This is my Apex after 2 survey trips
Posted: Aug 5, 2007 7:50 pm
yep. it no longer works at all, though i'm currently trying to dry it out and see if i can get it to do anything. it certainly doesn't appear that you can take these things near water - "H20 1M" my ass.
the first trip had a wet entry passage but not one did my helmet have water splashed on it or get dunked; the second was a survey trip that involved some wet belly crawling in 18" passage a separate flooded passage where it was dunked briefly during an ear dip.
so basically it sat in inch-deep water for a minute while i took compass and clino readings, and 5 minutes later it was dead as a doornail. there is condensation not only on both of the outside lenses, but also all over the 3W in the center, literally droplets of water inside the focusing lens itself.
it was BRAND NEW, i bought it from basegear.com 10 days ago, came to me sealed in the package.
upon closer inspection, there are hairline fractures in the plastic on the top of the head, a largish one on the right screw housing and a series of smaller ones on the left screw housing. i had not touched these screws in any way, nor had i scraped the head itself on anything.
has anyone dealt with their customer service regarding warranty replacements? the cracks are an obvious manufacturing defect and i've quickly soured on the Apex. i have another weekend of caving coming up and i now don't have a headlamp to use at all.
PS: we took 4 Apex headlamps into that cave (all 3 of us using them as primaries and one backup), and when we left only one of them was working properly. after mine went out i borrowed a grotto mate's spare, which i made sure NEVER got wet, and it was shorting out before we even finished the survey and decided to head back.