On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 17:25:28 GMT, JohnF
wrote:

They have relatively inexpensive LED lights with headbands at WalMart
in the sporting goods section. Run about 50+ hours on 3 AAA batteries.
I use then at one shop I do work for that, apparently, doesn't believe
in lighting around the machines.

JohnF

Those are better than no light, but two LED's don't produce much light
and 3 AAA's are kinda heavy and bulky for a head-mounted light.
Best feature is low price.

I think the "ideal" head light would use a single Luxeon and a single
lithium 123 cell -- which costs about the same as three alky AAA's if
you buy them a dozen at a time from Surefire. It would be
adjustable in power from 2-LED dim (for max battery life) to full
brightness which is about 10X that for when you really need some
serious light.

Battery life at WOT would vary from about 6 hours at WOT to about 60
hours in "glimmer" mode which would still be brighter than the 2-LED
jobs when their batteries are fresh. Brightness would be constant
(as set) throughout battery life. Battery weight would be half that
of 3 AAA's, bulk would be somewhat less than 3 AAAs.

The same basic 3-volt light could also run from 2 AAA's (different
package design) if universal battery availability were a concern.
Battery life would be about the same, perhaps slightly less.

AFAIK, nobody makes a light like this -- yet. Consumers seem to buy
price, often without regard to performance.

If I worked under hoods or in other dark places every day, I'd
surely have built one like this by now. There are Luxeon-based
head lights, but they're not dimmable, they have too concentrated a
"spot" for close task use, and I know of none that use a single 123
cell. I'm still working on the elex for such a light. COSMOS has
very good 3-volt elex in their single-123 luxeon flashlights, but I
don't know how they work.

I used Terralux TLE-5 elex in the 3-volt head lights I made for
myself and Fitch, but I changed the Luxeons from side-shooter to
Lambertian for close task flood illumination. They work well, but
they're not dimmable. They would run off a single 123, presently
run off a pair of AA's because that's what fit in the HF package I
used.