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Pie
Trad climber
So-Cal
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 12, 2017 - 02:23am PT
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Hey can anyone reccommend a headlamp good for night climbing? Very bright and battery life lasts a long time.
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zip
Trad climber
pacific beach, ca
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Sep 12, 2017 - 04:28am PT
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Outdoorgearlab.com
I just ordered a Black Diamond rechargeable.
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SC seagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, Moab, A sailboat, or some time zone
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Sep 12, 2017 - 07:23am PT
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Love my BD Icon but then I don't night climb.
Susan
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2017 - 07:34am PT
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Don't get a coast for a climbing headlamp.
They have no current limiting regulator circuit.
That's why they are cheap.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Sep 12, 2017 - 08:21am PT
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'Very' Bright and lasts a 'long time'...
Well, with those specific requirements :) I'd heartily recommend the NiteRider Pro Series(Pro 1800 Race - $350)... Mine's kinda old but has a 5200maH lithium battery that's pretty light and a really nice helmet mount.
On the brightest setting it's blinding but we've climbed ice for 5-6 hours at time during the night and it's just like daytime.
https://www.niterider.com/mtb/
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Late Starter
Social climber
NA
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Sep 12, 2017 - 08:53am PT
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Princeton Tec Apex...I bought one, so far so good...has red led's(+ main 300 lumen beam) which is nice for limiting battery and maintaining night vision. Don't buy one because of this recommendation. I've only had mine a month, but I had read good things. YMMV
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Gunkie
Trad climber
Valles Marineris
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Sep 12, 2017 - 09:49am PT
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I'll throw my $0.02 in and also recommend the BD Storm. Well worth the money.
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Pie
Trad climber
So-Cal
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2017 - 10:07am PT
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I am looking for 7-8 hours of power, 300-400 lumens, and mounted on my helmet.
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Sep 12, 2017 - 11:27am PT
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I use rechargeable eneloop batteries in a BD Storm and am very happy with it. Bright and lasts a long time.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 12, 2017 - 11:36am PT
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Current limiting is to limit thermal runaway on the LED from becoming destroyed.
Without current limiting the led can just keep drawing more and more current until it explodes/burns out and becomes destroyed.
High power LED's get hot on their dies and even need heat sinks.
Low power LED'd need thermal runaway projection even more since they are not on heat sinks.
Their voltage also should strictly be regulated CC and CV (constant current and constant voltage).
Including a charge pump circuit, the light output will remain constant while battery =voltage drops.
Without charge pump, the light output slowly dims as the battery voltage drops ......
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 12, 2017 - 01:53pm PT
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i never found a rechargeable battery that was not also heavier.
i get the voltage issue with Nicad batteries but have not used them for forty years!
lithium batteries maintain close to maximum output for 90% of battery life, then drop off to death, i always thought of that as a warning..
Since Tom Frost left Chouinard equipment, with the exception of the cams, which were designed by engineers at UCLA, I cannot think of a single product that someone else was not already doing better and for a lower price... sorry i am not up on the headlamp market, i use a petzl.
still bewildered at the popularity of a company, that it could be argued, even ripped off it's logo, from someone else, and seemingly everything could be upgraded, if you bought it elsewhere.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Sep 12, 2017 - 01:54pm PT
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let's see now, where did i see that really cool headlamp?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Sep 12, 2017 - 02:03pm PT
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Lots of good options out there. It's a balancing act between lumens, battery life and weight.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 12, 2017 - 07:22pm PT
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Mondas! except no substitutes!
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Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
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Sep 12, 2017 - 08:05pm PT
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After 10 years as a backcountry ranger in YNP, I rarely brought a flashlight or headlamp; extra weight not needed and horribly unreliable! Your eyes work good enough for most everything. Such technology diminishes the experience!
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 12, 2017 - 09:56pm PT
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OK another nickname, you said:
BD products (other than climbing) in recent decades that were design leaders and/or clearly superior for some period of time: Hiking poles, tarp tents, headlamps, "bivi-style" dome tents. and "to say otherwise is drivel."
You are uninformed.
Here are facts that you are apparently not aware of when you call what i say drivel.
By the 80's Sierra West, Todd Bibler, Marmot Mountain Works, Blue Puma, Moss, and Jack Stephenson had already pioneered everything in back diamond tents. and the sherpas in nepal had been using a configured fly, for many years more.
The first single wall tent, the Taku, was designed by Eric Reynolds cofounder of Marmot Mountain Works, sometime around 1978. it was a light weight Gore-tex tent, and it worked, it did not ice up around zero as it had a high and low end, with a cone sheltering the exhaust port at the top. I do not see how the bd tents would fare as well in near zero temps, but have not talked to an owner.
and by the way, even though bd would tell you they are pioneers in waterproof breathable fabrics, they were one of the last companies to come to the table.. Eric Reynolds at marmot went to WL Gore company, a manufacturer of artificial veins, as they had developed a membrane that could exchange gas, but was waterproof. Eric convinced them to laminate it to fabric, and Gore-tex, gore textile (for bd fans) was born. It was a Marmot Mountain Works innovation, not patagucci.
Sierra Designs built an integrated fly tent, the Airflex, around 1975.
Todd Bibbler was great at Bivvy Sacks, and minimalist tents in 1979, read the BD catalog! The Bibbler series!! that did not come from BD, it came from Todd Bibbler, they bought what they could not design themselves!!! But, they are so good at marketing that you think BD did it?
Domes, North Face hired R. Buckminster Fuller to assist them in Geodesic, or dome, tent design, also in the 70's, meanwhile the diamond whatever, it wold be more than 20 years before they made a tent with a floor... innovators? no.. they just "borrowed," or bought, the ideas of others.
Continuous pole sleeves for ease of tent setup? no threading at junctions? oh wait, they have not copied that yet, perhaps they do not know the patent has expired.
Hiking Poles? Rainer Lenhart, Austria, by 1983 he already was settled on tube thickness and alloy.. he did lack a system that disabled shock absorption in the poles BD sells a trivial but nonetheless cool feature there, but i would be surprised if the idea came from in-house. Rainer was very responsive in developing new design ideas, and manufactured poles sold by Liberty Mountain Sports under the Alpschmiede brand in the US, along with his own Leki Brand, with all the other features more than ten years before bd even sold a trekking pole.
Backpacks? no.
Greg Lowe, and Wayne Gregory are both so very much better, that it is uninformed to contemplate. or if you wish to discuss durability, Wilderness Experience figured out how to sew with nylon thread, when no-one else could, not bd.
but, both did sell their respective companies... but to call a bd copy of someone else's design an innovation.. you just do not want to do that.
as for the "new" look of patagucci insulated jackets the last few years with metallic fabrics and tones? Eustice Braunschweiger, CLASS 5, 1977.
headlamps, if bd actually did make an innovation i would say, about time! but i would want to talk to who really did it first.
Bottom Line, John Salathe made pins at his Diamond Peninsula Company, a horizontal diamond with a P in it, yvon, liked the logo enough to rip it off by rotating it 90 degrees and putting a C in it, rather than create something new himself. Tom Frost, both creative and amazingly capable, and full of integrity, left the company even though he was a partner. Since then, Hugh Banner nuts were knocked off, and marketed as a new innovation with the cable cast into the nut!! From Allen A long underwear and socks, to Bill Forrest using pile for insulation, repeatedly, bd and patagucci have remade someone else's design or idea, usually not quite as well, for a higher price, called it synchilla or something else, and then told you it was their exclusive innovation, in the case of polartec jackets that they called synchilla, even the idea of drop pockets was not their own, they copied Wilderness Experience's jacket from the year before, and then touted it as a new sleeker and better fitting design.
With the exception of Salathé, everyone mentioned i have either met, or worked with, and i heard their stories, from them, and in a couple of cases above, the new design idea, was mine.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Sep 13, 2017 - 05:31am PT
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Nice history writeup, but it's "Bibler"...
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 13, 2017 - 11:49pm PT
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ok another,
you said BD headlamps are the leading product and to say otherwise is drivel.
You also said yours broke. Is that your definition of industry leading?
if they have had the best poles for the last 20 years, glad to hear they finally did something themselves instead of taking credit for developing something, when they only developed an alternate name while badly copying someone els's design. Synchilla being my favorite example. Malden Mills sold "polar fleece" to everybody, but patagucci charged 20% more for a garment with inferior cut and stitching, but it was synchilla. Mostly it all works, and i guess they had the best trekking poles. but trekking poles aside, unless you desire a headlamp that breaks, you can find a better product at a lower price somewhere else. if you still want to call that drivel, go right ahead.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Sep 14, 2017 - 12:31am PT
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These guys; this German headlamp company rules!
I have several models given to me by my Rep. One, for night skiing or climbing has huge, dual lamps and lights up a football field, yet you forget you've got it on your head.
Another one I have kind of operates like those old Mag Lites where you twist the lens and it focuses down to a tight spot light or widens out to the bigger picture.
Very cool IMO.
Arne
https://www.ledlenserusa.com/headlamps
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 18, 2017 - 06:23pm PT
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What happened to just holding a flashlight in yer teeth?
Did that while guiding a client down a sketchy downclimb, while I was below him placing his be-cramponed feet on the rock.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Sep 18, 2017 - 06:29pm PT
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Yes, I recommend a headlamp :-)
I took my kids to the fair the other day, and at the entrance, they wanted to see what was in my day/water pack. Huh, what is in there, anyway? A headlamp and some spare batteries of course. Luckily, no knife!
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Sep 18, 2017 - 06:30pm PT
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The Black Diamond Spot used to be the top contender in my book. I just bought the new BD Revolt. 300 lumens and rechargeable. We will see how that pans out.
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glytch
Trad climber
Oakland, CA
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Sep 18, 2017 - 08:36pm PT
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I wanted a headlamp that was:
 rechargeable
-- I don't like wasting batteries, and it's nice to always have a bright light
Li-ion or polymer
-- Other battery technologies are terrible in comparison
-- ... ok, so the charge/discharge management of these batteries is a bit scary, but there are many off-the-shelf chips that should safely manage that task these days.
reasonably durable
-- obviously
would not turn on accidentally
-- BD, man, those lights are incapable of staying off in a pack, "lock mode" or not.
lightweight
-- also obviously
After a bunch of hunting, I couldn't find anything from the big climbing brands that fit the bill. Besides, my ReVolt was horrendous. It would fail to charge, die spontaneously, turn on in my pack --- that thing was a liability.
And then I stumbled into the brand "Foxelli" on Amazon. I got one for my wife, and then got one for myself as well. Literally the only feature it lacks is a small red light for working around camp or in a tent. Its on/off button is stiff, slightly recessed, and on the side of the lamp. It's never turned on accidentally. There's a battery indicator light that glows green (usually) or red (if really low), and I'd recommend the black case light, 'cause the green battery indicator glows a bit through the white case. It's a bit odd, but no big deal.
Eventually --- after 2+ years of use --- the headlamp stopped charging, and I contacted the brand. They sent me a new replacement lamp immediately. Moreover, I should note that the defective light still has charge after multiple night runs; its failure mode, while problematic, was hardly catastrophic. I should also note that I also tried their MX10 lamp, it fell apart quickly, and Foxelli replaced mine with a MX500 free of charge.
Long story short, the MX500 listed on the link below is the best lamp I've ever owned, and Foxelli, whoever they are, have been stalwart in supporting their products.
https://www.foxelli.com/collections/headlamps
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| Messages 1 - 26 of total 26 in this topic |
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