I have basically two of the same lights, except they dont have coiled wire and have different battery compartment.
I agree with you, they throw REALLY well for the money, I got mine for 6.5$ shipped each, so if anyone wants some cheap headlamp to experiment and see how well it throws, there is nothing to lose! Well, it has ringy beam with circles and artifacts, but thats to be expected for the price on this kind of lamp desing, right ;)?
I modded one of mine with 3xAA battery carries to boost the battery life.
And I know for sure the batteries sit side by side from each other. They won't fit in series in that small of compartment. It's just like the triple AAA ones I have.
I was a little leery strapping one 18650 to my head, but I went fully through my light and it's wiring, I use a high quality Panasonic battery and I trust my charging skills and my Fluke 179 that measures the voltage every time the battery comes off the charger.
Be extra vigilant with your batteries use something safe like a Bestinone IMR 18650 and don't get to comfortable with that M-80 strapped to your head because that's when accidents happen.
The emitter swap a 5 minute job I put it on DX also. This one is a little bright for indoor work 250 lumen on low but I still use it when I have a job I know will take at least 4 hours and it blazes out 550 lumens on high 1.5 amps so you can use it as a bike light.
I glued the emitter to the pill with Fujik and put thermal grease on the threads and screwed it together. The reflector is aluminum and is quite heavy it acts as the heat sink for the emitter and works quite well. An XML driven at 1.5 amps has plenty of thermal mass with this setup.
This bad boy is bright, bright, bright you can ride your bike with this alone and have plenty of light for a long time and a super blinding strobe if you need it.
I like the look of this light...look forward to hearing some opinions on it..
also I am never afraid of lithiums going off on my head or in my pocket..with all the crazies on the roads and all the other dangers out there lithium batteries blowing up are the least of my concerns..I guess my tune will change if one ever pops on me, but as of now I am not concerned..
I don't really understand why you'd want throw from a headlamp. Maybe using it as a helmet mounted light for cycling, but nor for any other realistic scenario. I see flood way more important from a headlamp. If you want throw, pull out a regular flashlight that's a thrower.
This was the exact scenario I saw testing lights at work underground. The headlamps the guys were using (even two designated as mining cap lamps) had way too narrow of a beam. They had to constantly turn their heads to aim at specific locations. A floody headlamp and throwy flashlight in a holster would have suited them much better.
More flood was the main reason I started switching all my XRE headlamps to XML they have so much more flood now plus as an added benefit they are way brighter also.
I had the flood to throw headlamp sent to me by mistake and I used it once and sold it. I can't see what use a pencil thin beam on your head would provide.
I can now confirm that they are connected in parallel and the headlamp works well also with only one cell.
It has a smooth reflector (I would prefer OP) and seems to have a quite tight hotspot. The spill is most probably usable.
Construction feels otherwise ok, but heatsinking might become an issue since there is no pill. The star is connected to a hollow base with about ~2mm wide lip, leaving the middle section of star without any contact.
The lamp is driven low, 1.0A on high and 0.22A on low. This is good for preventing the thermal issues and elongating the runtime. Estimated runtime is about 5h on high and about 24h on low (Way to go!!)
Thanks for the update. Too bad the pill is hollow. Any chance it can be modified easily for better heatsinking? Sounds like it needs a medium level too. I would prefer it be more of a flooder than a thrower.
