Everyone has their own preferences for an LED head torch. Mine is for a focussed beam to point light at a good position for working, but others prefer a wider wash of light. The flexible COB strip is an interesting twist. Other versions seem to have a second circuit with red LEDs for maintaining night vision.
I regard head torches as being essential for power outages as it's much more useful to light what you're looking at instead of trying to light a whole room.
The circuitry in this light isn't too bad. It's fairly textbook, with a minimal design. My only slight concern is the position of the solder pads for the infrared detection. They are close to the surface of the pouch cell, although they've cropped them short before soldering, so the wires don't protrude much.
I've since been sent a picture showing that the solder points can indeed pierce the lithium cell, but in that case it just caused electrolyte leakage corrosion and didn't go far enough to cause a short circuit in the cell.
I measured the LED current directly powered at 100% at 4.2V (full charge) and 3V (discharged).
Main COB strip @4.2V = 1130mA @3V = 280mA
Focussed beam @4.2V = 487mA @3V = 107mA
Standby current is too low to measure, but the lack of resistors in series with the status indicator LEDs means they are being driven at 20mA each! They could really have done with a 1K resistor in series with each LED. That also means that when in infrared standby with both LEDs lit the total current is 70mA of which the majority is the red and green status LEDs.
During use the lights will start bright, but as the lithium cell discharges the intensity and current will decrease, giving a decent run time.
I use a head torch at work a lot, and tend to use it at the lowest intensity that still allows comfortable working, to get the maximum run time between charges.
These lights can be found on eBay by searching for either:-
All perspectives induction headlamp
or
night buddy headlamp
The cost should be around £$€10.
Alternatively you can buy the heavily marketed version for around three times that price.
Supporting the channel with a dollar or two on Patreon helps keep it independent of YouTube's quirks, avoids intrusive mid-video adverts, gives early access, bonus footage and regular quiet Patreon live streams.
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
#ElectronicsCreators
I regard head torches as being essential for power outages as it's much more useful to light what you're looking at instead of trying to light a whole room.
The circuitry in this light isn't too bad. It's fairly textbook, with a minimal design. My only slight concern is the position of the solder pads for the infrared detection. They are close to the surface of the pouch cell, although they've cropped them short before soldering, so the wires don't protrude much.
I've since been sent a picture showing that the solder points can indeed pierce the lithium cell, but in that case it just caused electrolyte leakage corrosion and didn't go far enough to cause a short circuit in the cell.
I measured the LED current directly powered at 100% at 4.2V (full charge) and 3V (discharged).
Main COB strip @4.2V = 1130mA @3V = 280mA
Focussed beam @4.2V = 487mA @3V = 107mA
Standby current is too low to measure, but the lack of resistors in series with the status indicator LEDs means they are being driven at 20mA each! They could really have done with a 1K resistor in series with each LED. That also means that when in infrared standby with both LEDs lit the total current is 70mA of which the majority is the red and green status LEDs.
During use the lights will start bright, but as the lithium cell discharges the intensity and current will decrease, giving a decent run time.
I use a head torch at work a lot, and tend to use it at the lowest intensity that still allows comfortable working, to get the maximum run time between charges.
These lights can be found on eBay by searching for either:-
All perspectives induction headlamp
or
night buddy headlamp
The cost should be around £$€10.
Alternatively you can buy the heavily marketed version for around three times that price.
Supporting the channel with a dollar or two on Patreon helps keep it independent of YouTube's quirks, avoids intrusive mid-video adverts, gives early access, bonus footage and regular quiet Patreon live streams.
https://www.patreon.com/bigclive
#ElectronicsCreators
The focused side lamp is unusable if you're wearing glasses
I love mine for walking outside and just general use. I will go get the regular magnetic work lights for actually working on stuff but I'll keep this on so I can see around me. Overall it was a good buy, and cheap. I see Facebook ads for these all the time with links that show the same thing I got on Amazon for like 2 times the price. Look out for that.
"Hey Buddy, can you lend a brother a dime?"
Hate the flash/strobe feature just because it's pointless.
Those are everywhere, both on eBay and Amazon. But it’s nice to see the soft ones for a change. There are some that have the focus lamp on a swivel on top of the led strip and some that have sensors for proximity and a hard backing (usually a thin sheet of drawn aluminum or abs polymer). Just beware that most of them have poor to shoddy quality and they will let water in if you use them in the rain. Some have such poor insulation or tolerance fittings that if you just use them as-is and strap to your forehead and go for a walk, the perspiration will get inside the “protective” area of the photo strip and fog it up or even short it. Also there are plenty that have very short cables between the battery and control pack that make using them in cramped spaces, where there’s a high likelihood of hitting your head/helmet/headlight to be a huge hazard for the headlight itself. Had to change the cables from one set because they were so thin that just the act of removing it from my head and folding the headlight with its strap to store/recharge would break the originals (got one set waiting for a cable set that only the photo strip works, the headlamp got either cooked or the wires for its switch in the board snapped as well).
I had one. Its getting too hot and your forehead is sweaty like hell. Returned it
This could be great for the longer fishing sessions. Does it work while being charged ?
When doing headlamp reviews all people want to know is how long battery lasts(for obvious reasons), and on this vid it's a big fail.
If only you could turn on both lights at same time (without the flashing)
make no sense why you cant
Nice. Look up "lightbar" as another brand there, some nice ads on tube here for that one. Re: Humble Mechanic, Boermedia, Mountain Block Moments, kind of thing.
the SOS function in Chinese flashlights is ridiculous.
Not so enamoured with how when it's on your forehead it's pointing forwards and not forwards+down where you're usually looking.
I created my own rechargeable headtorch for £3 out of a Poundland 3xAAA COB headtorch and a £2 USB powerbank, combined together in a 3D print it points down at 30 degrees to light the area your eyes are naturally looking at. I get 4 hours on full brightness, and more than an entire night on the half-brightness setting.
Handy bit of kit ,if like mine though quickly becomes hot on the forehead
Maybe I'm buying from the wrong sellers. I've bought several of these because I like the light coverage but even on low-intensity cob mode I get only a couple of hours of runtime. On full power it's more like 45 minutes. Good thing I have several to see me through longer jobs.