Mortises and hiking in the dark
 

I went hiking with some buddies yesterday morning starting in the dark
at 6:00 A.M. We used headlamps till it was light enough to see. These
things have really improved in the past few years!

It occurred to me that a headlamp would be perfect to help me see down
into mortises I'm trying to clean out. Even though my shop is well
lighted, my old eyes still have trouble.....or sometimes I've got my
head into the indide of a piece I'm building trying to apply a finish,
or repair a mistake or add something.....

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones. Their are
cheaper clones from China out there, too.

On 15 Oct 2004 06:37:49 -0700, (Never Enough
Money) wrote:

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Handy things, but I only use them for crawling around under machines.
If you need more light, go to a S/H office furniture shop and get a
big old draughtsman's Anglepoise or Luxo, preferably wall mounted. One
with a magnifier _and_ a hinged lid over the top can do double duty as
either light, or light and magnifier.

If you really want a headlight, get an LED one. More efficient, less
power needed, so lighter batteries.

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones.

No, they make the expensive ones. I've a pile of Petzls with bust
switches - even the cool one with the non-round screwthread.


--
Smert' spamionam

emptyshell asks:

t occurred to me that a headlamp would be perfect to help me see down
into mortises I'm trying to clean out. Even though my shop is well
lighted, my old eyes still have trouble.....or sometimes I've got my
head into the indide of a piece I'm building trying to apply a finish,
or repair a mistake or add something.....

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones. Their are
cheaper clones from China out there, too.

Craftsman sells a set of glasses frames (no lenses, though they also come with
safety lenses) with a tiltable LED spotlight on each earpiece just back of the
headpiece...should work like a charm, and IIRC, they're not too costly, maybe
$15.

Charlie Self
"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other
is pulling up." Booker T. Washington

On 15 Oct 2004 06:37:49 -0700, (Never Enough
Money) wrote:



Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Occasionally - only when I can't get a lamp in someplace.


Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones. Their are
cheaper clones from China out there, too.

I saw Andy's note about a pile of busted ones. I have a Petzl. So far
it's still alive. I had great plans for it - but have cooled on it.

I find that tilting my head to aim the lamp often makes me need to
shift my gaze. Or vice versa. It hangs on my pegboard more often than
not these days.

That said - when I find a need for it - it is very useful. It's just
a rare occurrence.

A few months ago i bought a magnifying glass attached to a head starp
that just happens to have lights on both sides. I have only used the
lights a few times but they provide an amazing amount of light. must
have looked wierd to people who drove by while I was cleaning my
gutters the other day in enar darkness.

otforme (Charlie Self) wrote in message ...
emptyshell asks:

t occurred to me that a headlamp would be perfect to help me see down
into mortises I'm trying to clean out. Even though my shop is well
lighted, my old eyes still have trouble.....or sometimes I've got my
head into the indide of a piece I'm building trying to apply a finish,
or repair a mistake or add something.....

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones. Their are
cheaper clones from China out there, too.

Craftsman sells a set of glasses frames (no lenses, though they also come with
safety lenses) with a tiltable LED spotlight on each earpiece just back of the
headpiece...should work like a charm, and IIRC, they're not too costly, maybe
$15.

Charlie Self
"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other
is pulling up." Booker T. Washington

On 15 Oct 2004 06:37:49 -0700, (Never Enough
Money) wrote:

I went hiking with some buddies yesterday morning starting in the dark
at 6:00 A.M. We used headlamps till it was light enough to see. These
things have really improved in the past few years!

Tell me about it! I mountain bike at night! G

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Sometimes.

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones. Their are
cheaper clones from China out there, too.

High end? Check out these:

http://www.niterider.com/index.htm

A bicycle can be moving 10 times the speed of a good hiker, and
deliver the same multiple of impact to the light in a crash. 8^(
Hiking lights are too easy to out ride the beam on a bicycle. These
are also the lights used by most Police bike squads.

With a $400 HID headlamp, I can ride for 3+ hours and see better than
daylight. I can recharge it in one hour.

Outdoors at night is the best!

Barry

Oops. I visited REI today at lunch and wound up buying a Petzl Tikka
Plus before I read you "don't buy Petzl" warning. (I posted a response
similar to this hours ago but got a message that tere was a network
problem -- I haven't seen it yet so it looks like it was probably lost
in the internet...

Assuming the power switch is good, let me offer rec.woodworking my
unscientific tradeoff analysis... between The Petzl MYO 5, The Petzl
Tikka Plus, and the Black Diamond Gemini Headlamp.

Petzl MYO 5 Petzl Tikka Plus Black
Diamond Gemini
Price $75 $33 $38
Halogen yes no yes
# LED's 5 4 2
batteries 4 AA 3AAA 3 AA
tilt yes yes yes
weight 4.9 w/0 batteries 1.3 7.1
battery location back front back
focus yes no no
water resistent yes yes yes
extra bulb halogen LED halogen
number of settings 5 3 + blinking 3
battery life/setting ??? 80/120/150/480 7/?/500
halogen range 100 meters N/A 70
meters
LED range/setting ??? 15/10/5 ~10


The hologen bulb feature is nice for a beam -- in case you need to see
whether that's a bear making a noise 100 yards away. It does drain the
battery though.

I got conflicting data on the Black Diamond battery life -- one web
source said 7 hours on max brightness and 500 on the dimest. Another
said 4 on the max and 69 on the dim.

My decision: since I use mine mostly for woodworking, not avoiding
cliffs in the dark or spotting wild animals about to attack, I wanted
comfort. This drove me to the Tikka plus because it's very light and
the batteries are in front so if I lay my head on the bottom of a
cabinet I don't have a battery pack as a pillow. The halogen beam was
not as important.






Andy Dingley wrote in message . ..
On 15 Oct 2004 06:37:49 -0700, (Never Enough
Money) wrote:

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Handy things, but I only use them for crawling around under machines.
If you need more light, go to a S/H office furniture shop and get a
big old draughtsman's Anglepoise or Luxo, preferably wall mounted. One
with a magnifier _and_ a hinged lid over the top can do double duty as
either light, or light and magnifier.

If you really want a headlight, get an LED one. More efficient, less
power needed, so lighter batteries.

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones.

No, they make the expensive ones. I've a pile of Petzls with bust
switches - even the cool one with the non-round screwthread.

The hologen bulb feature is nice for a beam -- in case you need to see
whether that's a bear making a noise 100 yards away. It does drain the
battery though.

I use a LED flashlight in a headband made to hold it. I think it's actually
made to hold a mini-mag lite. That way, it does double duty -- you can use
it as a normal flashlight too.

Andy Dingley wrote:

On 15 Oct 2004 06:37:49 -0700, (Never Enough
Money) wrote:

Anybody use headlamps in their shop?

Handy things, but I only use them for crawling around under machines.
If you need more light, go to a S/H office furniture shop and get a
big old draughtsman's Anglepoise or Luxo, preferably wall mounted. One
with a magnifier _and_ a hinged lid over the top can do double duty as
either light, or light and magnifier.

FWIW, resist the temptation to get one of the cheap Luxo lookalikes that
Home Depot and the like sell. While they work fine for a while, when the
ballast goes you can't get it fixed--with a real Luxo parts are available.

If you really want a headlight, get an LED one. More efficient, less
power needed, so lighter batteries.

Seems a company called Petzl makes the high end ones.

No, they make the expensive ones. I've a pile of Petzls with bust
switches - even the cool one with the non-round screwthread.



--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:28:29 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

FWIW, resist the temptation to get one of the cheap Luxo lookalikes that
Home Depot and the like sell.

I'm in the UK. Parts backup on a _genuine_ Luxo is non-existent. Get
a real 1930's Anglepoise and pretend you're Norman Bel Geddes !

(I went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow last week)

Andy Dingley wrote:

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 19:28:29 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

FWIW, resist the temptation to get one of the cheap Luxo lookalikes that
Home Depot and the like sell.

I'm in the UK. Parts backup on a _genuine_ Luxo is non-existent. Get
a real 1930's Anglepoise and pretend you're Norman Bel Geddes !

Didn't mean to seem to be putting down Anglepoise--should have said "genuine
Luxo or Anglepoise" and you can add Dacor to the mix as well. I recall
rows of lamps with the distinctive Anglepoise ballast in the drafting
department at Hamilton-Standard in the early '80s. Probably have been
there since the '30s.

My comment was directed at the Taiwanese knockoffs that go for about a
quarter the price.

(I went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow last week)

I liked that movie. The cover of every pulp SF magazine of the Golden Age
brought to life. I suspect from the comments at IMDB that the younger
generation doesn't appreciate it.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)