Discussion: 2 led

My headlamps:


One of those I my father's lamp these days. I am big fan of lightweight 2 led lamps. My old home made one was sort of like that, it was 2 x P7 light. And two years ago I moved to the type of lamps you see four here, pretty close to your 2 led one, just different clone (original is gemini duo or lupine piko I suppose)

But there is differences, those clones are not alike. The one you have is not that good what it comes to heat dissipation. Thermal path from led plate to body is pretty narrow, there is just little aluminum around screws led plate is attached to. If you open it I suggest putting some thermal paste to the tiny surface the plate touches the body..

In my lamp (genuine yinding) there is solid lamp body behind the plate:
http://budgetlightforum.com/node/36929
so heat dissipation is much better, the whole back of the plate touches the lamp body.

In addition I have these days neutral leds instead of cool white. And I use 2 cell battery pack, ~120 g and good for 75min races and fades gently, still gives decent light for walking/jogging after 2 hours.

Let me know what you think of it compared to the petzl nao, especially for casual trail lamppulenkki style runs.

Neutral led board in case you feel like trying it out.
http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S023807

My led light career path. 1 led --> 3 led --> 4 led (too heavy for headlamp for my taste and with full capacity short burning time with my batteries) --> 3 led (more convenient, but maybe lighter would do just fine) --> 2 led (following your example). Price tag has been the main driver on my decision to buy certain headlamp. Can be seen on quality and weight.

Do you recommend to try neutral led? Why did you choose it instead of cool white?

Was this 2 cell battery pack "ready to go" package or did you have an opportunity do some own soldering, cabling and ducting?

I bought protected quality 18650 cells (panasonic 3400mah) and battery holder for 18650. For added protection circuits the holder was too small for the batteries, so I cut it in half, placed batteries in and taped it pack together. There is some losses (two protection circuits instead of one, springs instead of soldered wires), but it works just fine, runtime might be slightly longer with well made pack, especially it would stay on high for longer. But it is just fine for me as it is, I plan not to run 2h races with it, for such races there should be bigger pack.

There may better holders out there than the one I used. But for 2016 races I plan to order a pack with same cells from hunk lee. ready made, connectors and everything except waterproofing, so tape is all you need.

Dust, haze and such in air reflects less back or blinds you less if light tint is warmer. Also the stuff I like to see is more yellowish than blue/green (muddy ground and yellow leaves on ground versus green growth above ground) so warmer color sort of illuminates it better. There is reasons why we were able to run reasonably well with yellowish halogen lamps with only 250 lumens back in 90's, one of them was young eyes, but not the only reason. If you read MTB forums you will notice night riders are more and more switching to neutral tints for the same reasons and that's why neutral versions are being offered too at chinese stores. Lupine has neutral versions too these days.

Ok. Thank you very much for replies. I will consider neutral led. Battery pack you pointed out looks very tempting.

I tried to place order some time ago but ebay or paypal refused to function properly. I guess i will have to try again at one point. But I have no hurry though.

My old nimh (eneloop) pack could be used too, but I will have to replace the connector. Safer charging than chinese li-ion packs, not that heavy really, and runtime might be just fine for usual 70 min runs.