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Five Days of Black Diamond — Day 2 — Light for Europe

By Lou

Black Diamond Spot headlamp.

WildSnow is off on another blogathon to the motherland, where newly Obamized Americans are now everyone’s friend — but where a quality headlamp is still part and parcel to an enlightened experience. Ever since knowing the Silvretta ski binding, I’ve been intrigued by the Silvretta Alps on the border between Austria and Switzerland. Beautiful ski touring, lots of huts. Sometimes lots of people too. Classic. Never knew I’d be headed there. Then my old ski buddy Ted Kerasote called with an invitation. We got the finances working, Ted is super experienced with ski touring over there, so off we go.

Instead of grabbing some old beater out of the drawer, I figured it would be fun to choose two of the latest Black Diamond headlamps then make the final decision when I see how heavy my pack is.

Spot headlamp, Black Diamond's answer to brightness without weight.

Spot headlamp is a facile combination of minimal mass and maxi brightness. A burly 1-watt LED provides retina burn modes, and three smaller LEDs provide battery saving but still bright regular modes. Each bulb set has 4 settings you change by lightly pressing the switch (bright; middle; economy; strobe). With lithium batteries I figure on getting a whole six day hut trip out of this rig, but I’ll bring a spare set of three AAA cells just in case (this doubles as spares for my Tracker beacon, and lives in my tiny repair kit.)

Icon blasts eyeballs at 3 watts.

Icon is the gnar rig, (which on the Silvretta might not be necessary in early spring when longer days require less night skiing, but daytime temps are still cold enough, I hope, not to require too radical of alpine starts.) With a 3-watt max instead of 1-watt, it’s something around a third brighter than Spot in terms of real world distance. Believe me, it’s bright — perfect for doing things like skiing through a crevasse field in the dark, or searching for the last bottle of hefe-weisse in the cellar of some deserted hut, or blinding your opponent in a gun battle in the event of a terrorist attack.

Spot weighs 2.7 ounces with lithium batteries. Nice. Icon comes in just three ounces heavier at 5.6 ounces, and despite using larger batteries actually has a bit less battery life than Spot. This due to Icon being brighter than Spot in in most modes. Thus, you don’t choose between these two lights based on battery life, you just need to consider how much brightness you want. That said, I can’t help but think it would be cool for the Icon to use 4 batteries instead of 3, keep the same brightness, but have more life combined with it’s searchlight quality illumination, both without much added mass (especially with the lighter weight lithium batteries).

I should mention batteries. Lithium are worth the money. Their price per hour of operation is nearly the same as alkalines, but they weigh less, last longer, and work at nearly full power even in frigid temps. Holy Grail is of course a rechargeable system. BD sells a nicely packaged recharge kit for the Icon, using nickle-metal-hydride (NiMH) cells. I still use NiMH for day-to-day applications and I’ll use the Icon recharge rig, but until recently NiMH has the big problem of losing significant amounts of energy during storage, meaning you can’t just charge a set and leave them in your drawer for later use, but rather have to keep them in trickle charger. Inconvenient at best — at worst, leaving in a trickle charger will reduce the working life of the battery. Technology to the rescue, check out the new Imedion battery. These are the ticket, and I’ll be converting all my rechargeable batteries over to Imedion ASAP.

(Comparo: Lithium AA batteries offer about 2,900 mAh of power, while Imedion offers 2,100 Mah. Pretty good, considering the money the Imedions will immediately start saving you.)

Cons? We’ve used similar BD lights in the past with no big problems. The plastic cases are built to save weight and not particularly durable, so you have to be a bit careful not to abuse (they stand up fine to normal use). As always, I long for firmware; wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to plug your Black Diamond headlamp into your computer via a mini USB and program all the brightness levels, and turn modes on and off? For example, I don’t like having to cycle through the strobe mode when I’m changing brightness levels, and frankly only need two levels rather than three. User configurable settings for this would be awesome. One other con: BD should convert their Icon recharge kit over to an Imedion type battery as soon as possible. All in good time… Off to Silvretta we go. And I don’t mean the bindings.

Posted by Lou on March 17, 2009 | Filed Under Misc Gear Reviews

Comments

21 Responses to “Five Days of Black Diamond — Day 2 — Light for Europe”

OMR March 17th, 2009 8:54 am

Hey Lou, sorry to change the subject, but I just mounted some Dukes on my “resort” skis. Just wanted to say thanks for the great tutorials. They mounted up easier than expected. I made the decisions to do-it-myself after conferring with the tech at the local shop and realized the guy had little more knowledge than what can be found in, say, People Magazine. The only thing I might offer is that I carefully wrapped a wad of electrical tape around the drill bit at 9.5mm (binding spec) which acted as a stop. Without it I would have likely drilled all the way through the ski.

As a test I pounded bumps all day yesterday at Snowbird (spring conditions and no powder in the BC) and they performed great. The only downer was that the toe height adjustment is not static. That is, over the course of the day the toe-space seemed to grow and my boot started to rattle just a bit, not a huge deal but I could feel it while carving a high speed turn. I had to use my Black Diamond Binding Buddy (plug) several times to re-adjust the toe hieght (my drivers license was used as the paper gauge). Have you heard of this problem? Do you see any problem using lock-tigh on the threads to hold the adjustment static?
Lou March 17th, 2009 8:59 am

OMR, I don’t see any reason why a tiny bit of blue Loctite wouldn’t work… that said, you should check and see if your bindings are defective or somthing…

LOL about People Magazine binding tech certification program!
Bill March 17th, 2009 10:09 am

I have been using the spot for almost a year now and still like it. More than outdoor night missions, I use it while working under neath my car. The lack of a battery pack on the back of the strap is nice for lying on your back. The switch of the rubber does not seem to be affected by grease and oil either. Still wish there was a seperate switch for the spot and flood light since I use the flood light 90% of the time.
Magnus March 17th, 2009 10:45 am

How does the Spot compare to the Petzl Tikka plus (with 4 LEDs)? It’s been with me all over for many years and usually always perform well, but the light distance is a bit short at times.
Johno March 17th, 2009 11:25 am

I have had the Spot for over a year now and feel it is a great combination of brightness, battery life, and price. I feel you can find headlamps that are better at any one of the categories, but the Spot nicely combines all three. For the money you just can’t go wrong. My wife and I also have a BD Cosmo. It’s a good choice if you are on a budget, but for just a few bucks more the Spot gives more even light distribution and is brighter. The Cosmo should have more battery life, but practically speaking they are about the same.
My only complaint . . . I agree with Lou, it’s a pain having to cycle through settings you don’t use just to get to the one you want. I suspect though, that if BD fixes that issue the price will reflect it.
Sam Reese March 17th, 2009 11:43 am

Let me brutally raise the volume on a previous complaint. The button on the spot is dumb to the point of being almost broken. The difference between light touch and big touch is hard with gloves, accidentally triggered, and there are some changes that require a bad middle mode (for instance, going from low beam to off, often makes you go through high beam strobe. Not what you want.)

princeton Tech and Petlzl have way better buttons, and interface counts for a lot in something like this.
al March 17th, 2009 2:12 pm

another thumbs up for the spot,I been happy with it AND cheap is always good ,the price point made it a good convienient x-mas presant for the kids … I bought 2 more spots over anything else
Tom Gos March 17th, 2009 3:29 pm

Hey Lou, cool to hear that you’re headed back to Euro Land. Please try to provide frequent and detailed blog entries on your trip – I’m laid up with a torn rotator cuff and need to live vicariously through someone!
Lou March 17th, 2009 3:43 pm

Will do Tom! That’s my mission!
justin March 17th, 2009 4:37 pm

OH YEAH! I used to rent this movie from the library all the time back in the day! Still always remember the scene where Plake(?) climbs up on the railing, steps in and drops it. Siiiiick.
Lou March 17th, 2009 4:41 pm

Earth to Justin, come in Justin, are you there, Justin?
RobinB March 17th, 2009 7:07 pm

The general term for the newer generation of high quality NiMH batteries is LSD (Low Self Discharge.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_self-discharge_NiMH_battery

The Eneloop brand from Sanyo is a popular brand, and the Imedions that you mention also get good reviews. There is much speculation on sites like candlepowerforums (which has endless discussions about headlamps and flashlights) about which brands are actually rebadged Sanyos…
Lou March 17th, 2009 7:12 pm

Thanks Robin!
Tom Gos March 17th, 2009 8:16 pm

I think justin is lost in blog land – Romeo has a post about a new Greg Stump film over on his site, perhaps justin lost track of which blog he was commenting to.
Mark Worley March 18th, 2009 5:52 am

The Spot is the first reasonably priced headlamp I would endorse for cycling. I’ve been commuting to work for about five years, and the Spot works pretty well. It still can’t touch dedicated rechargeable bike lights, but it gets good marks.
Lou March 18th, 2009 6:35 am

Yeah, that’s what I figured Tom, just giving Justin some friendly ribbing.
Doug Matthews March 18th, 2009 5:42 pm

Lou, was just wondering if The BD Spot has been officially endorsed by BD for use with Lithium batteries? I know that the Petzl don’t recommend lithium batteries with most of their LED based head torches as they burn out the LED circuitry due to their slightly higher voltage output. I have a BD Spot but have only used alkalines for this reason. Some other brands have regulated LEDs circuitry (I think PrincetonTec) but BD doesn’t mention anything in their spec.
Lou March 18th, 2009 5:56 pm

Interesting! I’ve been using lithiums in BD headlamps since the dawn of creation, never had a problem. In fact, I’ve used them with every headlamp I’ve owned since lithiums came out, and never had a problem. I’d think BD would mention this in their spec sheet if it was a problem. Lithium cells are quite popular now, people buy and use millions of the things in all sorts of electronic gear.

If lithium is ok for BD and not for Petzl, black mark for Petzl.
justin March 18th, 2009 10:43 pm

HA! Sorry about the Lou! Tom hit the nail on the head though. Had two windows open here at work, commented on the wrong one when I was in la-la land. That comment must have elicited a few WTFs, apologize everyone.

Just got the Spot for Christmas actually to replace my aging (and corroding) Moonlight. I like it thus far, especially the lack of battery pack on the back of my head.
Doug Matthews March 19th, 2009 4:00 pm

Thanks Lou, will definately give the lithiums a go. For anyone interested who uses Petzl headlamps here’s the link to their lithium batteries media release http://en.petzl.com/petzl/LampesNews?News=159&Cadre=0
Chris March 20th, 2009 11:58 am

Have you checked out the Mammut headlamps? Brighter than anything I could compare it to in the dark, and it’s extremely bright. Give them a try. And they last a lot longer on a set of batteries because they run 1 watt bulbs instead of the 3watts of petzl and BD.