Yes, I've noticed the same thing. The Powerlight is good for almost 24 hours on a junky alkaline, considerably less with an Eneloop.
Thanks again for these very useful tests Don!
The adjudicator gave up before the Aurora and Zebralight - she went off to her bed an hour or so ago. :)
The Zebralight is stil at 10 lux on the box. Around 1 lumen. Current measurements seem to measure what it'll do on high after a day. Not exactly meaningful. Will leave it till it gives up.
hey don, did you try the headlamp with a 14500? if so, does it take apart easily for troubleshooting?
Zebralight still hanging in there. Still giving its 12 lux. If the manufacturer is correct it ought to run for 53 hours.
I did try the headlamp with a 14500, no luck and I've not got around to disassembly yet mainly because I've not figured out how to.
2 days 6.5hours - the Zebralight still keeps going. Still 12 lux/1 lumen
The Zebralight ran for 64 Hours! Better than predicted by the manufacturer.
Can't be bad.
Very impressive! That thing is worth the money. Impressive regulation.
So how usable is 1 lumen of light in a dark room at night? And outdoors?
1 lumen is just about adequate for reading in bed. Personally I prefer about 3-4 in total darkness, but that may be a bit high contrast for some. But this is mainly as I'm now rather long-sighted and need more light to improve the optical quality of my eyes - just like camera lenses, they tend to behave better when "stopped down" a bit. If you have perfect vision, 1-2 lumens ought to be fine.
Too much light when reading will reduce the production of melatonin which is implicated in sleep and mood regulation (Probably)
You can sorta kinda see at around 0.1 lux with fully dark adapted eyes which means it ought to be usable with full dark adaptation for about 2-3 metres, maybe a bit more.
The Zebralight is probably the best light for my needs I've ever bought. Despite the price, (I think I paid $59) I'd say it was worth every penny. I have only ever bought one other headlamp since i bought this one - and that one came DOA.
Hi Don, any chance of having a go at pulling apart that headlamp that arived DOA? I'm mostly interested in headlamps and I've been looking at that one (only seen it on lightake). It looks like a solid budget headlamp host but it can only take 14500 and I'd be interested to know if it can be modded.
Thanks for the suggestion Vectrex, but for a headlamp you really need to be able to tilt it and have a good low mode for close up stuff. I've got a few DX/KD headlamps that I have modded and use, they work ok but use 3 x AAA cells and are made of plastic and are vulnerable to being broken, or the hinge snapping. I'll try to pus something up about what I've been though at some point. There are very few interesting looking cheap headlamps around and that one does tick some boxes i.e. made of aluminium and no hinge as well as the zooming mechanism. I suppose I should just get a zebralight H51 but I like the budget light thing and I like modding. I seem to be acquiring budget lights at a decent rate despite hardly ever using handheld torches. My MXDL SA-28 did come in handy recently though.
You can get the z1 which fits in that band. It runs hot on high, but should be ok for long usage on the lo-med mode.
Is 40 cm distance from your eyes close enough? This combo is my new soldering illumination and only having high doesn't bother my too much. It is only annoying when you have reflecting surfaces right in front of you. I admit that the angle of adjust-ability is somewhat limited... but I mostly want to line up the beam with my eyes looking straight forward. If you want to illuminate something in front of your feet... get a zebralight... If you need 180° light .... get a zebralight.
I recommend the C78+headband combo, because it offers much and for ~14 $ you don't risk much money. Worst case .. you have a backup for your zebralight.
Nice work up on the lights......i would like to know more about the side switch head lamp since it kind of reminds me of the ITP one thats out.
Yep, I've been looking at the Z1 as well but was hoping to get some info on the zooming one (they should really give it a name) before ordering anything. That said, I've got a few perfectly functional headtorches so I don't need to get anything unless it's going to be better, or curiosity gets the better of me. Anyway I think I'd have to mod the Z1 as well to get it the way I want. I want a headtorch for camping/hiking/climbing and want good low modes for runtime and because you just don't need that much light most of the time. For reference, I modded one of the $4.11 DX headlights that I believe are Princton Tec EOS rip offs with a XRE-R2 and TIR optic and set the high to ~150mA and the low to ~30mA. In use I feel I set the low too high. The low mode on the Z1 is claimed to be 300mA.
Of course, the current best of class compact headlamp for my purpose seems to be the Zebralight H51, which I may eventually get. As I said, it's fun playing around with and modding budget lights though.