My mighty group test of head torches is upon Walkhighlands here. I’ve been impressed by the quality of the current crop of headtorches, there really isn’t a bad one amongst them.
Special thanks to fellow Kilpatricks ranger Jo who had to keep wearing ans swapping headtorches for me so I could do A/B comparisons every time we were out doing bat surveys. Got great results though, pacing the same after dark hill routes showed the torches different strengths very well. Next month’s grouptest will be some rather nice autumn clothing.
Talking of light, was wrestling victorian cast iron in a church today when the sun shot through it’s window. Nice.
I’m on a bit of a headtorch spending spree at the moment even though I don’t need them as I’ve already got a load of them.
My latest acquisitions are an Armytek Wizard , Armytek C1, Nitecore HC50 and Fenix HL50. A
The Armytek Wizard has several settings, 3 lumens – 900 lumens, 10m water and drop resistant, 10 year guarantee and is an absolute bargain at 45 euros at Nkon.nl including 18650 battery. The batteries alone are normally around £15 each. Armytek is a Canadian company.
The Fenix HL50 is incredibly small, weighs the same as 2 petzl e-lites, yet will output a regulated 170 lumens for 2 – 3 hours on 1xCR123 battery.
It also has much longer lasting modes down to 4 lumens for close work and a 350 lumen burst mode, is waterproof to 2 meters, made of aluminium and cost £45.
The Armtek C1 is similar to the Fenix and the Nitecore is similar to the Armytek Wizard though a bit larger and heavier.
Heatorches are part of a tech arms race just now, I don’t think you buy a bad one. The outputs are crazy compared to what we had a few years back.
Happy, and bright, times indeed.