I've got a large bag of brand new Oldham spade mounts if you should ever feel the urge to use them.

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Roy

Just a couple of thoughts regarding the pivot arrangement.

With the best will in the world the lamp will get the occasional smack, particularly in low stuff, which may cause the lamp to pivot. It would be a real pain having to reset the inclination of the lamp every time it took a clout.

I also wonder how vulnerable the pivot itself is. If you spend most of your underground time in squalor grit will inevitably find its way into the threads. Add grit to a steel bolt running in an aluminium thread and you could mash the threads in the bracket fairly rapidly (particularly if you are also having to re align the lamp fairly often).

May be better to consider a ridged connection between lamp and bracket. (it would also reduce the amount of machining you would need to do).

Hi both
Roy:I might take you up on that but have been considering a design whereby the lamp just slips onto a bracket and is then locked in place. So different lamps (mine of course) could be easily used on the same helmet without levering with screwdrivers or any such thing.

Rick: You misunderstand the design. The thumb nut rotates on the stainless screw that passes through the pivot and is screwed into the bracket tight from the other side. The thread is in the bracket hole and lamp free rotates and is locked by the thumb nut.

The only thing that can wear is the nylon thumb nut and I would probably enclose a spare anyway. No way would I design anything that screws in and out of aluminium.
Your comment is very useful though as I now percieve the necessity to make this clear
Thanks

I appreciate the smack situation but its a question of pivot or not pivot and I have sold one to someone who saw that as a big attraction.

As far as little Dragon is concerned there is of course nothing to prevent an owner setting the lamp and then tightening the nut with force. Its on an M5 stainless steel thread so cant see anything bad happening to the lamp.

I have been testing it all weekend and will report tomorrow, Im just back home and need to get my brain in gear.

Its a tough little SOB I can tell you that.

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Over the weekend I tested the lamp in a roomy slate mine and in Bwlch y Plym lead mine. I entered the slate mine with the preconceived idea that the lamp would be pathetic for some reason, I was wrong.

The standard mode was good enough for most people, I have tried taking photographs but the camera doesn't reflect what the eye sees which is shame.
My main concern was peripheral light at the standard mode, inadequate peripheral light I regard as outright dangerous and one needs to see clearly where you are putting your feet. My concerns were groundless as this was if anything very good. I think it may well have something to do with this design of lamp as the reflector is right up against the glass, something that is difficult to achieve with the 'Scurion type' lamps.
The floodlight was remarkably good, again I put it down to this design feature and wide angle reflector right against the glass.

Full power was what you could reasonably expect and I had it this setting for quite a while in the lead mine. The adit here continues as a long trial drive in search of a lode and there is no through ventilation. here the lamp got warm but not hot and I could have run it on full power for ever. Examination gives the impression that the aluminium bracket assembly is contributing to heat dissipation.

I have to observe that full power on this little lamp is Scurion 1500 beam territory and although not one of my bat cookers its not to be sneered at. It lit up the stope in Bwlch y Plym as far up as I could see.

I have done two trips then over the weekend with a lot of full power use, I have just put my meter across the battery and got 3.73 volts. I will stick with the low voltage design as they don't actually go out but burn for days with diminishing output. Moving to higher voltage to get about 30% more power on max isn't worth it.

I have some reservations about the lamps vulnerability to blows although experience with the Lynx which also pivots is that the pivot acts as a shock absorber.
I have found that I tend to keep my head down when thrutching through tight bits but its low roof walking passage that is deadly. Bang!

I will have to see how things go.

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It lit up the stope in Bwlch y Plym as far up as I could see.

That could of course be also true of an unmodified Oldham ;D

On a serious front, about the potential problem of hitting the lamp and knocking it out of line, I've not yet managed to knock my Scurion light noticeably out of line and it is a fair bit bigger.
Personally I like to be able to adjust the angle of the beam, it makes looking up places rather less uncomfortable for example and overall it allows me to have the lght just where I want it. Obviously if you have grown up with fixed head units then I suppose you've got used to them...

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It lit up the stope in Bwlch y Plym as far up as I could see.

That could of course be also true of an unmodified Oldham ;D

On a serious front, about the potential problem of hitting the lamp and knocking it out of line, I've not yet managed to knock my Scurion light noticeably out of line and it is a fair bit bigger.
Personally I like to be able to adjust the angle of the beam, it makes looking up places rather less uncomfortable for example and overall it allows me to have the lght just where I want it. Obviously if you have grown up with fixed head units then I suppose you've got used to them...

Thanks Nick
Sorry forgot to mention that I was using the tilt quite a lot. For looking up places and to adjust the angle to suit whatever type of ground I was walking over.

I am definitely going to experiment with this feature in the Lynx models. They do tilt but its a sort of friction thing against a star washer so I would expect that the screws will periodically require adjustment. The nylon thumb knob is just so more elegant and user friendly, beside if a lamp works loose and keeps on dropping, which foreseeably could happen, you would be in a fix without a screwdriver or Allen key, and how many people carry these underground.

To modify an existing lamp with blind threaded holes you would cut the head of a stainless screw and cut in a screwdriver notch, tighten smartly into the lamp, then reassemble on the bracket with a nylon thumb nut.
They are available in all sizes on ebay.
There may be appropriate stainless grub screws available, I will have to check.

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Obviously if you have grown up with fixed head units then I suppose you've got used to them...

Hand controlled units were good when I was little, but the jets tended to block in draughts

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Just imagine an acetylene lamp with the light output of a Fellows special, just until you realise that it has pinched all the oxygen... 😃

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Just to explain where my mind is now going.
I think I have taken 'bat cookers' to the extreme and have posted before about diminishing returns.
All along the line I have been trying to devise ways of making lamps thermally efficient while at the same time reducing weight.

Issue is, as McCoy said to Captain Kirk; "You cant change the laws of physics captain".
Heat dissipation is a product of surface area, full stop.

Also, as far as production of my lamps is concerned there is another issue looming, the fact that brand new or nearly new Oldham headsets at economically viable cost are drying up.
Ex Royal Navy caplamps coming down the pike now are nearly all the DL16 model, Oldham no longer manufacture the GT headset and haven't for some time.
I have been informed by Hawker that they do have a large stock of GT headsets but I cannot see me being able to get any in the small quantities I buy in at a price that is economical compared to what I can buy in the aluminium shells from China.

China is producing masses of just about everything as aluminium die castings, whatever you want in whatever shape or size, look long and hard enough and eventually you will find it. Lynx lamps use castings designed for underwater flood lamps, the Dragon a bike lamp. But must hasten to add the body casting is all I use!

I have just checked my stock of new Oldham headsets and am down to 5, and am not prepared to work on battered ex coal mine relics.
The writing is on the wall.

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I wonder what Oldham did with their tooling. The problem is that it probably makes about 200 impressions per pressing.

There is something about an oldham I like.

Comparing the MS with the Trigon, I agree with the diminishing returns. The Trigon is my tool of choice. It is enough, whereas the MS is OTT. The actual difference between enough light and more than enough light isn't actually worth it. I can look down huge drives and up levels into the distance and it's enough.

The oldham headset makes it for me. It's like getting into a classic car. There is something about the smell of leather seats and castrol R which is reassuring and is just nice.

I wonder if the beam pattern is something to be improved upon. A couple of my chums have various lamps, including the stenlight, a scurion and a rude nora. They have a different quality of light, which is quite different from my Trigon. They don't have a daytime setting though!

I see it as 2 camps of people wanting different things.

1. People who want a high power classic mining light.

2. People who want a gucci and effective caving light, probably with a helmet mounted battery and looking expensive....star head security screws, no bezel, etc.

We'll add a third group, just for good measure.

3. People doing things on the cheap. Petzl/Ebay lego.

The "2" group is quite a competitive market. The 1 group was pretty much exclusively down to home hotrodders and RF's divine creations. 2 appears to be as much about gucci branding, as it is being good. (if this wasn't the case, they'd be using RF lamps).

Perhaps it is time for things to move forward.

I'd always choose an RF lamp and recommend them to everyone on the sheer bang-per-buck you get. I was in Box cathedral and turned mine up loud and several people immediately came over and said "what the hell is that?" as they struggled with their petzl lego :thumbsup:

Some people just like "brewing their own" ::)
I could have bought a Sten for what I have spent over the years on bits to build my own Oldham based lamps.

Things do move forward, and not always for the best.
originally Oldham headsets were Bakelite, and then they moved to a different type of hard plastic, eventually going to ABS about 1999.

ABS is certainly not as good as the material used before this, the best headsets appear to be 1980s and 1990s.

The Oldham weakness is the bezel, a hard knock and it breaks.
The switch is a masterpiece of design whereby the 0 volt switching contact spring forces a spindle against a rubber O ring thus ensuring a watertight seal. Originally these were an impregnated felt.

Trigon and X3000 beams on full power are same, but X lamp is sustainable at that setting, I walked about with mine on full until my eyes gave up. Thing is, who needs this?

Stenlights, I have seen more of these than all the other 'Gucci' lamps put together.

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Being a 'group 2' person I bought a Scurion because it was a known quantity (with headset tilt adjustability) on the quality & reliability stakes and not for the brand.
If I was buying now I would probably buy one of Roy's new ones, the probably being because I'm not entirely convinced about using toggle switches.

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Latest Oldham have gone to toggle, Mike P had some last time up the Nent.

They're OK as long as placed somewhere out of the way, for obvious reasons.

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Ho ho ho
I have just looked up on my database the sale to our mutual friend PJ of his lamp called the "UniStar", it was 2009 and still going strong.

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Thanks for the 1000, now to get underground!

Thanks for the 1000, now to get underground!

Oh its you!
I hope you are pleased with it.
Thinking about it, and this wasn't intentional, X1000 you get a Scurrion for £125, Dragon, if it goes ahead, you get a Sten for £125.

Aren't I horrible?

Anyway, tried a thumbnut on my X_Lamp
🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-99176[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-99176[/linkphoto][/link]

See how it works out.
If its OK will fit to them in future and send out upgrade kits to all who already bought one.

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Thanks for the 1000, now to get underground!

Oh its you!
I hope you are pleased with it.
Thinking about it, and this wasn't intentional, X1000 you get a Scurrion for £125, Dragon, if it goes ahead, you get a Sten for £125.

Aren't I horrible?

Anyway, tried a thumbnut on my X_Lamp
🔗Personal-Album-128-Image-99176[linkphoto]Personal-Album-128-Image-99176[/linkphoto][/link]

See how it works out.
If its OK will fit to them in future and send out upgrade kits to all who already bought one.

I should have mentioned it was me. Great to have a lamp that rivals the Scurions/ nora's in the club for a fraction of the price.

I'll stick to being a category 3 person....

[photo]Personal-Album-4667-Image-99178[/photo]

[photo]Personal-Album-4667-Image-99177[/photo]

Les

I'll stick to being a category 3 person....
Les

I have seen that lamp in operation.
With one of Roy's lamps you can roast bats.
With Les's lamp you could roast sheep! :lol: