TruLight Caver LED headlamp

[NZcaver]

I was surfing the net this morning for something else and stumbled on this guy - TruLight Caver

It's made in New Zealand, and is in the same price range as a Stenlight. It features a spot and 2 floods, and each seem to be independently controlled. The battery is a lithium ion pack. A neat feature is that one of the floods is specifically designed to be an electrically redundant backup light. It has a small independent battery contained within the main battery package, and separate wiring and switch.

All LEDs are 1W Luxeons, and therefore the brightness and runtimes are not quite as impressive as competing lights. I don't know why they're not using 'industry standard' 3W Luxeons or SSCs, but perhaps their original design pre-dated these more efficient LEDs?

Anyone own/used/seen one of these? Other than the manufacturer page, I couldn't find anything on the web. No reviews, caver comments or anything. Maybe they're too pricey for cheap Kiwi cavers, and nobody else knows about them?

[Chads93GT]

aren't very bright at all, no one probably buys them...........

[potholer]

According to the site, the LEDs are Luxeon Rebels, so maybe not quite as efficient as the very best Crees, but pretty close.

[Tassie Caver]

We have one in our club, and I happen to have ordered one (so have talked myself into thinking they are good enough). In the Australian context it comes in cheaper than the Stenlight. I haven't seen it go up against a Sten, but it has been through some tough, wet caves and survived ... so it's not hopeless. Certainly not in the Scurion league (which it has been caving with), but certainly a reasonable contender.

The light comes via Aspiring Enterprises in NZ who make trog suits, harnesses and the like. The owner had the light designed for his own caving needs, and its been around for 2 years now, and has proved to be reasonably robust. It's been designed more for long (2 week) expiditions at Mt Owen rather than been superbright. There a couple of things that look a bit shonky on first glance but are explained and defended in the faq on the aforementioned website, and when I spoke to Aspiring they were quite upfront about what it could and couldn't do.

There is a bit of a waiting list at the moment, so I'm not sure how serious a commercial venture the light itself is. It more complements the businesses other products (which are quite popular in our club). I would doubt if there are that many around outside NZ.

[NZcaver]

Welcome to the forum, Tassie Caver.

Thanks for your input. I think you're our first Tasmanian caver on the forum. I hear there's some nice holes in your neck of the woods.

[Tassie Caver]

Thanks for the warm welcome. We do have a lot of great caves down here. We're lucky to have all the good vertical caves in Aus.