A question for all you cavers...

[csa]

Yeah, Yucca Patrol has a good point.

The best light for you is going to depend to some extent on where you're caving. The lava caves I tend to spend time in have fewer large spaces and far more close and mid-distance conditions.

I've been iterating through a handful of custom lights, currently using something a 3 LED setup that's ugly as sin but provides the right options for me, namely, efficient, plenty of flood, pretty dim most of the time, with a switch for better brightness/throw if I need it. I don't cave with idiots who bring too much light and then whine about it the whole time - we let our eyes get dark adjusted and then run our lights dim. It works out to a similar effect in the end. I mount the batteries on the helmet since it doesn't need a monster pack to keep it fed.

Of course, this only works if your whole party realizes that dim is similar to bright, and it isn't the right approach for caves that consist primarily of huge caverns.

If you have the money, spend it on one of the linked lights earlier in the thread designed for caving. They're really nice, and you avoid the durability and reliability problems that plague most other solutions.

 

[bnemmie]

I have been using my Steinligght S7 for a while now and it has been great for me. All aluminum construction, several modes, long battery life, very bright....

I have the larger battery so i can use it all day on High and have a couple 9V batts i keep in my back for backup in case the main battery dies. I can get by on the Low setting for 90% of the trip, the other settings are too bright unless i need to bounce big light off a high ceiling. Thats what works for me.

But in all reality look for something waterproof and well made, with a long runtime, and something you can ger REALLY dirty. Just like csa said try one of the name brand linked lights. they wont let you down. after you have tried out a few, then you can figure out what works best for you.

Just my $00.02 hope it helps

 

[cyclopsed]

@brian321:
i have been playing around with SSC-P7´s and all i can say until now is:
- the brighter may not be the better, for example getting 700 lumens in a huge cave is nice for looking around, but you are blinding your team mates, thus favorizing accidents that shall not happen at all. running my P7 at 350 mA is still blinding. lesson I learnt: if it´s bright, you shall have an opportunity to dim it in some manner to 1% to a maximum of 3% (speaking about P7´s)
- in the same perspective, the brighter you light is, the harder will be thrown shadows for your team mates during marches, their night view has to adopt more and thus its more fatiguing for them, ergo favorizing accidents.
- nothing can replace that wonderfull warm tint carbide has. look for warm tints or bins or at least neutral white.
- speaking about carbide: I carry it all the time with me (without water in the tank, there are several sources that contain H2O) , it´s my life insurance if everything else fails AND it´s a source of heat if you are going to get stuck for a while.

edit: you will sooner or later see that Murphy always is right, especially in situations that are difficult: carry a carbide lamp.

 

[TorchBoy]

Quite apart from damaging the cave and polluting the air and possibly cave waterways, of course, there are some truly horrible things that can go wrong with carbide lamps. But cyclopsed importantly doesn't really believe "you will sooner or later see that Murphy always is right".

 

[cyclopsed]

torchboy, i think you miss understood me, but that may happen.

i actually run just on LEDs (petzl duo) in the caves and am best aware about polution with carbide, to be honest i'm horrified by this grey-black smear you find in many caves.
considering murphy: there is always something going wrong, you loose time and it starts with someone entering with already partially depleted batteries, forgetting backup batteries or having not enough...

 

[TorchBoy]

it starts with someone entering with already partially depleted batteries, forgetting backup batteries or having not enough...

Thankfully I haven't been in that situation since white LEDs arrived.

 

[Matjazz]

I've handled Scurion, my friend has Stenlight and I'm a long time user of Petzl Duo (14led).
For a novice in caving I would definitely recommend the duo because it's simple, not too expensive (100€) and it won't let you down. Our cave rescue team members (54 of them) have duos, Postojna Cave has 50+ helmets with duo and every member of my caving club has it. So far I've heard of duos failing only due to negligence resulting in battery leakage. I've even seen cave divers using them in shallow waters.

Stenlight has pathetic battery pack solution. A pack of batteries is attached to helmet with velcro Bad for squeezes and even worse for muddy squeezes where pack gets bumped off and mud gets on velcro as it happened with my friend. He ended up making a custom battery case and screwed it on helmet. It also doesn't have separate flood and beam options.

Scurion seemed heavy and it costs a lot :duh2: (more than I paid for a second hand car engine)

 

[vtunderground]

Stenlight has pathetic battery pack solution.

I agree... I'd be so scared that one good bump to the battery pack, and there'd be a "vent with flame" incident on the back of my head.

 

[cyclopsed]

Thankfully I haven't been in that situation since white LEDs arrived.

LOL, it did'nt happen to me either,...
but i had crew members...

 

[PeLu]

So far I've heard of duos failing only due to negligence resulting in battery leakage.

I have seen many Duos failing (including my own).

There was even a trip when all four cavers with Duos had problems with them(different ones!).

I had a hard time to fix them on the caving expeditions I had been since it was released. They are extremly maintainance unfriendly.....

And many of these problems could not be blamed to misuse or negligence.

We do not rate it as a caving light, it was a fine headlight when it came to the market.

 

[TorchBoy]

it was a fine headlight when it came to the market.

How many years ago was that? It's doing well to still be made.

 

[NYCaver]

How many years ago was that? It's doing well to still be made.

Exactly. The Duo has its niche which is the gap between lower end, headband style lights, and the high end indestructible ones. There are a couple things it has going for it. 1. Usually remains waterproof, which can't be said of a lot of competitors. 2. Redundancy in the form of the LED or bulb switch option. Bulb also serves as a great battery indicator. Downside is that with its weak beam, its best use is as a battery indicator.

As far as negatives go I'd have to say the biggest is petzl's refusal to modernize the LED technology in the duo. They have a great basic design so why not just build off of that with some modern led's? What's even more confusing is that their hazardous environment version of the DUO uses a high power LED in the place of the bulb, yet this hasn't made its way to the caving version.

PeLu, what was the cause of the failures you've come across? Would you say the Duo is more maintenance un-friendly than other similar commercial lights? I would say it gives up its secrets a lot more easily than comparable headlamps. After all, how many lamps can you buy repair kits for?

 

[Matjazz]

I have seen many Duos failing (including my own)... They are extremly maintainance unfriendly.....

Now that you mentioned, I do remember 5 duos failing, but they were all mounted on helmets by users and had their cables on the out side unlike the factory mounted duos that have cables under the helmet. As for maintenance, I opened my duo years ago when I bought moduled 5 and recently for moduled 14 and my own halogen mod. As far as I know my fellow cavers they just clean the helmet and keep an eye on batteries. And that's all the maintenance on their years old duos.

 

[PeLu]

How many years ago was that? It's doing well to still be made.

I got my first one in 1996 or 1995.

PeLu, what was the cause of the failures you've come across?

wires in the cables breaking, contact problems both front and rear, switches not working. Battery box top coming off.

Would you say the Duo is more maintenance un-friendly than other similar commercial lights?

Yes, it is very difficult changing the cables.

When we used incandescent bulbs it was almost impossible to change the bulb in alpine caves. Or took quite some time and effort.

It was ingenius when it hit the market, having a focus, spare bulbs inside, locking switch.
First it was rated as waterproof to 50m. I guess only about one third of the Duos were waterproof to more than 1m.

Braking cables are less of a problem on a permanently installed Duo.

(as most people here know, I'm trying to fixi the technical problems on our caving expeditions since the late 70ies....)

I would not buy one nowadays.

 

[NYCaver]

Since you seem to know quite a bit about the Duo, and have moved on to other things:

In the Duo price range, are there lights you would recommend over the Duo? Or are you just buying more expensive lights now?

Sorry if this whole DUO discussion seems to be off topic! It seems to be pretty much in the same realm as what the OP was asking about.

 

[Matjazz]

Duo has changed since 1996; all contacts are now stainless steel and battery pack has aluminum clamps.

I was also looking for something to replace my duo because I couldn't settle with inefficient halogen beam. The Princeton Apex seemed appealing. It uses 4xAA, has separate flood and beam and seems to be bright enough. While I believed I could make it waterproof, I didn't see a way to protect the cable that is attached to one of the top two corners of battery pack which get scratched and bumped the most.

So I went the other way and modded duo with Cree Q5 and lens to replace halogen beam.

 

[bnemmie]

I not too sure about that. I have my 5000 mAh battery mounted on the inside of my helmet and it has never given me a problem. It may not work for everyone but it does for me. That gives me 16 hours on High, 54 hours on Medium and over 7 days on Low. Plenty long for me.

 

[NYCaver]

I not too sure about that. I have my 5000 mAh battery mounted on the inside of my helmet and it has never given me a problem. It may not work for everyone but it does for me. That gives me 16 hours on High, 54 hours on Medium and over 7 days on Low. Plenty long for me.

Wow, there's room for a 5000mAh pack inside your helmet? Is it on the top/roof of the helmet? If so, are you aware that foreign objects inside the helmet will negate much of the safety the helmet provides in that area? It may not be so much of a concern in some situations, but in vertical caves I personally wouldn't want anything big and hard on the inside of my helmet.

 

[kevinm]

So I went the other way and modded duo with Cree Q5 and lens to replace halogen beam.

More info, please.
Kevin

 

[kevinm]

Wow, there's room for a 5000mAh pack inside your helmet? Is it on the top/roof of the helmet? If so, are you aware that foreign objects inside the helmet will negate much of the safety the helmet provides in that area? It may not be so much of a concern in some situations, but in vertical caves I personally wouldn't want anything big and hard on the inside of my helmet.

Yeah, particularly if it's lithium. I don't like it when my head catches on fire!:candle: