UKC

Good afternoon ,

How powerful is your head torch ?
I've just brought a new one, nothing fancy/ well not a well known brand anyway.
It claims to be 8000 lm 3x Cree XM-L T6 LED's
Now this seems like a overkill, but for the price I thought why not give it a go.
My bike light is insanely bright at 4000 lm and I can never run it at full power.
Have LED's improved that much in the last year to accommodate this .

Anyone got a head torch close to this output that can comment ?

Thanks



TS

In reply to That Shallot:

I suspect the lumen output of these eBay specials is a fair bit lower than the advertised amount.

In reply to The New NickB:

Cree are very decent. Anything above ~200 is wasted for headtorches imo. That's crazy bright and far throwing. You don't need to be seen from space.

In reply to The New NickB:


Yes I suspect this is the case.

In reply to Removed User:


Maybe I do . How else are they going to know where to land to retrieve me

Seriously for a £10 I'm bound to find some use for it .



TS

In reply to That Shallot:

Given that brief Googling suggests XM-L T6 LEDS put out no more than 1000 lumens each, one can assume the 8000 lumen claim is total rubbish, which tallies with the experience of what I have heard in caving.

I have an 1800 lumen headtorch for caving, which is great fun but still never bright enough for big spaces... I suspect this has zero relevance for walking/climbing though, and the battery pack, while not big, does have to go on the back of the helmet and only lasts ~2 hours with decreasing output at full blast.

My understanding is that the brightest commercially available headlamp is probably the 6000 lumen Roy Fellow bat roaster, complete with belt-mounted 12 cell Li ion batteries :P http://www.ledcaplamps.com/
The brightest headtorch ever made might well be the 11,000 lumen (partly) home-made Gloworm:
http://www.cowdery.org.uk/gloworm.php

THE IMPORTANT POINT:
If you aren't lugging significant weights of battery with you OR aren't planning to use the light very long, extra lumens is pretty pointless. We can make bright lights (my 1800 lumen light is only 125g but the two-cell battery is 182g apparently) but you need to pay for light x burn time in grams of battery...

In reply to That Shallot:

Reminded me of this:

youtube.com/watch?v=Vt8aAy_8Ub4&

In reply to That Shallot:

I don’t pay too much attention to lumens, best head torch I ever owned (and I still have it) is my petzl Duo. I use it for walking, climbing and working, according to petzl its only 67 lumens maximum which sounds like nothing when compared to some stuff you can get. and I rarely have it on its max output!

The major advantage it had is a phenomenal spread of light, it literally fills your full field of vision with light which makes it infinitely more useable as you can see everything around you right up to your peripheral. This is way better when you are walking/climbing along and don’t need to pick out something 500 yards away

Other lamps I have had have had mega lumen output but only on a single point so you have to move your head to shine it at what you want to look at, then your night vision goes to crap because you are constantly looking at a really bright patch. But sadly Lumen output is what sells lamps.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

reminded me of this: youtube.com/watch?v=IzUoe-9bKa0&

In reply to andrewmcleod:


Which is why good power control is essential. Ideally, coninuously variable.

And you very rarely need a high power flood, unless you're using it as a worklight. You need a low power flood for local area illumination, and a high power spot for picking out distant objects.