WHW Kit Review
I’ve carried the Tikka XP for long enough and been quite happy. But, this new version of the Myo XP had enough of a performance gain to make carrying the extra weight worthwhile.
I did a lot of walking at night on the Way and this was indeed the torch to have. Super bright on it’s full setting, even on its lowest setting there’s plenty light for safe trail negotiation. The buttons were easily worked by tired fingers in Powerstretch gloves and the straps were very comfy. I added the centre strap as it weighs nothing and I though it might stop the weight of the batteries pulling the main strap down and sawing my ears off. It worked fine.
A word of warning, on full it sucks a battery dry. And when the batteries installed are the pish ones that come with it you really have to be ready with a new set of Energisers which fare much better.
In short, yes it’s heavier than all the usual lightweight headtorch suspects. It also kicks their arses in terms of performance. Walking along the East bank of Loch Lomond at 0200 I felt like I had a car headlight strapped to my head it was so bright. Magic.
battery life?
With the original garbage “Superpowertronic” batteries installed, the torch started to flash that it was powering down to the next setting on the Sunday night.
I ran it mostly on full for around 19 hours or so and it was still fine on the lowest setting.
If you didn’t spend your hard earned on it, any chance you could try it on Lithiums? Petzl say you shouldn’t and it may cause damage, but they’d be great for this application. That is if you fancy a bit of experimentation :)
Apparently there were a couple of failures out of a thousand torches with lithiums in and they erred on the side of caution and said “Don’t do it people”.
Whereas they said to me “Aye it’ll be fine, but don’t quote me on it”.
I’ll try it with lithiums on the next overnight trip and see what happens :o)
Aye, I’d have really expected them to sort out the lithiums thing properly with this new model. That’s why I went for a Princeton Tec Apex – heavier admittedly, but with regulated current, absolutely stunning battery life and a beam fit for anti-aircraft work!! :))
A lot of race teams were using the Apex because of the brightness. Looks like a nice bit of kit.
I remember moans, but I’m sure it was about the price :o0
The Apex pro weighs the same as the Myo XP, uses smaller lighter batteries. I’ve got to stop googling everything you guys write about!
I just got a TIkka XP, may try some lithiums in that…eek!
The Tikka XP is brilliant. That what I used on that Ben Lomond at night thing I’ve got on YouTube.
I’ve packed it for my Kintail trip tomorrow.
Keep googling, it keeps us all right :o)
I looked at the weight saving of the Apex Pro but CR123 batteries are a pain (or they were when my camera used them) – expensive, not available in out-of-the-way spots, and not likely to turn up as rechargeables…. I decided to go for the standard Apex with its AAs, especially as I’ll likely be carrying spares that’ll fit other bits of technology too.
There are plenty of CR123 rechargeables on ebay now, but you need to get ones with a controlled output as the voltage is too high, 3.7V instead of 3V. The problem with the controlled ones is they let the power get to a certain minimum level and then cut out, not tail off slowly, which is scary when it’s your torch that ‘s just turned off!