Hi,
A few days ago my dad brought his headlamp from work home and complained about mediocre light quality and low brightness. I gave it a quick check, and figured you might want to see it, too.
The main controller body is completely sealed (guess some medtech things), and the battery looks like a generic 18650, but in a weird plastic case that is, ofc, locking you down to manufacturer-supplied modules. Which, no doubt, cost a small fortune.
The head is an incredibly lightweight, hollowed out CNCd aluminum structure, with a tiny PCB and a single domed 3535 LED, covered by a TIR lens. Oddly, the head is ventilated (so much for medtech requiring fully sealed electronics, eh?) and even dust can easily get in the head and between TIR and LED… Not great. There was 0 dust inside after years of use though… Guess hospitals are cleaner than my apartment
I quickly tested it with my Opple LM4, 5700K, 70 CRI, R9 of 0-20 bouncing around. I know, LM4 is pretty wack, but still. This is definitely no high CRI LED - a 5700K 90CRI XHP70.3 HI from Simon measures as 90 CRI and IIRC an R9 around 60.
How a medtech company can supply low CRI and low R9 LEDs to people who gotta spot fine differences in tissue is beyond me. Although maybe just his employer ordered the cheapest possible version.
Think I’ll let him take my 519A S2+ along for a test if it will improve color rendering, and then reflow a new LED in this thing. 5700K domed 519A probably. Neutral, high CRI, high R9, and pretty much as efficient as it gets. Hope it will play nice with the TIR.
Can’t do anything about the brightness without modifying the controller (which would void its ability to be used in medical environments), but if I can at least up the R9, that should help a lot.
EDIT: I obviously did not think about the fact that he can not use my S2+ for testing of a high CRI LED since he has a headlamp for a reason - he needs both hands to work
Guess I’ll just order a LED and will see.