I’ve had 3 H02R NW over the years which I found fairly satisfactory, figured I’d try a new H04R RC NW. No brighter than H02, and the tint is horribly green. My Nitecore HC30W (now discontinued) from 5 years ago is superior to both. Who offers a headlamp that has all the following?:
1 x 18650
NW or warmer
relatively short and light (~100mm, ~45g)
low 1 lumen or less
high at least 900 lumens
relatively throwy (at least 6000 candela)
no green tint
Maybe ZL H600W - anything else?
The beauty with the Skilhunt headlamps is that they are one of the only buck driver headlamps you can easily open to modify with an emiter swap. You should check out Clemence (virence) custom run of modded H04’s using the amazing Nichia e21a or e17a LEDs for beautiful tint and amazing colour rendering.
The Zebralight H600w with neutral white 4500k 80 CRI led will probably be a good option, but I would avoid the high CRI xhp50’s if you don’t like green. Had a H600fc mk4 and sold it because tint was too green for my liking. Nichia LEDs have spoiled me.
If you want perfect tint in a stock light, the Armytek Wizzard nichia version has ZERO green with fantastic colour rendering.
Just sharing my experience: my H600c was not super green, and my Nichia Wizard was not rosy at all. I thought the tint was pretty comparable on both - not terrible, not great. I ended up putting a minus green filter on both.
I have the H600w Mk IV with XHP35 HI 4500K and it is significantly less green than my HC30W. I’m also waiting on one of Clemence’s E21A H04s.
Yep, 2020 but …. Out of the box only Zebralight close to “perfection” . Best way is to buy H03 or HC30 as cheap as possible and modd it for your needs.
Does your H600W out-throw (or at least have similar throw as) your HC30W?
It definitely will. That’s an emitter which should be slightly throwier, in nearly the same size reflector, driven to the same output.
Almost certain the H600w uses an XHP35 HD though, and only the “HI” models from Zebra use the domeless version.
Yeah my bad, it’s an XHP35 HD. I don’t notice a significant difference in throw between the H600W and the HC30W.
Is your HC30W recent production?
I’ve had 2 HC30W that had no green - they were circa 2016. Given that my H02’s from same era were also OK but my new H04 is extremely green, I’m wondering if there’s a glut of green tinted recent production XM-L2 that manufacturers are using? Or is this all just a matter of the tint lottery? I know some LEDs are very hit or miss, but I’d never read of XM-L2 as being among the group…
I got mine from an Amazon seller last year. I’m not sure of its year of production.
Here is a comparison shot. The hotspot blends with the spill a lot more smoothly on the Zebralight (which has an OP reflector).
Thank you for that comparison.
Seems there’s very little demand for relativey throwy headlamps - ZL H600W and discontinued (yet still available) HC30W are literally the only ones that meet my previously listed needs. I understand that floody designs are most sensible for what most people need in a HL, but given the seemingly irrational way throw sometimes drives the handheld market I’d expect at least some zeal for throw to bleed over into the HL market.
Now I have to decide:
I’d assume better build quality with ZL, but other than UI these lights seem functionally rather equivalent.
If you are looking for a throwy headlamp, go with a Hi emitter, either xhp35 Hi or xp-l Hi.
Two throwy headlamps that both use efficient drivers are the Thrunite TH20 V2 and Eagtac Ph10lc2.
https://www.thrunite.com/th10-v2/
https://illuminationgear.com/products/sportac-ph10lc2-headlamp
Don’t let max lumens sway your decision, usually anything over 500-700 lumens in a headlamp is not sustainable in heat and will step down. The PH10LC2 isn’t as bright over the Thrunite, but it will be throwier at an equivalent setting.
I used to own the PH10LC2 with Nichia 219c, and it’s very throwy. The stock headband is crap though.
I wouldn’t worry about green tint with xhp35 hi and xp-l hi in the 70 CRI options. They are usually amongst the best.
Did you disassemble the H04R RC before?
No.
I am not sure the reason yet. But we used always same led tint in NW of H02 series, H03 series, H04 series
Thank you for your suggestions, but per my initially listed criteria, the sportac doesn’t go low enough, and the thrunite is kind of large/heavy. But… the thrunite has such exceptional throw I’m seriously considering it.
I wanted Ferrari, but bought VW and im disappointed 
I don’t have any other skilhunt lights to compare to, but here is H04R RC (on left)compared to 3 other NW lights - nitecore HC30W, BLF Q8, and utorch UT02. Pics are poor quality, from phone, just meant to show relative LED color.
Depending on where you live, you should try and have someone mod the light for you and replace the stock LED with an XPL Hi. That will clean up the tint and give you a noticeable increase in throw.