Duo14 is failing

[Peter Burgess]

Eh? what are you going on about? I wished you good luck. My point is simply that I dislike negative marketing and I dislike marketing masquerading as something else.
When I decide to replace my Duo, I would hardly consider the Chinese lamps you are promoting solely on the basis that you say my Duo is rubbish.

Oh, and you may know who I am, but I have only a suspicion of who you are, and if either guess is correct, I don't think I have ever met you and whether you are a huge ego or not is of no interest to me or to whether I should replace my Duo.  Maybe I do know you, in which case please enlighten me.

Good luck, anyway.

 

[Mike Hopley]

None of these faults are acceptable for a caving lamp, which is after all an activity which has a tendency to place you in life or death situations.

Anyone relying on a single light has a tendency to place himself in death situations.

All lights fail sometimes, even the mighty Scurion (yes, I've seen it happen -- to a UK distributor, no less!). Plan for it.

 

[Peter Burgess]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the advice on the link provided by ghost:

Take plenty of spare lighting on your caving/mine trip. Spare lighting must burn for the same duration that got you into the cave in the first place, and must be tough enough to take the same punishment that the lamp that got you into the cave had to withstand (water, crushing, abrasion etc). Your spare lighting must burn plenty long enough and be as tough as old boots, although it doesn't have to be as luxuriously bright as your main lamp. Bright enough to exit safely is fine. If your spare light also fails, then where's your "Alamo" - the light that's going to get you out alive? Yes, you need that too - again, tough and with a good duration. Incidentally it's a serious mistake to think that just because you paid hundreds of pounds for a fancy lamp capable of turning solid rock into lava that it will never fail. It can and it may.

 

[paul]

Although it makes entirely good sense to have reliable spare lights, and I of course do nowadays, there was a time when we didn't.

And we didn't die when our lights failed.

We simply continued caving and made sure we had someone in close front and someone close behind.

Memorable incidents of light failures include on an OFD trip when I had to cross the Airy Fairy traverse with a failed light while others tried to light the way from opposite ends of the cable and having to return back along the Meanders in the Berger to look for a companion who I was heading to Camp 1 with and had dropped behind. I found him quietly sitting on a ledge in the pitch dark with his carbide lamp in pieces strewn around him trying to get it to work again. He soon was sucessful and we continued on our way.

Of course if al our lights failed, that would have been a different story...

 

[Mike Hopley]

Of course if al our lights failed, that would have been a different story...

Or if you were in a group of two, moving efficiently through a deep cave on rope, which implies a degree of separation. Total light failure can be quite problematic here.

Not saying you would necessarily die, just that it's a situation best avoided.

 

[potholer]

On the plus side, for deep vertical trips you frequently don't need much light.

My first proper selfbuild expedition light had outputs of ~2, 6 or 20 lumens per LED ('luxury...').
I found the naked flood beam at 2 lumens quite usable for horizontal movement except on very uneven floors, and more than adequate for vertical caving.
In fact, on some of the pitches, it was rather nice being in a small bubble of light that didn't penetrate into the distance, like running a carbide on a tickover flame.

At least if you have to use a backup light when there's no-one around to help, a big positive is that there's also no-one around to bugger up your dark adaptation.

 

[Mike Hopley]

On the plus side, for deep vertical trips you frequently don't need much light.

Indeed.

Immediately after buying a (somewhat) mega-light, I spent most of my time on a deep trip using my backup e+Lite, since I hadn't bought enough of the ludicrously expensive mega-light batteries to last a camp.

So the overall effect of splashing out on a bright light was that my lighting got much dimmer. :blink:

 

[badger]

I can only speak from my experience, I hav e had a duo for probably getting on for 10 years, I have never had an issue with it at all, many people I cave with have duo's none of them to my knowledge have had any problems. 2 years ago I aquired a scurion, now the difference in light quality is miles apart, however in this time I have had 3 issues, which until I  had sorted meant the light could not be used, I also have continueing issues in opening and closing the battery case, you need to be very precise, and have also had to add something inside the case to get the cell out without damaging the wires and connectors (one of the three issues)
I think the duo is a proven light, and for the money very good value, and reasonable economical to add an upgrade, if this was not the case I would have thought petzl would have made and marketed a new light by now

 

[simonsays]

On the plus side, for deep vertical trips you frequently don't need much light.

As an exercise, me and my lad made our way out of Crackpot cave (from the dig to the surface) with the only illumination being a single 10 lumen fenix E01 flashlight. It was plenty of light for two people to make careful progress with dark adapted eyes. We could have managed with much less light.

It had the effect of making the cave feel much bigger than it actually was.

 

[potholer]

E01s are great - tiny, fairly cheap, and with just one setting, you know it should last long enough to get out of most places if the cell is fresh.

 

[Uamhair]

I bought a Duo and helmet combo but the yellow battery case has recently cracked open where the basal screw from the helmet went (I cant remember giving a good whack though so rather unimpressed).  As a result, the watertight bits are a waste of time seeing as there's a gaping hole at the bottom which has allowed corrosion of the battery contacts inside.

Is there a simple of way of replacing the battery pack section seeing as the front lamp section is perfectly fine or do I just need to bite the bullet and get a whole new one?  Or... Can I order a replacement part for the contacts and fill the hole in with something decent that won't dissolve away in water? 

 

[alastairgott]

Hope you're sorted uamhair. Don't really know how you would sort the problem so i'd be interested to find out.

I've had issues on and off with my duo. It got better by putting some of martyn G's contact cleaner on it, so thanks to him.

But then the problem continued, so i had to try something a little better, turned out a cereal box and some electrical tape does the job.

There was a wiggle on the battery box, i worked out what was happening, if you lay the pull out battery section on a table then the base of the section would wiggle towards you when it sits in the battery box.

If you put a small amount of cereal box and electrical tape around the middle two battery holders, then he box cannot wiggle and so you get an excellent connection even if you do scrape your battery box in a crawl.