Rebel Stenlight review

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Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Jeff Bartlett » Dec 15, 2008 2:09 pm

As an early adopter, I received a somewhat-experimental version of the Rebel-loaded "premium" Stenlight in November 2007. I have been beating the heck out of it ever since; after a year of field use, and as the caving vendors begin to sell the premium version, I thought it was time to share my overwhelmingly positive experience with the lamp.

This article is from the January 2009 issue of the Little Rock Grotto newsletter, Arkansas Underground, and is hosted on our grotto site here:
http://caves.org/grotto/lrg/pdf/rebelsten.pdf

One caveat: I have loaded my Rebel Sten with J.S. Burly's very-hard-to-find aluminium reflectors, as some others on this board (Dave Riggs, etc) have used in upgraded versions of the original Stenlight. However, I was able to compare this with a standard version of the Rebel Sten, recently purchased by a grotto mate, and took pictures of both units.
"Although it pains me to say it, in this case Jeff is right. Plan accordingly." --Andy Armstrong
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby driggs » Dec 15, 2008 2:34 pm

Great review, Jeff!

I developed a case of stenvy after hearing about your upgraded Sten and about how much more efficient the latest revisions were compared to my "early adopter" Sten. I recently had mine upgraded to "premium", though I haven't had it underground yet.

Brian Masney snapped a photo comparison between the "vanilla" StenLight (L), and my upgraded Rebel StenLight with aftermarket reflectors (R):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/masneyb/3086141752/

Image

Sorry, no photos of beam comparisons yet! I'm curious to see what a "stock" premium Sten comes with: optics or "official" reflectors.
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Scott McCrea » Dec 15, 2008 2:52 pm

Nice review, Jeff. :clap:
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Jeff Bartlett » Dec 15, 2008 2:52 pm

The premium versions are shipping with optics*, though I believe they are slightly different optics that work better with the rebels. I tested several optics when they built mine, and the reflectors were far and away the best. I am kicking myself for not bringing my Autolite when we did the tests, so as to snap test photos of how the beam pattern compares to that of a carbide caplamp.

*edit: i believe these are FROSTED optics that diffuse light a bit better; Dewayne's premium Rebel Sten came with these. See photos attached.

In the review from our newsletter, there are beam pattern comparisons both at close range (against a wall) and long range (in a storm drain tunnel) between a "stock" premium stenlight with collimators and my reflectored version. Those reflectors aren't available anymore (i found mine on candlepowerforums from another user who modified stenlights and had originally bought a small stock of them from J.S. Burly), but David Niemi at Stenlight mentioned on a few occasions that they're considering making their own at a future date, though this didn't seem like a particularly high priority for them.

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Image
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby driggs » Dec 24, 2008 11:59 pm

I finally got to field test my upgraded StenLight this week with 5 full days of TAG caving. John Harman and I compared it to his new Serv-Light in Cemetery Pit's big room, and the premium StenLight killed the Serv-Light in distance and spot brightness; the Serv-Light does indeed have a beautiful, wide and smooth flood, while the Sten has a very discrete flood ring and center spot, but the side-by-side comparison in illuminating far-away features easily went to the StenLight. In fact, I had to continually turn down my StenLight when shooting photos and video because it was too bright for my camera. The upgraded Sten really is like having every setting turned up one notch, and having a new crazy-bright turbo setting. If you cave in big cave, this means more light; if you cave in "mortal" cave, this means much longer battery runtime. If you stare at a survey book for hours-on-end, "low" may not be low enough without sunglasses.

For what it's worth, I caved all week on a single battery charge, but I'm not able to make any claim as to how many actual hours use it was, or how much relative charge was left over - I'll just say that it's nice to not have to even give it thought while on a caving trip!

In addition to upgrading the LEDs, the new premium Sten has a field-replaceable cable (which requires disassembling the back of the lamp with an allen wrench to swap it out) which finally has gold (plated?) pins. I've had continual problems with the connector on my lamp over its three years of heavy use, due to corrosion and mechanical issues with the male and female connectors. While I applaud StenSat for finally going with a corrosion-free pin on the lamp-side, I've already had the "tip" of a new pin get bent, requiring an in-cave fix with a knife to fix. In my opinion, this style connector is just not suited to cave use, and I'll soon be replacing these on my lamp with Deans Ultra plugs. The field-replaceable cable, however, is excellent insurance against a connector or cable short ruining a long cave trip; I keep a replacement and an allen wrench stuffed into my "space blanket kit" at the bottom of my pack.

The upgrade procedure went very smoothly. I purchased the premium upgrade from OnRope 1's website in December 2008, shipped my headlamp to David Niemi at StenSat (who has continually provided me with superb technical support for as long as I've owned my Sten), and it was shipped back to my house in just about one week. Note that my StenLight is a very early model and has aftermarket (JSBurley) reflectors, not the stock or upgraded-stock optics. Vanilla "premium" StenLight may give slightly different results, YMMV.

So, is this upgrade worth $90? Do you cave in borehole, big rooms, or tall domes? Does your definition of "long trip" mean that you won't be sleeping in your own bed tonight? Can you ever have enough light underground? My personal answer is that this upgrade is significant enough that $90 is a bargain for more light, longer runtime, and less chance of primary light failure.
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby adleedy » Dec 26, 2008 12:25 pm

glad to hear how the new sten compares to the new serv-light. I suspected the sten may have more of a spot and less flood than the serv-light.
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Jeff Bartlett » Dec 26, 2008 2:30 pm

Great additions, Dave. You're right about using "low" for sketching, and I usually tilt the lamp slightly upward so I don't have the center spot on my book while I'm drawing. I basically use "medium" in regular (mortal) cave passage and "high" in supermegaboreholes, and don't even bring my charger on weekend trips unless I'm expecting to top 30 hours or so underground between multiple trips.

This is all the more reason for us to cave together soon. Does "inhumane combination of two Rebel-loaded, Burly's-reflectored Stenlights" qualify as karst science?
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Pat Kambesis » Dec 27, 2008 7:57 pm

Though I love my Sten light, for sketching it nearly blinds me because of the reflection off the white paper up into my eyes. So, I also use a Petzl tica which I put under the Sten light. And I have the best of both worlds - looking down I can sketch without glare and looking up I can see brightly lit cave passage.

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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Mark620 » Jan 7, 2009 7:50 pm

Regarding the current reflectors and their design. I have been in contact with the designer (Don) and David C Neimi and here are some snippets:

Mark,
Attached is a PDF of the dimensions of the reflector I did for Jon. This reflector was designed for use with the Luxeon. If a Seoul P4 is used, the focal length as well as focal point would need to be changed which might alter the profile to a point of consideration.
- Don


Another difference I'd like to see is to have a flat "flange" that sticks
above the "web", like the optics do, instead of having a "shoulder" down
below it and relying on a tight fit with the Web or pushing against the
LEDs (which could cause a short in the case of the Luxeon Rebels we are
switching over to). The flange should be something like 0.035" thick.

Mark, where are you located?

DCN

Hi Mark,
I have some small reflectors I designed for use with the Rebel. There is a 10mm OD and 12mm version which is deeper than the 10. These reflectors are designed to seat against the Rebel but they can be pushed hard against it. The Rebel is a tiny LED and needs special care.
- Don

Hi Mark,
Sorry for such a tardy response. I have been in tunnel version on a light build. I don't recall off hand where the difference is between image location of the Rebel VS the Luxeon but I believe a portion of the rear of these reflectors would need to be removed to allow the Rebel to move up into the focal point.

- Don
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Jeff Bartlett » Jan 7, 2009 10:22 pm

Don is the guy who made the reflectors for JS Burly?
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby VACaver » Jan 9, 2009 8:21 am

Quick question...

Side by side, how can you tell a standard Sten from a premium? Looking at my standard and a friends premium, they both look the same.
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Mark620 » Jan 9, 2009 9:14 am

xcathodex wrote:Don is the guy who made the reflectors for JS Burly?


Yes, that's correct, Don made the reflectors(actually he designed them and had them made for Jon)
The second quote is from David C Neimi of Sten. All others are from Don. I tried to make this clear in my post.

I was considering to have another batch of reflectors made. During my conversations with Sten (David and
others at Sten) and Don, I found out that 2 more reflector designs are needed and with a minimum run of
each design, I would have to spend about $ 6,000.00. I can not justify that investment with the lack of
response/demand that I got for reflectors.

Sten does not like the "current" reflector design because it presses down on the LED and could possibly damage it.
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby Mark620 » Jan 9, 2009 9:21 am

VACaver wrote:Quick question...

Side by side, how can you tell a standard Sten from a premium? Looking at my standard and a friends premium, they both look the same.


The Luxeon Rebels are brighter and more efficient than the older Lux3. So this means you have more light output and longer run time
on the same battery (given the batteries have the same amount of charge). Human eyes work on an exponential curve so in order for
us to perceive a change of 2X in brightness the amount of light actually has to increase 10X.

Another thing we need to consider as cavers is that we want a light that covers a large area and the light industry is concerned
about keeping the light concentrated into a small area. This is exactly the opposite of our actual requirements when moving around
in a cave. A good focused light is good for spotting and seeing things that are far away but not good for moving around on an uneven
surface.
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby YuccaPatrol » Jan 9, 2009 9:41 am

Mark620 wrote:Human eyes work on an exponential curve so in order for
us to perceive a change of 2X in brightness the amount of light actually has to increase 10X.


I thought that the light had to increase 4x (not 10x) to perceive the 2x increase?
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Re: Rebel Stenlight review

Postby VACaver » Jan 9, 2009 9:44 am

Mark620 wrote:
VACaver wrote:Quick question...

Side by side, how can you tell a standard Sten from a premium? Looking at my standard and a friends premium, they both look the same.


The Luxeon Rebels are brighter and more efficient than the older Lux3. So this means you have more light output and longer run time
on the same battery (given the batteries have the same amount of charge). Human eyes work on an exponential curve so in order for
us to perceive a change of 2X in brightness the amount of light actually has to increase 10X.

Another thing we need to consider as cavers is that we want a light that covers a large area and the light industry is concerned
about keeping the light concentrated into a small area. This is exactly the opposite of our actual requirements when moving around
in a cave. A good focused light is good for spotting and seeing things that are far away but not good for moving around on an uneven
surface.


I should have added "without turning on the lights" to my original posts. So, to re-phrase the question...how can you tell the difference between the two lights if they are sitting side-by-side without turning them on? Is there a visual difference?
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