapest but it is a good solid light.
