El Speleo Light

[Stan Allison]

This looks like another great headlamp, but just like the Rude Nora it doesn't have enough low lighting levels for me. I currently use a Sten which supposedly has something like 5, 15, 55, and 100-140 lumen settings. Most of the time I move through a cave on the 15 lumen setting and am quite happy. In darker, muddier passages I move on the 55 lumen setting. Sometimes when I look at my white sketch page while sketching I turn it down to 5 lumen so I don't blind myself. While I would like to have a brighter headlamp, I still am concerned about battery life for long day trips, cave camping trips and caving trips where I backpack in for 9 days. Much of my caving is in fairly white passages where you don't necessarily need or want so much light as you can overlight a small white crawlway. Why don't some of these newer headlamps offer some lower level light settings. I would love to get something like the El Speleo or Rude Nora if they would offer similar settings to the Sten 5, 15, 55, and 100-140lumens in addition to the higher levels for really blasting light down a pit, big room or for video & photography. Am I the only one that misses the lower light settings on these newer lights?

I would love to have a light that didn't have a magnet it in it to affect the compass, had a spot and wide LED that are independently adjustable and had some brighter settings, but I still want a variety of light settings at the lower levels where I would be using the light most of the time.

Stan

[potholer]

Stan,
I agree that having a low 'low' setting is really useful, both for endurance for expedition, etc, and also for times when little light is actually wanted. For example, for slogging out of deep vertical caves, given that I have a pretty free choice of level and blend to use, I find a handful of lumens in a flood is the ideal light to use for the bulk of the journey, where there is little to see.

However, I think many light makers would steer clear of having more than 4 levels of light in a standard sequence, thinking that people would find it annoying in regular use.
Steps of something like x2.5-x3 between levels seem about right, and that would mean a light with a ~5lm lower level would need 5 or 6 levels if the highest power was in the high hundreds.

While avoiding having an overlong standard sequence, it's possible to extend the range of a light by:

a) Having the highest power as some kind of 'boost' level and/or having the lowest power as some off-main-sequence setting.

b) Having a Scurion-like interface with programmability so a user can set up their own settings to taste, where it would be possible to have 5 or 6 levels available for programming without that increasing complication in use. Why Scurion didn't do something like that when they brought in brighter models, I don't understand, given that the programming changes would have been pretty trivial.

I think the RN effectively does both options on a)

[rlboyce]

How complex would it make a cave light if the output was infinitely variable? Perhaps a potentiometer of some sort? Maybe some sort of incremental adjuster for some level of consistency?

[potholer]

How complex would it make a cave light if the output was infinitely variable? Perhaps a potentiometer of some sort? Maybe some sort of incremental adjuster for some level of consistency?

I guess an incremental adjuster (a click-detented pot, or rotary switch) could be quick to adjust and, given some physical position indication, could also give some idea of the power level used (which is handy for runtime guesstimates), so could be nicer in that respect than up/down buttons or similar.
Would need waterproofing, though waterproofing a rotary shaft isn't too hard, but the controls themselves might consume a bit more space than other switches.

On the other hand, I'd wonder if for a twin-beam light having a pair of such switches might be a pain, requiring them to be operated one after the other to select a blend - having to move between two control knobs might feel a bit 'slow'.

It'd certainly be interesting to see what a twin-beam light with such controls was like to use.

[rlboyce]

From a design standpoint, it solves a lot of problems. However, the practicality and usability may be a different matter. I think it's worth someone's time to rig something up and see what happens. I'd do it myself if I had the appropriate tools and electrical knowledge.

[Stan Allison]

Rlboyce,

I had an LED headlamp that had a potentiometer for essentially infinite settings. It was the Ledlampe made by the Swiss group TechTonique: http://www.techt.ch/leds/LedLampe_old.htm
This was a really great LED light for it's time about ten years ago. However, I did not like the potentiometer adjustment without preset clicks as it was easy to keep turning the light brighter and brighter and not be aware of battery life.

Potholer,

Thanks for the information on the headlamp stuff. I guess I'm one of those weird people that would like 8-10 lighting options especially with the possibilities of having both a flood and a spot light. I just checked out the Rude Nora specs and saw that there is a 10 lumen option, but wasn't sure if this was a spot or flood. I would hope for a flood. I also saw that the 55 lumen option was for spot only. If I had a Rude Nora, I would mainly be using it at the 55 lumen setting and would want mainly flood with a little bit of spot. Too bad the Scurion doesn't still have user programmable settings, but I can't afford one of those anyway. For now I'll stick with my Sten light despite it's annoying magnet, poor connectors/wires and lack of a spot.

Stan

[MUD]

The 10 lumen option on the Nora is a spot. The 55 lumen option is also a spot. Please know the optics Bif has on the Rude are made for the xm-l led he uses and he understands correct optics. I think if you saw the spot on these you'd be pleased as they're certainly not a tight spot by any means. Rather a smoother spot that fans out for a flood-like effect. It works very nice too! I'm very happy with Nora thus far, and I've abused her somewhat already!

[potholer]

Potholer,

Thanks for the information on the headlamp stuff. I guess I'm one of those weird people that would like 8-10 lighting options especially with the possibilities of having both a flood and a spot light.

I think I'm fairly stuck in my ways now, having got used to having independent flood/spot beam control - if I was designing a UI with fixed 'choices', I'd probably want a large number of them to cover various situations.

I could go on, though I do feel a bit conscious that this is a thread about a particular light.
Maybe a separate one on lamp user interfaces (actual and ideal) would be an idea?

[SleazyCriss]

So has anyone a photo showing the light in a cave?

Something like this photos

http://www.hirlatz.at/lampenvergleich3/ ... ch_en.html

[Trooly74]

Here are some news.
Web site: http://elspeleo.com/
And some exclusive;
The new model is in testing phase, in short, 5flood+3spot modes

Trooly

[NZcaver]

Here are some news.
Web site: http://elspeleo.com/
And some exclusive;
The new model is in testing phase, in short, 5flood+3spot modes

Trooly

That's a great looking light, but personally I would also want the option of having the spot and flood LEDs on at the same time.

[ron_miller]

That's a great looking light, but personally I would also want the option of having the spot and flood LEDs on at the same time.

Why?

I thought the same thing at first, but it seems that when I'm moving through a cave, I really would just want the flood. The only time I think I would really want a spot is when I'm stopped and looking at something specific, and then I think I'd be perfectly happy just having the spot.

[NZcaver]

That's a great looking light, but personally I would also want the option of having the spot and flood LEDs on at the same time.

Why?

I thought the same thing at first, but it seems that when I'm moving through a cave, I really would just want the flood. The only time I think I would really want a spot is when I'm stopped and looking at something specific, and then I think I'd be perfectly happy just having the spot.

Fair question, Ron.

I would prefer the ability to select each spot and flood level independently, and (when needed) simultaneously. Two reasons I would like a combination of a small amount of spot with good flood for walking passage. First, better throw for looking slightly ahead to constantly reassess route choices while picking my way over uneven terrain without constantly having to manually switch between spot and flood. And second, I contend that having a pair of slightly spaced light sources may help to enhance natural binocular vision and depth perception while picking one's way through uneven terrain and breakdown etc. I'm sure plenty of cavers would be happy without this, but I would prefer to be able to blend the beams.

[MUD]

Nora!

[SleazyCriss]

@ Trooly74

When will the new model be available?