And even though its far from perfect headlamp I bought one of these to make it 3xAA:
Needless to say Im now getting 2.5x-3x the original battery life, Im yet to decide how to attach this battery pack to the headband, but thats not much of a problem atm, what I would like to know is where to buy screws to hold the battery pack closed, Im looking for something like the screw used in PT EOS headlamp:
I believe that this is flat-top screw meant to be screwed into metal base, I wouldnt mind getting pierce/spear-top scew, you know the sharp one, one that you can screw into plastic base that has no threads in its shaft.
I hope I made myself clear, I wouldnt mind if those who know what Im talking about corrected me and gave the correct terms and names of what Ive described here as to avoid future confusion when I post some review of this headlamp and its tranformation !
Im sure I wouldnt start this thread if I knew how you name those type of screws in the first place !
They are generally referred to as “thumb screws”. I think the ones that are flat on the bottom are just called “machine screws” and the sharp tipped ones are “metal screws”.
So I suppose you would be looking for a thumb screw for metal. However you mentioned using it on plastic. I don’t know how well the plastic is going to handle that but I guess you’ll find out
I think it would be easier to find a battery compartment that was meant to be closed in the first place and just buy it already made that way.
To screw into plastic like that, any woodscrew of the right length and diameter should do it. But they do chew up the plastic pillars eventually - you won't be able to replace the batteries too often before you need a new holder. I'd probably use hot glue to seal it and hold it together. It is easy enough to remove when you want to and will keep the weather away from the electrics.
If you need the battery pack to resist water splashes, you might consider an old Petzl Zoom battery pack with a 3-AA adapter. It's a bit more bulky than 3-AA batteries and 64 grams, so not ideal, but will definitely keep rain out. (It won't work if submerged, though. edit: forgot to add that you'd need a strap over the top of the head as well to attach the battery pack normally.
gcbryan, thanks, will look into thumb-screws right away ;)
Don, thanks, but I do know difference between screw types, I just had no idea how are those thumb-screws called
I think there are thumb-screws with woodscrew tip, at least it would make sense to have such, if there are none, Ill just file the tipe to make it sharp.
And yes, Ive been thinking about durability of this cheap plastic battery holder, plastic will wear out within few uses, so might have to do it McGyver style and stick with tape or glue/silicon.
I like to keep things cheap and simple, hence why I picked up this cheapo battery pack, something more expensive just wont make sense for me, headlamp itself cost me 6.5$ and is not worth it to spend more than dollar or two on upgrade, unless I use it to learn how to build and re-build headlamps, because...
...one day Ill build my own headlamp, unless someone comes up with that perfect one for cheap, it will be very interesting to make something to compete with lights in 60-150 range for personal use.
Brick and mortar like REI might have a dusty one in the back. It's probably 5-10 bucks.
For a Zoom itself, lurk on ebay. In the UK, at least, they usually go for way too much, but there are opportunities like misspellings or where they leave "petzl" and "zoom" out of the description. (Don't laugh: I just bought 2 old ones like that for $6.)
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