3 different budget headlamps - simple reviews and teardown

Yeah, I think that is the main issue with most of the cheap budget headlamps... Many are just not that great as a host...

I have tried this headlamp:

I was not able to do a full teardown, but it was an interesting and bright light.. Although a bit large..

I have been thinking about making a super lightweight and bright headlamp that have battery/batteries, switch and driver in the pocket and only LEDs and stuff on the head....

Where does one buy the third light?

Search Ebay for "CREE Q5 300LM LED 3 Mode Zoomable Headlight". Don't mix it up with the "other" wrong light which has a black body. Sells for $9.00 and up, some ship from the US too.

EDIT - there used to be some from US sellers. None in that link I just provided though. User millerman bought one from a US Seller and modded it as in the link I provided. Yo, speakup millerman, it's Miller time!

-Garry

i prefer to avoid fleabay but i had put in a fasttech product request for that type of light but with a bike mount on the bottom, but i think they forgot about getting it
thats a great price though, under $10!

Like this one? Or this one? Or this one?

-Garry

Bort is obviously very blind, he spent over an hour searching for those on fasttech unless they have been posted since his request (that will be his story, so keep it straight people)

i have the dual battery one, and i thought its pretty damn bright for a headlamp.
its brighter than a 18650 sipik zoomie. heatsinking is ok too. doesnt get hot or warm fast.
maybe i have a good one or your standards are just higher than mine.

but after reading your review, temps me to buy that big lens headlamp.

Thanks for a great review! :) :)

Yeah I bought no2 and one of these too… just added a resistor on it to give it just a little bump in output but not too much.
There’s no point making these headlamp as bright as regular flashlight.
it’s just annoying to the eyes if you’re not using baseball cap.
but it is just nice to use this as a flood light if you’re working outside in the dark such as setting up tent , BBQ at night :slight_smile:

but since I got Nitecore HC50… I never use these lights anymore… they’re just sitting pretty in the trunk of my car for emergency uses only :smiley:
but still, for regular ordinary people whose not into flashlight… these headlamp output is a big deal compare o something they normally buy from Home Depot

Yours might be brighter.. The sipik SK98 I used to have was around 2 amp on high. This dual battery headlamp was around 1,2A based on a quick measurement with a single cell. The stock Sipik SK98 I had would have been brighter...

If your headlamp is driven at around 1,2A I would not consider that "pretty damn bright". And if its driven at 2 amp or harder, it should get hot or warm fast, if the heatsinking is decent. A bright light that does not get warm quick is a bad thing..

There are many small reasons why I have given low ratings that I have not gone in detail on too. Just to add some info on the dual batttery light on top of some of the mentioned stuff.

No attempts at even making it waterproof (around the button as an example). Put the battery-box in water and it would get wet inside quite soon.

Does not fit the longest green NCR18650 (slightly shorter keeppower does fit).

Broken threads on one of the screw holes.

Zoom mechanism was pretty bad (due to the stock O-ring). Even when it was improved its quite crappy.

UI where you have to cycle through strobe every time in order to turn it off.

Quite bulky for such a small lens light.

Mediocre output.

The headstrap that should have been less tight/more flexible..

The horrible heatsinking and lack of thermal paste...

Not sure if it was broken, or should look broken, but if you look at the first picture of the light you can see a spring inside it due to some plastic that looks broken... ??

....

The sipik headlamp seems to be fairly popular. Kinda... Maybe I should reconsider the mod rating. Ive actually been enjoying the light. Its a keeper.

The other two lights were donated to some people that just needed some headlamps. I did not bother modding them.

I just gave away my “Sipik”, or something of that stile, to a night runner. I ordered an other from the same place, which is http://www.ebay.com/itm/121161815800 . It was only $10 with shipping, but I am not sure about the quality. Where have others been getting them?

Review was informative

I just got the “Sipik” type from ebay seller digitalzone88 ($9)
The listing has changed a bit so I won’t link; there are a lot of variations out there, as noted above.

Mentioned: Your best modified flashlight (buy) in 2014?

This light’s battery tube is symmetrical — the one I got has the button on the left side, unlike all the pictures.

It seems sturdy enough; I agree it’s awfully blue-white and needs modding, which will be easy to do.

EDIT — oops.
That didn’t last long.

The center contact spring broke right off — it looks like a bad cold-solder connection failed where the spring was just sitting on the edge of a board in the middle of the light.

Yellow thing is the board the spring was soldered to; raggedy gray thing is where the bottom of the spring was before it fell off.
Nothing on the spring itself but a little green corrosion.

Imgur
Imgur

Anyone taken one of these apart?
EDIT, got $5 refund on $9, good enough I guess if I can get the thing apart to make a better positive contact.

Has anyone successfully unscrewed the battery tube (it’s in 2 halves, screwed into the center part; somehow one is the positive and one is the negative side, so there’s an insulation layer in there somewhere — and looking straight down into where the spring fell off, there’s an insulating board.

I need to get that board out, and make it support a better-anchored positive spring, and get it all back together.

EDIT, and with a little DeOxIt Gold to clean up the conductive plating on the insulating board, and a little creative spring-bending to make at least somewhat better contact, and reassembly with an insulating gasket dropped over the spring to at least discourage it from waving across the tiny gap to the metal case, it works. Replaced the emitter with a neutral one with better color and it’s a decent headlight. Still a little worried about that spring short-circuiting, may try to slip more insulation into the thing in various places.

I got my new one from the Ebay store I linked above. The only problem is next mode memory that didn’t go away with a pencil mark on the capacitor.
As with the first one, I increased flood. I took one fin, about a millimeter, off the back of the bezel ring, which also reduced the throw. And another mm. off the back of the sliding head, which increased the flood without affecting the throw. The pill now nearly touches the lens, but the LED is set back in the pill, so the flood is still not maximum for the lens. The anodizing is not good for files, but mine was already dull from filing the coatings off stars to get copper disks. I might put a new driver to fix the NMM and an old XM-L in it.

and after taking it apart and making a better connection for resoldering the spring, it’s become the first-grabbed headlight at our house
(much preferred over several generations of old 5mm-LED headlamps we’ve had around)

Hmmm, you’re making me want another one to start grinding pieces off.

Great post, I know it’s a year since you wrote it but I’m trying to find a decent headlamp. Great seeing what the common cheap ones are made with.

Thanks for your review! It’s affordable. I prefer to the 90° angle throw of light.

Excellent reviews, very detailed pictures, great job , lights however are trash