searching for NiMH head-lamp work light

Hello,
I want to buy a gift for my father. He’s often working on our cars (outside) and he does love his head-light (cheap COB 1W on 3xAAA).
Since we have lots of NiMH AA and AAA and good chargers, I want to use these.
I’ve been looking on here and aliexpress but I couldn’t find anything good.

What I’m looking for:

- power source: NiMH, preferrably 2-4 AA (longer runtime), or 3-4 AAA

- led: 4000k would be perfect, warmer is okay, 100 lumen or above on high, CRI of 80 or greater

- optics: flood is good for close work

  • driver: L-M-H, constant-current would be really cool, constant brightness is not relevant, battery under-voltage cutoff at 0.9V would be great!

Does anyone know of a light that would be suited?

also, if necessary, I could swap the LED for a better one, I have hot air.
but I’d preffer getting a good light in the first place

I think AA Zebralight may be suitable (although only single aa)

http://www.zebralight.com/H53Fc-AA-Headlamp-Floody-Neutral-White-High-CRI_p_195.html

The Acebeam H40 is a great little NiMh/14500 light. Around 200ish lumens on a AA/NiMh, high cri 4000K with ramping UI. Only one cell though.

Look at Thrunite’s TH20 headlamp. It’s a pretty decent little light that uses a single AA battery. I love mine so much, I picked more up on Amazon’s Prime Day sale. They’ll probably be on sale for black friday too at the same price. At $25, I think they’re a good deal.

Thank you for your suggestions!
Though they are only single AA, they look very promising, I’ll look into them further!
I’ve found BORUiT B16 (4xAA) and BORUiT RJ-2166 (3xAA).
Both use XM-L2 (probably cheapest variant with lowest CRI) but I could order a 80CRI XM-L2.
Or would there be an even better LED I could use?
Does anyone know how hard an emitter swap using hot air is?

Don’t forget how heavy 4 x AA is! Too heavy for me to have on my head.

I would say 2 x AA max for comfortable.

I have a Fenix HL50 and it is great! Runtime on 1 x AA is excellent.

AA/14500:

Manker E03H II
Acebeam h40
Thrunite th20

AA:

Nitecore ha23

AAA/build in Li-ion:

Nitecore nu35(on my wishlist)

thank you! haven’t found these myself, I’ll look into them!
and yeah, 4xAA may be a little heavy…

The Mankers are great - they have the AA and the AAA versions. Straightforward UI, nice moonlight mode, good build.

I have a light which I run 4 “aa” eneloops I made years back. It was a driver made for 18650 voltages but it tolerates the initial 4.8v of the eneloops - if it were alkaline aa it would be closer to 6v too much I think.
I used a princeton tec battery headlamp battery carrier for the batteries and made the rest out of copper pipe and old flashlight pieces.

I still use it all the time. Changed out the head band and the TIR lens

i have so many questions…

Also a manker fan here.Have 2x e02,1x e03H and a e03H II on its way.
I like the modes sequence,from Hi back to mid(instead of high>low with other brands).
Also the programmable moon is very handy, you can set it to ultra low

wow…i did not know about the term chinesium, you learn something new everyday…

I tend to favor NiMH for use when wrapped around my head, I’m still a bit superstitious about spending hours with a Li-ion next to my brainpan.

The brghtest/long runtime NiMH headlamp is the Nitecore HA40. (Still available a few places for around $60), 1000 lumen, XM-L2, 4XAA (located on the rear of the band), simple UI.

Nitecore HA40

I use it all the time, hiking, biking, and general night work. The light is heavier but well fit and balanced. The led is located in a cast aluminum enclosure on arms a slight distance from the band so you can run continuous turbo without any heat conduction.

For car work I also use my Manker E02H. It puts out 220 lumens with NiMh, has a simple single band strap and never gets in my way when shoving my head in really tight spaces. A Manker E03H should be similar with the integrated diffuser which can be a plus when you need to view something that you can’t point the headlamp at directly and are dependent on ambient/reflected light. (I put a small diffuser disk of d-c-fix my E02H)

Anything with a rear battery box can be inconvenient when you have to lie on the ground so the HA40 may not be best for that type of auto work but if you want to give him a good quality, super bright, long running NiMH headlamp the HA40 may be an option.

@Ilumenati: How’s the beam of that ha40?I have often hesitated to buy this one, but it seems to me a very throwy headlamp or am I wrong?

Overload, It is a bit throwy leaning towards spot and spill with some yellowish tint shift in the spot.

I put a small disc of d-c-fix difusser film on the lens it and it works for me. Yeah, sometimes I wish it was floodier with better CRI for some close in work but then I use a different light. This light is great for hiking and biking or just walking around at night. At the usual distance I focus the light, the tint shift isn’t usually noticeable and the beam spreads out.

In a perfect world I would prefer a different LED like a LH351D but am limited by the die size on the MCPCB. I think a the SST-40 should fit the but it doesn’t look like an easy swap, too many other components mounted on the MCPCB.

For a high lumen long lasting NiMh headlamp the options are limited. I added a link below to the only beam shot video I could find. Like I said it does benefit from diffuser film.

HA40 beamshots

I like the armytek Tiara a1 pro warm. it has warmlight, constant current, nice ui.

niajef oh boy do you miss out on AvE (youtube) tool reviews! he’s canadian, too!
also the HA40 does look nice but it’s very throwy, like you said a flood is better for working on stuff.
der_horst I’ll look into the armytek a1 pro, another nice 1xAA! By the way, is the off-center led distracting to you while working?

short anser: no