Determined efforts are being made to bring a decent Chinese lamp to the market at a recession-busting price (50 quid):

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Chinese-Miners-Lamp-cave-and-mine-exploration-Li-ion_W0QQitemZ190508105926QQcategoryZ123469QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp5197.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D1%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7466568682718575846 

Item no: 190508105926

Similar pictures (some quite interesting) on the backup blog:

http://chinamining.blogspot.com/ 

Is it an Oldham copy? Yes. But it's nevertheless very interesting - and modestly priced. :thumbup:

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Similar lamp to the Raptor by the looks of it, BTW the reason the other proper mining lamps are around £100 plus is not really due to the fact they are watertight so much it's due to being gastight & atex rated wich is a legal requirement in most mines...

With all these chinese lamps it helps to undo the front of the lamp and smear some silicone grease lightly over all the plated contacts, as the plating is not up to Oldham standards, they tend to oxidise mostly due to condesation in the cap lamp.

Not bad for £50 though.

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There was a discussion about these on UKcaving last week. I thing the price is not sustainable with it being bankrupt stock, but a good price if you are after a budget lamp.

Over the years I have looked at many Chinese lamps and the prices vary dramatically, from US$30-60, that £20-40, however do bear in mind, you will have shipping on top of this, usually if by courier or airmail approaching the price or more than the lamp itself + duty and VAT.

It only makes real sense with these lamps when you order a bit of bulk, delivered on the slow boat.

Saying all that, the biggest worry to me is the quality of the Li-Ion cells. Great if you are using these lamps everyday, you'll probably get a good life out of it, but if only for recreational mine exploring / caving then you could end up with a lamp that has been used maybe a 100 times over 4 years or so and the batteries have gone. Not saying this is the done deal for all Chinese lamps, but something to bear mind.

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Miles does them at Caving Gear, a bit more expensive but built to his specification, a lot of people swear by them 🙂

http://www.caving-gear.co.uk/show_product.asp?id=818 

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Yep Miles had ironed out various things with his and as you say, they are a good lamp.

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I have one of Miles' lamps and concur with the above.

Is 'zephyr' = 'ghost' on UKCaving?

A lot of the Chinese lamp certification has to be taken with a pinch of salt 😉

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Another one! The caving / mine exploration caplamp market is getting a bit swamped 😮

This one bears a bit of resemblance to a Wenzhou Longgen lamp I imported about 18 months ago as part of a look at various different makes of Chinese lamps.

🔗Personal-Album-1-Image-59868[linkphoto]Personal-Album-1-Image-59868[/linkphoto][/link]

It's not the same lamp though, the battery box is subtly different and the bezel is different. The switch is similar though, as is the overall shell design.

But it's not the same lamp.

The Longgen was actually quite OK. Some of the Chinese lamps have got a sort of glossy sheen to the plastic which looks a bit naff, but the Longgen was about (IIRC) 20 US dollars. I wasn't impressed with the switch, whilst it didn't feel as if it was going to drop off, it never felt particularly positive, and would flicker a bit as it made contact.

However the lamp in my photo isn't the same one as zephyr is offering. His offering actually looks a bit better. If they can really do them for £50 and can support them in the event of warranty issues then it'll be a very cheap way into a caplamp.

The margin will be desperately tight though. Importing from China isn't cheap. There's shipping, IP VAT, duty, admin charges and dastardly fuel surcharges all to pay before you even get the goods.

And selling them on eBay will take about 10 to 12% of the sale price after PayPal is factored in.

But if they're good enough then at the price it'll be a good lamp.

On the issue of certification there are international standards, some superceded, and there are EU standards. ATEX is composed of two directives relating to the manufacture and the use of equipment designed to be used in an explosive environment.

I don't fully understand them all yet, but there are international standards for electical equipment for us in potentially explosive environments (e.g. EX ia I/IIC T4) and Euro standards (e.g. EN62013-1:2002), but ATEX is a separate issue, and if something is ATEX certified it will have the stylised Ex logo on it and a group (1, 2 or 3) and M1 or M2 category for mining applications.

Nobody's selling non-ATEX lamps as ATEX and it's not exactly relavant from the point of hobby use caving / mine exploration, unless you're going to be encountering explosive environments in which case you probably shouldn't be there 😉

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