Lighting

[Sewer Rat]

Im a complete novice, an armchair caver at the moment.
I have bought some basic gear, pvc suit, helmet ,wellies wetsocks ect.
I need a better light, currently have a peltz myo 3 headlight.
some folks here dislike Speleotechnics.
i was intrested in the Duo 14 led
I like the idea of using AAs as i have loads of 2300mah and a smart charger
already.

http://w01-0504.web.dircon.net/acatalog/Duo_Fixo_AA.html
has anybody used these and if so, are they worth having.
:shock:

 

[SamT]

Couple of the lads I know use a duo. Seems to have stood them in good stead for the general 'sports' caving that they've done here and in france. However if you end up doing a lot of caving then Im unsure of how durable they are.

Without wanting to start the same old debate about speleo. Heres my thoughts on the matter.

Oldam Cap lamps are by far the best/durable/rugged cap lamps money can buy. (quite often for sale on Ebay).

Powering it is the big problem. Personally - Im happy with my trusty Oldham T3 or Raylite.. Generations of cavers have happily caved with them, and I actually think its beneficial to 'learn' to move through a cave with one on. It teaches you a lot about predicting where you might get stuck/hung up and will stand you in good stead for mauling tackle bags through caves when the time comes. People moan about the weight of them - but really - they're not that heavy when you consider you'll be walking with your wellies full of water - 10 pounds of mud caked to your suit/helmet (if you cave in derbyshire ) and a bag full of wet rope.

They can also be powered with a petzl zoom style battery pack too but you may need to do some home modifications.

anyway - good luck - and get out there caving!!!

 

[paul]

I agree with SamT on the Oldham setup.

If you really can't get on with the idea of a waist-mounted battery and prefer a helmet-mounted system, here's what I have done:

Get a 2nd-hand Oldham headset WITH the older-type metal main-bulb holder (~ £18 from Caving Supplies). The older type bulb fitting allows room for the LED reflector (see below).
Buy a Speletechnics 7 LED (the 14-LED costs a lot more and light output isn't that much better and it uses up your batteries twice as fast) reflector and mount this in the Oldham headset (much better than the Speletechnics equivalent and you can use through-the-headset chargers of approriate output). (~£35).
Get a plastic battery box and mount that on the rear of your helmet an connect this to the headset with approriate cable. You can either use a Tupperware box (as a friend of mine does - bought for £1 from Ashbourne market!) or get a purpose built battery box - which is what I did (~£11 from Bernies). The purpose built box has the same connection type as the Speleotechnic helemt-mounted cells (these do not appear to be waterproof - see separate thread and are expensive ~£45) which means if you use a Speletechnics cable (~£6) to connect to your headset you can easily disconnect the battery box if you wish.

You can get a battery holder to hold 3 AA cells (watch the voltage!!! the LEDs are designed to run at 3 to 4 volts!) and put this in the box or use non-rechargable Duracell 4.5v batteries (which I found excellent while on a trip in Thailand where we had no re-charging facilities).

Of course it goes without saying: If you use non-rechargables DO NOT THROW AWAY USED BATTERIES in the cave!

 

[SamT]

Bravo

Thats what I have too. (as my third set up) Except I use a petzl battery pack a la zoom that is helmet mounted.

 

[Hammy]

I have recently bought a Duo 14 LED set and I think it's great! I don't think I'll use my FX3 7LED set ever again!!

It is very bright on full power, more than adequate on medium and not bad at all on low. It's light and convenient to use. I see no reason why it shouldn't cope with hard trips and the components are replaceable anyway.

My only mistake was to buy it attatched to the new Petzl Vertex helmet which just doesn't seem to fit my head very well.

It seems a lot easier to buy the thing off the shelf than to go fiddling about with tupperware boxes or whatever!!

 

[Sewer Rat]

What kind mech is there for fitting it to the helmet.
Is the battery consumption poor.
Is it ok under water ,the spec is 5 meters but specs are not all that usually.
and....
and....
and... :uhoh:

 

[Sewer Rat]

thank you gentlemen for your words of wisdom.
i think i will give the duo a try and see if i can finally win a bid on ebay.
I have noticed that people generally will pay 2/3 of the new price for an item there, do oldham still produce new head sets.

 

[paul]

I have noticed that people generally will pay 2/3 of the new price for an item there, do oldham still produce new head sets.

Yes - you can buy a brand new Oldham headset but obviously second-hand is MUCH cheaper. Plus all the parts are available if you need to repair or replace anything. Check out Caving Supplies web site for prices.

I own a Duo but don't use it underground. Mainly because I don't fancy the idea of a caving light held onto my helmet by elastic straps. Also I would say the Oldham headset is much more durable for use underground.

I have an Oldham headset which I connected with a Speletechnics cable to fit an FX2 cell. It is still perfect and works fine. I bought that as part of a complete Oldhams lamp in 1977. The original Oldhams Lead-Acid cell sprung a leak and ruined my sleeping bag about 2 or 3 years later . I gouged out the innards and stuck in 2 NiCad cells you used to be able to buy cheap. These lasted about 10 years then they also sprung leaks. I then got an FX2 battery (hence the cable change) in about 1985. I no longer use the FX2 and swapped to a Kirby Kdiney Lamp (which has a hard-connected cable and battery and ahd its own headset made by CEAG and similar to the Oldhams) and that old headset is still absolutely fine after nearly 30 years, if a bit scratched here and there!

 

[Mine Explorer]

...do oldham still produce new head sets.

Yes, you can still buy new ones. Second hand are so much cheaper though!

When I bought my oldham it cost £10 for the lamp system second hand. Timing it, it still did 13 hours. I then spent nearly £20 building my own proper charger for it :roll:

 

[SamT]

Just a thought - but you should be having a backup torch strapped to the side of your helmet just above your ear. Maglites and Mini Q40s have always been popular however there are a breed of everlasting led lights available

 

[twllddu]

If you do get a DUO just fix it directly to your helmet, there is no need to use the elastic headband. A few of small screws should do the job, just as Petzl use. (remembering of course that the pointy ends point away from your head ! )

 

[cap n chris]

I wear my elasticated "spare/backup" LED Petzl Tikka around my neck - otherwise there's always a possibility that it might get knocked off your helmet without you knowing about it and then possibly actually NEEDING it in an emergency; if it's around your neck it can't get lost.

 

[Sewer Rat]

I know I will go one better and get one of those circular florescent lamps
and put that on as well over my helmet and become "Angel Speleo":worthy:
But seriously the extra side lights sounds like a good idea.

i have just bid on a pair of oldham lamps on ebay, so hands off ,their mine.

Reading some of the topics on building lights and adding in LEDs .
AAAARRRRGGGGG blow my head open . :crazy:
I am wondering if caving is the favourite pastime of electronic engineers.

 

[Sewer Rat]

So what is the norm, how many back up lights do folk use.
Sam T mentioned this third set up,!
????all worn at the same time????

 

[SamT]

There's definatly quite a lot of cavers out there who like 'tinkering' and Im definatly one of them. be it lighting, srt kit, diving kit, climbing kit. Always in the cellar tinkering. I think it pays to tinker sometimes. Helps you understand you kit better, which can stand you in good stead if/when it goes wrong underground. I agree that it can get taken too far down the electronics front but dont let it put you off, stick to basic reliable kit for the time being.

The reason I have 3 lamps is that when I took up caving again (after a breif spell when I was a nipper), I knew we had 3 oldham lamps in the shed. I dug em out, the batteries were knackered but the cap lamps (being oldhams) were still in good nick.
Had to replace the cable on them since the old ones were perished. (check that out on the ones on ebay) and bought a new T3 battery as we still had the charger for it. These are dead handy on the Oldhams - its works by connecting the headset to the charger - no connector to go wrong, no seals to break. bombproof.
Friends that I dragged out caving needed a lamp to borrow so I bought a cheaper Raylite battery that can use the same charger. Then a year or two later I did the 7 led conversion and helmet mounted battery. so now I have 3 choices.

As for back up lights. I only have one, my maglite or mini q40 strapped to the side of the helmet, incase something drastic happens to my light (blown fuse - cut cable etc)

I also have a small glowstick (as used by night fishermen) taped to the inside of my helmet should all else fail.

love the speleo angel idea :angel:

 

[ian mckenzie]

So what is the norm, how many back up lights do folk use.

In the USA three sources of light is the 'rule', but need not be all helmet-mounted. In Canada we recognize the importance of redundancy, but are not rigidly fixed on the "3" rule, altho it certainly has merit. I carry one on my head (obviously), one round my neck on a cord, and often but not always a third in my tackle sack.

 

[paul]

So what is the norm, how many back up lights do folk use.
Sam T mentioned this third set up,!
????all worn at the same time????

Generally cavers either have just the main light (which usually has a main bulb plus pilot/LED setup) and some also have a back up. The light SamT mentioned, a Q40, is small, takes 4 A cells which last about 6 hours and is very bright and the light output is good enough to use as a main caving light. Since these (and other similar lights) are small, they can be attached to the side of the helmet using a piece of bugee cord so you might as well use one.

It is very sensible to have a back-up light but it is possible to cope with total lamp failure, as long as you are not caving solo! Over the years (29 or so) I have suffered from lamp failure a few times, ususally because of battery exhaustion when a trip took longer than expected (less likely nowadays with LEDs giving useful light for many hours). You can get by with your caving mates staying nearby and gain the benefit of some use of their light and continue ata aslower pace. Of course this isn't ideal and can make passing rebelays on long pitches "interesting"!

 

[Dave H]

Lamp failure is sometimes quite usefull in controlled situations (non-vertical, simple caves) where it can be used to encourage trainees to think more about the cave, its difficulties and hazards. Having to shine your light to help some-one else is a real eye-opener for them!

I always carry spare bulbs for my Oldham and a pen light in my chest pocket. In 25 years I've used the pen-light to change bulbs on the Oldham a few times, but I've only had to use the pen light underground to cave with once - but negotiating a tricky climb with it held in my teeth was difficult!
Personally I can't stand uneven weight on my helmet so I don't have the pen-light permanently fitted to it, but I suppose I really should attach the bungy to the helmet so that I could add it in an emergency.

 

[pisshead]

i have an Attitude light (3 leds) on the side of my helmet - i know quite a few people have the same, and it's not heavy so doesn't offset the balance of my head!

On the (far too often) occasion that my main light fails it is plenty bright enough to cave on - takes 4 AAAs...I'm tempted to give up on the main headlight and just have my Atitude and spare batteries...

...no battery pack that way either

 

[potholer]

I carry a Maglite as a backup, but I think the only times I've used it are when other people's lights have failed.

I caved for ~16 years with a Petzl Laser carbide/electric headset I bought before a trip to Canada in '86 (*waves at Ian*), and I've managed to avoid suffering simultaneous failure of both main systems, probably through avoiding using an Ariane, and doing some occasional preventative maintenance.

Now I'm essentially LED-only, and the home-built unit I use is boringly reliable, but I still carry the Maglite on anything but the occasional very short trip.