Discussion: Best torch for night navigation

I use a Spike light head torch which I think is pretty good. In spot light mode it has a 200m range from 250 lumens and in a bright flood mode it will give you 10m or better range at 40 lumens. The battery will last about 13 hours continuous so long as you are miserly with your use of the spot light. The whole lot weighs about 275g

I was wondering what else was out there that might provide a better performance. Does anyone have any suggestions?

This is the best in my opinion. It doesn't last as long (~4hours) but its almost as good as running in the day.
http://www.brightbikelights.com/index.php?option=c...

...and you can probably get it a lot cheaper if you look around the web for a while.

"The most powerfull LED light" :) http://www.lupine.de/web/en/products/headlights/be...

With an appropriate price tag to match :(

Thanks for bringing these two products to my attention, but I can see straight away that there are issues of balance - weighing up light output with battery life and weight.

Both products seem to have limitations that are deal breakers for me - one only has a four hour battery life and the other weighs twice as much.

For a 24hr rogaine, I'm looking for a light weight torch that will last all night on one battery and give me 200m+ range for spotting and a decent walking light area of say 10-20m.

Plus anything greater than 200m and I couldn't identify a control anyway.

The other factor is the cost. My SpikeLight cost $AUS300 but it is handmade and support and service is just a phonecall away.

For a 24hr rogaine, I'm looking for a light weight torch that will last all night on one battery and give me 200m+ range for spotting and a decent walking light area of say 10-20m.

And....you already have one?

There's a reason why Ash started making the Spike light - because there's no market for it outside rogaining, so no other company is going to do it. I'm not knocking the light itself (the spot light is ridiculously good) but it's completely skewed towards control-spotting at long distance for short periods of time. Every other light made by a commercial company who wants to get some sort of market share will make compromises to suit multiple sports - eg. Ay-ups.

Ash didn't have to compromise his objective, and so you get an awesome single-purpose light.

So... Ash is wanting more sales for the Spike, and has got a couple of WA mates to have a "conversation" about his wonderful headlamp? C'mon Mr Rogaine, you've only just discovered there are compromises between light and life and weight?

Hooray, I've been suckered into participating in my first fake viral marketing campaign. I feel so....dirty and yet so....wanted. This must be what it feels like to be an Essendon supporter. :(

For the record I don't, and wouldn't, own a Spike light, and I'm pretty sure Ash has no idea who I am.

I don't really see the problem with carrying the massive extra weight of a 6hr Ayup battery to make sure I get through the night. Can anyone really tell the difference from carrying an extra 138g in their pack?

Ash knows nothing about my postings and I doubt he knows about AP. I don't think we would ever consider each other to be more than acquaintences.Spike Lights are very good lights, the best I've found for rogaining so far, but they are expensive being hand made. Hopefully one day he will be able to do production runs and reduce the costs.

I said from the outset that I had a Spike Light and I have no need to disclose an interest because there is none. No commission, no reward, not even any knowledge by Ash of this discussion. No mention of his website.

Yet, despite the world wide reach of this website, no one has offered a better alternative so far. Disappointing. The website in Russian was interesting and I would never have found it otherwise.

Maybe some one will suggest a better alternative in which case I would seriously consider it. I suspect I will be waiting for a long while which is a pity. Surely one of the benefits of www is the sharing of knowledge.

Over the years I've discovered rogainers like to talk lots about food, lights and troublesome controls.

I read stuff on this site and where possible offer the benefit of my experience and pick up hints and tips to improve my lot. I've recently decided to modify my food list for the next rogaine, taking into account Tooms' and Fletch's use of electrolyte tabs.

As for the balance of weight/performance/battery life - for some this is not obvious. A fellow rogainer,who is a friend, years ago built his own halogen helmet set that started spontaneous fires from the light intensity. But it weighed a tonne and he just didn't get it. A very clever electrical engineer and yet he persisted with his creation for years until uncommon sense finally took over.

Oh and least Essendon supporters have hope unlike Docker's supporters who have none. :-)

Oh, and in my time as a rogainer I've had the whole range of torches from a $10 cheapie using lots of D cell batteries to Petzl's first LED/halogen combo using AA's so yeah, I get a bit interested in how much weight I carry in spare batteries. Rogaining is a mind game. You do whatever makes you feel like you have an edge and most time there is not a lot of room for logic. :-)

Your last point is a good one:)
The step up from my old AA powered Petzl to my current Ayups was amazing. They now have lights 40% brighter than mine (but shorter battery life). I can't imagine needing more light - if I'm not close enought to a control to see it with what I've got, then I've stuffed it anyway.
The newer (than one of the two I;ve got) batteries also have a low power option, which gives pretty good light and a 12 hr burn time
I also find carrying 1 spare battery that plugs into the lightset a lot easier than fiddling with AA's that have to be stuck inside a battery pack.
But then, I've never seen a Spike light in action, so dunno what I'm up against

Their beam shots are pretty representative of the beam itself, although I'm not sure about those distance measurements. Very, very tightly focussed beam, there's almost no spill.

Another option is to use a generic LED headlamp for walking around, and a separate high intensity handheld light for distant control spotting. In addition, there was a thread a couple of years ago about a cheap Chinese knockoff of the Lupine Tesla. I think at the end of that thread, kadley was waiting for his to arrive and said that he would give a report when he got it. I've spoken to him about it recently, and he said that he is entirely pleased.

Yeah, thats the magicshine. a nice non-partisan Review

yes, I've had the magicshine light for a couple years. Got it when it had high-low-flash and not 5 settings like the current model. Took a month to come in from China, but that seems to be better now, talking to others. Will run thru an all night rogaine on low with one battery, although I've carried a spare battery for a late season race. Low is bright enough for 95% of my travel.

Video mentions light gauge wire. Did in fact have a failure of the wire and had to do a repair job. I'm now careful about handling to prevent kinking or stressing the wiring. Battery is heavy for running on a headband, so I carry it in a pack with a long lead. While this is my primary light, I also carry a micro-headlamp as a backup in case of total failure, which can happen.

So if you race against me (phast Generation), don't buy one. But for everyone else, it's a good deal.

You may want to check out any of the bike lights that use the b-Flex or L-Flex control boards. They allow you to run at brightness up to 1000 lumens for shorter periods of time, or run for days at lower levels. They tend to run 90% efficient. Not all have good headband options though.

There are other options that don't have good digital regulation for lower levels, but they're 65-80% efficient and don't have long burn times

Bash and I did some tests, and we got 17 hours on medium (about 400 lumens) from her Night Lightning with a 2.2aH battery.

Her bigger 5.2aH battery ran at High ( 900 lumens) for 10 hours, over 40 hours at medium.

The low settings would go for days, and would be fine for map reading and non-technical sections.

There's a thread on the topic on the Lights DIY forum at http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=707749

Comparison between one of the b-flex lights and a common other brand:
http://www.klite.com.au/content/compare-klite-spec...

Also google "Magicshine failure". They fail in so many ways it's amazing. But they are dirt cheap and throw a lot of light. There are a lot of similar clones on eBay and DealExtreme with similar problems.

I used their headband and some connectors in my homemade Sled light. Those parts are decent and cheap.

The setup is similar to this one:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showpost.php?p=8099622&post...

One of the Magicshine cautions:

http://www.torchythebatteryboy.com/p/magicshine.ht...

"Early in 2010, I bought some of the impressive looking Magicshine MJ-816 1400 Lumen lights.
33% were faulty.

Later in the year Shenzhen Minjun made me an offer to try more of the lights. This time the failure rate had improved to 20% across the range, with the exception of the MJ-836, all of which were faulty on arrival. Batteries and chargers are particularly prone to failure. The light units suffer from faulty switching and weak mounts.

It seems I am not the only one having problems with them, as they were withdrawn from sale in America due to concerns their distributor had over the quality of the batteries:
http://www.geomangear.com/index.php?main_page=inde... "

Recently Geomangear has upgraded the batteries, and I think they have many of the bugs worked out if you don't get the original Chinese batteries and chargers.

I use the Lupine Tesla X - which I believe is the model the Magicshine is a low-cost knockoff of. Its not cheap, but it has exceptionally robust wiring and connectors and I've been very happy with it. I haven't run it all night, nor to complete battery depletion, but I get at least two hours on high and plenty more on low. I generally run it on low most of the time, and I only kick it to high when I'm searching for a control or trying to locate trail blazes... Or if I know I'm running less than 2 hours I'll just leave it on high.

Spike Lights is an unfortunate commercial name if you are relying on a google search to bring business.

Aah, where's the challenge? Rogaining used to be fun when all you had was a small torch and not enough batteries to last the night. With the lights being used now, it might as well be daytime.

A common complaint about modern lights for night navigation, but the truth is that no matter how big a light you have on your head, it's not the same as having illumination from above. Also, in forest conditions, there's a limit to how bright a headlamp can be before any more increase becomes useless (that's less of an issue in wide open terrain).

No matter how bright the night is, though, 24 hours is still 24 hours.

Now here's a nice option if you can rig up a headband:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-74VgTdfcBWU/TgDR-QDt51I/...

Up to 1600 lumens, but many lower settings and extremely good mileage on low.
Decent price too and very well made.

There's a lower power version too, similar to an Ay-up but with the same super-efficient multi-settings as above.

http://amoebalight.blogspot.com/

Aah, where's the challenge? Rogaining used to be fun when all you had was a small torch and not enough batteries to last the night. With the lights being used now, it might as well be daytime.

Ahh yes, the good old days when you could win a state championship 24hr event without even staying out all night.

may be the next class/category to be considered in rogaining is the low light intensity endowed teams (LLIET) v the high light intensity endowed teams (HLIET). Bugger to enforce however after being blinded by another team with too much light in the campground some rogaining friends think it is a winner, at least a brief laugh.

However those friends now own AYUPS after winning one as a lucky door prize!?

What ever happened to the pleasure of navigating without light? Do the HLIET ever do that for any period of time? Do the LLIET even do it?

Back to work I guess.

"...'wombat!'..." turns light out, gestures to team mates, sidles up to 'wombat' utilises wombats punch and sidles out of there..." oh the minor pleasures rogaining offers

Aah, the good old days indeed. Everyone is just SOFT these days. When I was a lad, we used to rogaine without a light and the map was hand drawn on a scrap of butcher's paper. They gave you eastings and northings and you had to plot your own controls and you had just 10 minutes to mark your map and plan your course. Sniff! The good old days....

still around in NSW called the Navigation Shield a whole world hurt called 'fight' from one end of the map to the other...next one up soon the Canadians host a similar event in late April on the East Coast...I miss the nervous tension of marking a map

Can't say I miss that sort of thing. I miss pink slice and Brenda Burgers and port controls. But you'd have to be a Sandgroper to have any idea what I'm talking about.

Pink slice is about as bright as any of the lights on the market these days.

I did enjoy half a bottle of scotch between three of us helped with the sleep and the missing control was a mere fifty metres away in the end...sweet controls always have me looking for my toothbrush

If they'd just run their WA "Upside Down Rogaine" properly upside down, so it was the opposite hours to a normal one (so 10pm to 10am) then I'd back myself to go top 5 without a torch.

That's not a bad idea Fletch. Unfortunately, as in any organisation, there is a huge reluctance to embrace change. Imagine doing an Upside Down in higher latitudes. Now, that would be something.
Three of us managed to knock off a bottle of Para Liqueur Port at the hash house of the NT Aus Champs a few years ago to negate the pain of the spinifex. Slept like a baby.

best headlamp so far. i tested betty, nova, and all other stuff.

this is by far the lightest and most comfortable on the head and way enough power and light. like that on big time

http://lightning.swenor.com/

What the price of the swenor?

Good question. My Norwegian is a bit rusty but the Swenor looks the goods. Pity there aren't any beam shots. I wonder how concentrated the beam is.

Good bang for buck is the Fenix HP20. The bundled batteries are crap, but otherwise a very bright, 4-level system. And the HP10 is incredible lumens/$-wise ... just not waterproof.

The headband isn't incredibly comfortable (a bit small for my giant melon?) by 4am, but what is?

EDIT: I should have mentioned it's a single CREE XP-G R5 @ 230 lumens (and I think that holds up), and the runtime (using 4x rechargeable CVS AAs) was > all night on mostly the 2nd highest setting (probably 60%), and 10% on max, and the rest at next from lowest on trails. The lowest level was pretty much useless in an active setting, but would be great for around the house, camp, or in the tent. Better link is here: http://www.fenixlight.com/viewnproduct.asp?id=76

Swenor has 4xCree XPG afaik. so should be on a level with Lupine Wilma.

I have found no prices yet, but my guess is that the Swenor Lightning F1 would be around $1000+ (~NOK5000+) considering the specifications?

Torben should know...

$1000? I'm glad I'm a light geek- I built mine for $100 and it's almost equivalent.
You could get a pro built one for $250- $350 at the links I posted, if you can set up the headband.

i do not know the official price since it is first getting released this summer at some time.

but yeah it is round about $1k (5000-6000 NOK). for sure it is an investment, but than when it is trouble i have got the service for it, and do not have to buy any new stuff for it. the recharging of the battery is as well really fast and it is really light on the head. even Krügerol, who built his own one for way less money, was surprised over how little the weight is. :)

Halden SK was running all Night legs at Jukola with the Swenor. And loads of Norwegians are changing there headlamps from Lupine or Mila to Swenor.

Proves the point that if you throw enough money at something, anything is possible. As much as I love rogaining, I think I would draw the line at that sort of money. I thought the Spike Light was pricey enough. :-)

Has anyone tried this? http://www.dealextreme.com/p/mj-872-waterproof-4-c...

Maybe not for rogaining, but 2 hours running time would be enough for orienteering, and extra battery doesn't weight too much either. With battery vest and head strap the price would still stay under 200 $.

105g might be still quite good. but u definitely need more than the normal DX headstrap.

The Dealextreme light's the same Magicshine technology, in a quad XP-G LED. Quality may be fine, or there may be issues. Be sure it's not the same battery pack that was recalled all over North America.

The Amoeba light I linked to is definitely better quality, in the same price ballpark. No financial interest, but Jay did make me and Bash excellent battery packs.

Note that the magicshine, along with the flashlights at dealextreme only tells you the theoretical lumens. In real terms its more like 500-600 lumens, but its still pretty bright. I would always recomend you to buy one of them flashlights as backuplight when night-orienteering. On high setting it is more than one hour of light.

As for making stuff yourselves. you can make an okay HID light using a 35W bulb and some wires here and there. light test shown here . Its quite experimental, and when my light quit on me during tiomila, decided to do the same thing, and "Palined" it, and tried to find something else.

Two recomendations: Sure you have the standrard european mila, silva, lupine, and now the svenor, but there some really good ones made in the US that are worth taking a look at, and they're certainly underrated.

Light & Motion : lightweight light(500g), (and 350 on the 700lumen one), and they have done a great job at putting where the light should go. most isnt lost in thin air. They are expensive, but people who have it are satisfied.

NiteRider : I ended up buying this one after finding a sale on this one. Its heavy, but the thing is its pretty much indestructable. The light has both a nice spot and halo around it making it very wide, and produces a lot of light for being 1400lumen.

Last comment about the Lupine Betty: its bright but it only has a very very wide spot. you'll see far, but not so much on the side.

I thought HID had been superceded completely by LED in cost, brightness, durability, and power efficiency. Why would anyone want HID today?

For what it's worth, I bought a magicshine two years hence. Within a year the cable housing was cracking and battery life dropped to about 1 hour on high power.

For the price, there is nothing better, so I ordered another one, and now with a higher quality battery and cable. I am happy with it so far. Super bright and super low cost.

Well it is brighter, and pretty cheap to make, and its 100l per W, so thats not too shabby. The real only problem is the ballasts are usually made in China, so they break quite often.

btw about the Swenor. When they tested it they smashed it on the ground and it did not broke and continued to shine, afterwards they put it straight away under water, and it kept shining. nothing happened. so its the worth the money

I would for sure buy it if i had the money. It seems like a great light. 70 gram light house? thats just stone cold awesome.