I have finished evaluating the passaround mod. I went with 4 other folks to Camps Gulf this past weekend. I figured if this was supposed to be the best commercially available LED cavelight platform (the stenlight) paired with the best available LEDs, then it needed to tested where the big rooms gobble up the biggest of lights.
I got a well travelled box in the mail from Scott Thursday afternoon containing the modified head and a battery. The headpiece looks like it was crushed somehow (as if run over by something really heavy, like a truck, for instance), but I've learned that it's probably been like that for a while. No big deal, despite being a bit mashed at the pivot point, it worked fine. Infact it made me realize that this really is a tough light, and worthy of upgrading as LED technology advances. If a plastic headlight were subjected to whatever this light was, I suspect it would be a worthless pile of plastic now.
I mounted the passaround sten to my helmet and put my own personal stenlight, with the Custom aluminum reflectors from Jon
in my SWAYGO Pit Pack
along with its fully charged battery. I, like Scott, noticed the obvious fact that on the same setting, for example "high", the modified sten seemed almost twice as bright as my original. I also noticed the color is whiter. The artifacts are more greenish than blue like mine, which seems a bit warmer. While we were resting in one of the big dome rooms, I got out my sten for comparison. I'm guessing the room was at least 200 feet tall and several hundred across (which looks alot like the picture on the back cover of the NSS News this month [May 07], the one that Nathan took
in Rumbling Falls, a nearby cave). Everyone in the party agreed that the modified version was alot brighter. Another thing I noticed is that the hotspot is hardly visible on the modified unit, and I definitely liked that.
Hope that helps...
NEXT.........