Discussion: Headlamp - Halogen or LED/HID?

After years of doing Night-O just once or twice a year and just borrowing a Headlamp for that I now need to buy one for myself. But I can't decide which one to buy. Any recommendations or tipps?
The last times I've had borrowed a Silva 10/20W-Halogen-Lamp and liked it, so this would be one possibility.
On the other hand there are all this new fancy High Power LED-Lamps which are smaller and less heavy. Especially the new Lupine Tesla X seems to be a good choice for me. But I can't tell how good the light is in comparison to the old Silva Halogen. Has anyone here had a chance to try the lamp and could tell me anything about it? I think the light should be brighter or at least as bright as the Silva, but on the pictures on the Lupine Website the light beam seems relatively small to me? Is it (especially in comparison to the Silva) and if yes, is that a problem during orienteering? And how about the quality of the light, it seems to be very bright at the highest level, but from other (cheap) LED-Jogging-Headlamps I know that it's sometimes difficult to spot unevenness in the paths in the LED-Light - is this the case with this lamp too?
Or in short: could anyone tell me something about the Lupine Tesla in comparison to the Silva (which is the only one I ever tested for myself) or has any other recommendation in this price range? Building one myself is no option, cause I'm missing knowledge, tools and time for that...

I would say that If you do a comparison with the Silva the Lupine Tesla is about twice as bright. You will not have any problems doing night orienteering with the Tesla. Build quality seems good and the whole kit is very light and compact. The only draw back is the price. But I would say it is money well spent unless you consider building one yourself.

I would not recommend HID if you are buying a lamp. I you are up to building a real monster HID is one way to go. But I still prefer the robustness of a LED lamp compared to HID. Seems less fragile.

Have a look at the Petzl Ultra, they made a 10 minute documentary thing from the TioMila. I think it's on YouTube somewhere.

And take a look at the Night Lightning iBlaast II. Over twice the power of the Petzl Ultra and and half the price, but you'd need to rig up a headband. The Ultra is about 350 lumens, Tesla is around 700 lumens, the iBlaast II about 900.

HID is around 700. No longer the monster- Lupine also makes a 900 lumen Wilma and a 1500 lumen Betty, with corresponding prices.

A comparison between Silva and the Tesla on Spike's blog:
http://okansas.blogspot.com/search?q=tesla

once or twice a year? How about buying used 20W halogen from someone who uprades to LED technology.

[ I believe Ibaalst II isn't any brigter than Tesla. Ibaalst II figures are absolute maximum at bulb without any losses, unlike Lupine's or Petzls figures. If we think the leds used, Tesla's leds (P7) are sligtly brighter than Ibaalst's (3 x R2)

As fas as I understand it's said at Nightlightning's site that Ibaalst II is driven at 1a. R2 gives something like 260 lumens at 1A, 3 x 260 = 780 lumens. 20% losses = 624 lumens. Driver is cabable to drive 1.2A for future use. If future is already here, it's about 700 lumens. ]

I have an HID that I still use and it works very well. However, I would agree with the assessment that HID's time has passed. LED's are just as bright, burn longer, and are more durable. In roughly 150 hours of use (granted, rough use as it includes Adventure Racing activities), I've broken the bulb twice (at $75USD each time). I've never busted an LED. As a result, I now only use the HID for competition. Also, whereas any HID light sets you back a chunk of cash, you don't have to spend a fortune on LED. If you can get by on a bit less light, there are reasonably priced (under $100US) LED's that still blow away the old 20W halogen.

there are reasonably priced (under $100US) LED's that still blow away the old 20W halogen

ebuckley, can you give me an example? Most cheap led headlamps i know can't blow away 20W halogen. I know people who might be instersted.

in germany there is a big biking community, and they have the same problems like we orienteers. how to ride a 70kmh downhill in the winter after work ? the people who can't afford it to buy a lupine betty (900 euros) just built their lamps on their own. so why just build a headlamp for orienteering on my own? as we are geeks, that's THE way anyway ;)
so i just took an old helmet used on constructionsites, a standard 50mm 12V 20Watts Osram IRC Halogenspot (they have a special coat on the reflector which puts infrared light back into visible light - so they have a bigger light output), some cables, a switch, mount it with some parts of my little brothers metall construction kit to the strap sinside the helmets an put on a battery (LIION 14.4V - 6Ah) and a have really bright light for about 90 Euros (60 Euros for the battery) which is brighter than the standard Silva 10/20Watt thing.



btw. the lumenvalues from the manufacturers are more or less fantasyvalues. the guys from the biking community on the web (http://www.mtb-news.de/forum/) took several lamps and measured their light output in an integrating sphere (ulbricht - sphere).

Results: SILVA 20W - something around 400 lumens (according to the skogsport, which is in comparison to my own lamp somehow realistic)
Osram 20 Watts IRC @14V 530lm, @16V (full battery) 776lm
Lupine Wilma 600lm
Lupine Betty 903lm
Lupine Edison HID 522lm
the petzl ultra wasn't tested, but i don't think that it has only 350 lm, i have seen them in sweden and they have been brighter than the standard ones.

but they have measured HID's up to an real output of 9100lm !!!

some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ghostdriver85/Leuchtve...#

and 20W IRC vs. standard 10/20 watts, somehow too bright:
http://picasaweb.google.com/robert.kruegerol/Lampe...#

I thought that an R2 is supposed to give 300 lumens at 1A, under ideal conditions? With losses I can see the NL at 800 lumen or so.

The Tesla's P7 may have more overall light than the NL's 3 R2s, but the beam may be a little better with the R2s.

They're all good lights.

light and motion stella is a great light. I use it for adventure racing on bike with helmut mount and on foot with headstrapfoot

If you really don't need the big output of lupine / iblaast, take a look at Ay-up headtorch.
http://www.ayuplights.co.uk/content/view/41/109/
Weight is less than 200g and output should equal 20W O halogen.

I have been told the very best R2 ones may give 300 at 1.2A. And 270 at 1A, average is something like 260.

Krügerol, nice lamp!

Halogens give about 15-20 lumens per watt at their proper voltage. By overvolting you can get about 25 lumens/watt. So I think 350 bulb lumens at max is a fair estimate for a good 20W O halogen. And there are same reflector/lens losses, so I guess 250..275 lumens woud be about right. Also in real life it looks like wilma outshines two 20W O halogens, so I don't think these estimates are far off. Petzl's says ultra gives at least 350 lumens, so it may give close to 400 and thats why it's looks brighter than O halogen.

But note, Krügerol's lamp consumes lot more then 20W. At 14V 27 W and at 16V 35W.

776 / 35 = 22 lumen/W
530 / 27 = 20 lumen/W

With LED you can get same amount of light with about one third of the power. Less power means more lightweight battery. Krügerol's battery pack weights over 600g and with battery west, headlamp and wires almost 1Kg. LED headlamp with same output and runtime is a lot more lightweight (300-400g instead of 1kg). DIY led may also be cheaper, thanks to smaller & cheaper battery pack. But with bike extra half kg doesn't do much harm - Krügerol's setup is excellent for biking.

For monster light HID may still be the best choice, but I don't see much point using monster light (2000+ lumens) for O because all the extra weight. You need bigger battery pack with those too. If you can't find controls or run fast with a lightweight lamp with output of two 20W O halogens, the problem may not be the lamp. And after all it's time that counts, not lumens :)

they have measured the current as well.

12V 1.67A 20.0W 332lm 17lm/W
14V 1.81A 25.3W 530lm 21lm/W
16V 1.95A 31.2W 776lm 25lm/W

which isn't that better ;)
the battery weights 680gr, but it makes no difference when you wear it on your back if it weights 300 or 700gr. it's much more important to decrease the weight wearing on your head.

and if the 700lm are not enough, i just put in the osram 35W IRC, so i have about 2h of day in the night. then it's also bright enough for biking ;)

there are reasonably priced (under $100US) LED's that still blow away the old 20W halogen

I may have been guilty of a little hyperbole there. My experience has been that two Myo XP's beat a 20W halogen (blow away is certainly overstating it). As those can be found on swap boards for around $20, I assumed the price of new one had come down more than it has. Upon review, it appears they are still going for $60-$70 new, so the price would be a bit higher than I stated.

If you go the multiple light route, you do have to invest some time mounting them so you get a consolidated beam that works. This isn't hard to do, but it generally requires mounting them on something rigid, like a bike helmet. If showing up to an O-meet with a hard hat on violates your sense of aesthetic (not a priority among orienteers of my acquaintance), then you might not like that solution much.

Frankly, if price is an issue, the suggestion of just picking up an old halogen from someone who's upgrading is surely the way to go. If you're buying new, you might as well spring for something nice unless you just enjoy the home-job approach.

I run many nights around fields and woods around my home in the winter almost nightly, and have night orienteered with the Black Diamond Icon, which I love. I bought the additional rechargeable battery pack and really like it. It has both types of lighting with multiple settings with a quick touch of the button.

http://www.bdel.com/gear/icon.php

If it helps somehow you can take a look at photos recently taken by me and my friend.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/orientesanas/sets/721...
I hope you can get a clue how some LED lights - Hope Vision 4 and iBlaast II compares to Silva 478 halogen.

Markers on photos are at every 20 m. Last one in the middle of road is bag with reflector at 100m.

Good photos. They also illustrate a point that David Frei made to me a few years back when we switched from halogen to HID. HID's (and, now, LED's) throw a lot more light, but the spectrum has changed, too. Halogens are decidedly yellow whereas HID's are a bit blue and LED's are closest to pure white. The effect of that is to make the woods "brighter" with relative to any reflective material. That is, a reflector shows up from a much greater distance with a halogen because it is so much brighter than the surrounding woods. We both agreed that it was far better to have the increased visibility during the leg, but the old trick of getting to the general area and then doing "sweeps" with the beam hoping to catch a reflector is much less effective.

I can add that both Hope Vision 4 and Iblaast (beam or flood optics) are good for orienteering. Their beam is quite huge and illuminates quite a big area. You will not be stuck with tunnel vision.
I think that Hope had widest coverage, but iBlaast (with beam optics) punches little further. Like in a day you are able to catch lot of details with a corner of eye, read map and see under your legs without actually looking down. I am running much with friends Hope Vision 4 lately till custom headband for iBlaast will be ready. Hope' s lamp comes with headband already included but you must figure out how to carry battery around ;). Battery is intended to attach to bike' s frame.
It is very well built kit from UK. (charger from Norway).
I bought IBlaast for myself because it is cheaper and I liked the geek factor attached to it - it is possible to buy DIY kit little cheaper and assemble by yourself (some soldering and hot air gun stuff) + you are able to use any battery from 12-18V (SLA or Li-Ion) + low, mid, high output levels, thermal protection temperature you can customize and LED part is upgreidable when more powerfull LED emitters comes out.

About Krügerol's lamp - if one has O halogen with 10 cell ( 2 x 5 cells, 6V, 9ah) battery pack, it might be easy to convert it to 20W IRC. Just re-wire pack to 4.5ah 12V and replace reflector&bulb with IRC module. And adding one extra cell 13.2V would give nice output boost. Not as bright as Krügerol's lamp but slightly brighter than the original I guess.

or you go the other way round. put 2 additional cells in the battery, so that it would be an 7.2V / 9ah. than the o - halogen would run overvoltaged. should be brighter as well, but the bulb will die sooner.