Headlamps : LedLenser SEO7R or Petzl Reactik or Coast FL75R

[Andrej K]

Hi!

I am looking below headlamps and i wonder if anyone did comparison or maybe try them on field? What do you recommend in therms of handling and battery life?

LedLenser SEO7R : https://www.ledlenser.com/uk/products/headlamps/seo-series/seo7r/

Petzl Reactik : https://www.petzl.com/INT/en/Sport/PERFORMANCE-headlamps/REACTIK

Coast FL75R : https://coastportland.com/product/fl75r/

 

Thanks for tips!

 

[Andrej K]

Sorry for bad link:

https://coastportland.com/product/fl75r/

[Tobias E]

The nitecore nu30 could be worth a look as well:

http://flashlight.nitecore.com/product/nu30

Cheers,
Tobias

[Ken Thompson]

Good place for information on anything that emits light

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/content.php

[Andrej K]

Can i put AAA batteries in nitecore nu30 just in case if i do not have option to re-charge? Doesn’t look like that. Also I am not sure if this is something i will use. I need to take power bank with anyway because of the phone and watch.

[Serge Giachetti]

I have the reaktik & its great. Nice balance of power and portability. I wrote a review here:

https://dirtbagdreams.com/2016/11/04/proview-petzl-reactik-240-lumens-headlamp/

Not as critical or anylitical as i prob could have been but i had a word limit and it was my first review.

I cant compare it to the ones you mentioned, but battery life is decent to good for a rechargeable. Cant give you exact hours, but i bet it would get you through a week long trip if you just use your lamp at camp & an hour here & there of night hiking. I do a lot of night hiking/photography, so I end up recharging mine with a powerbank (use it for my phone & cam too). I think one charge got me through about 12 hours of hiking.

Somewhere in there. Anyway, the beam quality is good enough for faster moving sports and useful for micro route finding.

[Steve K]

Can’t speak for the other products but the Reactik+ is the real deal. The reactive lighting sounds like a gimmick but if you often hike at night and rely on a headlamp for moving and navigating it is anything but.

I had the previous generation, a Tikka RXP as well. The two headlamps are near identical, but the Reactik+ has a better control scheme and a proper lockout mode, which is the only flaw I could find in the first generation of these headlamps.

Thanks to how good the Petzls are I have generally relegated my Zebralights to around-the-house usage.

[Ross L]

Here are some of the latest reviews from OutdoorGearLab.

http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Best-Headlamp/Ratings

Not much love for the expensive  Zebralights. which should generate howls of protest from flashlight snobs. I currently use the lowly BD Spot and Fenix HL21 and find them more than adequate on and off trail.

[Andrej K]

Zebralights H600FW or H600W Mark III looks nice. And Armytek Wizard Pro :)

But then again something like this in links below is half the price:

http://www.skilhunt.com/product-detail/h03r-led-headlamp/

http://flashlight.nitecore.com/product/hc30

Can not speak about quality directly but … really now sure yet if i will spend 90 Euros on Zebralight.

[James holden]

if you buy the petzl buy it from llbean or MEC … basiclally theres a lifetime unlimited warranty, just keep the receipt

another USB lamp is the fenix HL60R … it takes 18650s and can also use CR123s …. again buy it from an authorized retailer for the warranty

;)

[Sam Farrington]

There hasn’t been much discussion of batteries, probably because that knowledge is assumed by many, but I think it’s worth talking about.

The Fenix HL21, 2.625 oz. total with strap and one AA battery served me well for years with Engergizer Ultimate lithium batteries. But got tired of constantly throwing the batteries out, as they are expensive and toxic. Now use a ThruNite TH20, which takes one AA sized Lithium Ion 14500 battery, which is rechargeable, and lasts me much longer on one battery. The lamp is a little heavier, at 3.5 oz total, but is quite comfortable at that weight, although I would not want anything heavier.

The 18650 rechargeable Li-Ion cell batteries have more capacity, but are larger and heavier, and I’ve not been able to find a headlamp using an 18650 that is as light.

I see that the Petzl lamp you mention can be powered by a Petzl Li-Ion AccuCore cell equivalent in size to 3 AAA cells; a good development, as I found using Energizer Lithium AAA cells that were not rechargeable to be even more expensive and wasteful, and that was the reason for moving to the HL21.

I would go with a lamp that can be powered by one of the rechargeable Li-Ion cells (carrying one charged extra as back-up), and among those, choose the model that best fits your needs. The rechargeable Li-Ion batteries have much more capacity than older types, and in many cases, such as the TH20, will throw a much brighter light when you want it. The only other consideration would be weight, of course, and some of the Petzl lamps that also work with AAAs can get up over four oz. with a Li-Ion battery, which as in my case, might be more weight than you want.

REI has a number of these products, both lamps and Li-Ion batteries, on its site and might be a helpful place to look at first. Note that the Candlepower and similar forums do not take weight into consideration as much as we would like. I also found that even when specifying the weight of stripped down lamps (without battery, headband or bracket) weights were understated by manufacturers and sellers by as much as 30%.

And a final consideration, as has been much in the news lately, many of the Li-Ion batteries being manufactured present an inherent danger of fire or explosion. That might be a reason for leaning toward a more established manufacturer and retailer; but as we’ve seen, that alone may not be a foolproof approach. It is the reason why I’m willing to carry a headlamp with a slightly heavier aluminum housing, store high drain batteries in strong airtight containers, and recharge them in a safe and protected place.

[Sam Farrington]

This is an update to my earlier January post on this thread.
For the reasons mentioned, the goal was to find a light weight headlamp with a rechargeable Lithium battery, so that a fully charged extra could be carried as a back-up.

Unfortunately, I found that the TH-20 had a short battery life when set to a medium-high beam. There is no warning before it winks out, and it left me in the dark a couple times. Replacing a single pen cell battery (Lithium 14500) in the dark is much easier than 3 AAA cells; but when a car comes along while walking the dogs, it is a problem.
Joggers might have similar concerns.

Looked online at the OP’s alternatives to the Petzl headlamps; the Coast FL75R and the Ledlenser MH6. Found several reviews of experiences with the Coast running out both quickly and unexpectedly, possibly due to battery drainage while the lamp was shut off.

And it is not clear whether a Ledlenser battery can be backed up by carrying an extra.
Many of the rechargeable lamps do not have removable batteries.

A big concern is the lack of diffusion. It is easy to forget while wearing one of these blasters when looking at someone. Serious eye damage can result. Of the three in the original post, only the Petzl uses a lens incorporating a diffusion pattern, and even with that there is a concern.

Thanks, Steve K, for the info about the updates on the Petzl lamps with the lock-out feature. While the Petzl Tikka is not as bright as some others, the high setting at 200 lumenrs is plenty for pitching a tent in the dark, and the middle setting is plenty for cooking and dinner at night.

As for weight, at least I know that the Petzl with battery and strap is 2 5/8 oz total.
Got burned a couple times by misstated weights, and while not having purchased the Coast or the Ledlenser, have serious doubts whether the weight and battery life of lights in the 400-600 lumen range will be competitive with the Petzl.

Don’t know if the Petzl provides a warning before it winks out, preferably by switching to lowest output, because have not had to use the back-up battery yet. So settled on the Petzl Tikka hybrid and it has worked out great. The cost was well under $100 with the lamp and two lithium batteries that each fit easily into a pull-out compartment that also takes 3 AAAs. So long as no one else is in the blast radius, the TH-20 can be used during power outages, which we get plenty of here.

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