Cave Light

rhychydwr1

Active member
Just read a review of a new caving light costing US $550!  Is this a record?

Elspeleo Cave Light by Jeff Cody. NSS New August 2017  24-25 illus.
 

royfellows

Well-known member
A Dive Scurion is ?762. That's pounds not dollars. I am sorry if you were not sitting down when you read this.
:LOL:

Nice kit though, as long as they don't come up against... well.
 

ZombieCake

Well-known member
Rubbish, buy a proper caving light.  You can get a candle and a box of matches for around a pound. LEDs are so old school. Bunch of lilly livered snowflakes, what's next using mechanical devices to climb synthetic rope!? What's wrong with raw frozen fingers clinging onto mouldy hemp with the breaking strain of a daffodil?
I got my CIC - Crazy In Charge - discounts available.
 

Amy

New member
Now these dont work as dive lights but they are waterproof and submergable.
Zebralights. They come in cool/neutral and earm tint, flood and spot. The Mk2 are on sale currently for $60 since they just released Mk3. We pair a flood with a spot so for $120 usd we have almost 2200 lumens on our head (almost 2600 with mkiii). They throw well and the flood is a great wide angle. Get the 18650 versions. On a normal trip you dont have to change out batteries. Much lighter, no propritary battery packs, no batery pack on the back of your helmet to catch you on the cieling in ducks...

Scurions are great if you have the money and need a diving light.

Id rather more lumens for less that outperforms Scurion etc. weve been using that combo in TAG and other big passage caving for over five years. They are bombproof caveproof lights and we love outbrighting everyone with their monkies/scurions/el speleos etc. And sure you have to carry spare 18650 but net weight is the same because runtime on the zebralights are equivilent to better and they hse half he batteries (so your four pack for scurion lasts as long four singles - one for each spot flood and swap out each once). Also by having two individual lights for spot and flood it is more easily customizable to the cave/passage, as well as being built in redundancy. A lot of folk hardmount them just like you would a cavespecific build.

You want the H600 series.
http://www.zebralight.com/Headlamp_c_7.html
 

Tommy

Active member
I love not needing to change the battery in my Scurion in really muddy, tight caves! ;)
 

Amy

New member
Totally fair if you are doing 8+ hour trips in tight muddy caves! I am not a fan of crawling for that long so it isn't a concern of mine  ;) If it is that tight you dont need much light anyway, any decent light will run for 12+ hours on 100 lumens  ;)
 

badger

Active member
not sure the lumens on scurions low settings possibly 600 but will last more than 4 days underground without changing the cell.
 

Fulk

Well-known member
Hi Amata, I clicked on your link and it came up with 33 lamps, all looking rather similar; could you be more specific in your recommendation?
 

Ian Ball

Well-known member
Quick view guide,  choice of battery chemistry, beam pattern and temperature rating of bulb. 
There are of course many other comparison points which you can interrogate here and see which are discontinued products.

Zebralight Comparison Spreadsheet

I believe Amata is recommending buying a flood version and a spot version so 2 independant lights, powered by two 18650 cells, though I may be wrong.

They seem a very interesting edition to the caving light debate, I've just gone for a CustomDuo upgrade which struggles to compete with the Fenix HL55 and such 18650 powered devices, but I like it very much.
 

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Amy

New member
Fulk said:
Hi Amata, I clicked on your link and it came up with 33 lamps, all looking rather similar; could you be more specific in your recommendation?
The 600 series MkII are currently on sale for $69 each since the MkIII were just released (couple hundred lumen brighter, bit better runtimes).
I'd link you to specific but some people prefer warm and some cool. The cool will have slightly more lumens, and I find cameras have a fine time with them for whitebalance and I dont find them cold, but pretty close to "white". The warm/neutral my SO finds nicer to cave on (warm tints give better visual depth perception) but it fucks up my photos.
So basically...pick:
MkII or MkIII of the 600 series
Cool or Warm
and we get one spot and one flood, run both same time for a combo beam (nice to control them independently easily, saves battery too -ex- in crawls turn off spot and turn flood to low). They also have floody option which isn't as wide a beam as the full flood.

Ex: decide save the money and go MkII, want the cool
http://www.zebralight.com/H600-Mk-II-18650-XM-L2-Headlamp-Cool-White_p_130.html is the spotty
http://www.zebralight.com/H600F-Mk-II-Floody-18650-XM-L2-Headlamp-Cool-White_p_129.html is the floody (90deg)
OR
http://www.zebralight.com/H602-18650-XM-L2-Flood-Headlamp-Cool-White_p_128.html is pure flood (120deg)
We combine typically the spotty with 120deg pure flood.

Ian is correct with his understanding :)

This is honestly what people have gone to here and have been using for years from the average caver to the project cavers. There are a few arguments for cave proprietary builds like Scurion left, but for vast majority of cavers those arguments dont matter...I mean if your leftover argument is "I dont like changing batteries underground" I'd still rather save $500 for an equivalent light and have to change batteries every 8-ish hours on a standard trip. Zebralights the end unscrews. Unscrew the end, tip your head, grab the battery, slide the next in. There aren't any connections to futz with, helmet never leaves your head.

I have a Rude Nora v2, and with it pumping every last bit out of it, my SO turns on *just* his spot Zebra and it overbrights my Nora. I have more weight on my head and paid 4x as much for less bright. Had these setups for four years, and i think he has changed his batteries 2-3 times on trips (long survey ones in huge rooms so running them on high a lot), I've had to change mine once. Over four years...not really that huge of a deal IMPO. To change battery on my Nora I have to take my helmet off since it has connector for the pack. Takes way longer and it way more futsy than what he has to do!





 

mudman

Member
Well Amata has convinced me. It sounds the ideal set up.
I really could never justify 500 quid for a light. I have a neck problem so I have to minimise the weight on my head, especially avoiding anything on the back of the helmet.
I use a fenix at the moment and don't have any plans to change but if I was,  the zebralight setup would be high, if not at the top, of the list.
 

Amy

New member
IPX7. 2meters for 30 minutes. Can confirm dunking/climbing in waterfalls/etc all been fine. Ive use them for lighting up gour pools in photography so they sit in water for up to 10 minutes static for that. And we climb fine for hour on rope in a waterfall while time so dynamic pressure is fine. Its not a dive light but you can get through Swildons round trip  fine!
 

Lockchopper

New member
The El Speleo Scurion thing looks good, but the battery is a bit skinny and the beam reflector looks a bit gash. The reason I bought a Scurion (1600) is because of the quality of light you get from it.

The more you use it, the cheaper it gets. If you're really serious about your hobby, why would you cut corners?

We'll be onto chinese ascenders next
 

Fulk

Well-known member
Hi Amata,

Here's an odd little coincidence; Friday I read your post extolling the virtues of 'twin' Zebralights, Saturday I'm walking upon to Gaping Gill and meets an American caver walking down with twin Zebralights on his hat. The only difference from the set-up you describe is that he had two 'spotty' lights, one pointing slightly to the left, and one to the right. But they seem nice little bits of kit.
 
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