I’d been looking for a non-3xAAA headlight for awhile, because the Coast one I have, which light-wise, is very good, goes through batteries really fast.
Anyway, the first impression that I have is that this light is not very bright (high, low, strobe), and worst of all, the beam is VERY small, even with it zoomed all the way out. I guess that I’d like to get a larger beam, and, probably a bit brighter.
The other thing is that when it’s turned on, that white-labeled area on the battery enclosure with “LED” is lit, and I’m thinking that is probably a bit of a waste of energy.
The bezel screws off, like a normal zoomie flashlight, and I noticed that the emitter is recessed very deeply, back into the head, probably > 1/4 inches, and that’s probably why the beam is so small, at least partly:
Any thoughts on easily modding this to (a) get a larger beam and (b) increase brightness?
Is the led on a star? If so, can You swap it for a larger die emitter? If it uses a reflector, can you get the emitter further into the reflector? This will increase output and widen the beam. Both would be better.
I haven’t removed the pill yet, but it looks like the emitter is on a 15mm star, kind of recessed into a pill. There’s a small reflective insulator disk around the emitter, which is kind of typical of a zoomie, I think.
I’m think that if I can replace the emitter with an XM-L something or other, it might be both brighter and wider beam.
XM-L2 (T6?) 5B 4200-4500K. I bought 10 of them and they are definitely 5B tint (even though the old picture and bag they arrived in said 0D tint). It doesn’t seem possible that they could be T6 bin but even if they are T4 still a very impressive LED.
So, I’m now looking for a new headlamp. I have an older Coast one (with 6 LEDs) which works well, but I hate using 3 x AAA, so I’m looking for one that might have a similar floody beam, that takes either AA (preferably) or 18650.
Ya unless it is running at 350mA, 3XAAA means a lot of battery changes.
I got a great deal on the Coast HL6 on eBay for $24 shipped. Very light and adjustable brightness. Looks like an XPG in there and it draws 600mA+ from the 3XAAA and has a very tight beam. Build quality is much better than the cheapo versions but even the cheapo versions are pretty awesome and mod worthy:
The one above also draws 600-700mA from 3XAAA. The adjustable brightness helps with battery life as well as upgrading to an XML2. You can easily remove the zoomable lense and get a VERY wide beam for closeup work.