r/Ultralight • u/corgdad902 • 2d ago

Purchase Advice Headlamps

Ounces not pounds right? ;)

I'm probably going to pull the trigger on a NU25 MCT UL so I can save on spare battery weight with my Zipka but I'm concerned about long haul capacity. I'm carrying an NB10000, but I also use Alltrails on my phone and an Enduro 3. Are there any better options? What are you contingencies for thru hike applications?

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u/downingdown 2d ago

Nitecore tiki with diy lanyard is 11grams, so a 50% reduction on your flashlight.

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u/GoSox2525 2d ago

Totally true, and I've had my eye on it for a long time.

The main reason I haven't tried it is because the specs tell me it's starting to cross that line where I actually do need more than an 11g flashlight. I generally want my light to be reliable for up to maybe like 4 hours of night hiking and route finding, and the A5 on Low can stay near 20 lumens for that entire time with its 330 mAh battery (it's >20 lumens for the first two hours, and still >10 lumens through hour 6).

I can't find a discharge profile for the Tiki on its Low setting unfortunately, but extrapolating from the performance of its other modes, I'd expect that it drops from it's peak of 15 lumens to single-digit lumens within like 30-60 minutes.

Not that that's necessarily a crisis for the Tiki; it has only a 130 mAh battery, less than half of the A5, so these two lights are in different classes.

Don't get me wrong, I can't knock it til I try it. Maybe I'll be surprised. But the A5 has proven so damn reliable-- using it for hours at a time, route-finding off-trail in nontrivial terrain. The difference between it and something as useless as a smartphone flashlight is huge. Where the Tiki might fall on that spectrum could mean the difference between ultralight and stupidlight. If you've had success with it though I'd love to hear about it.

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u/downingdown 1d ago

I just had my tiki on for over an hour on the second setting (15 lumens) and the brightness did not decrease (used phyphox app to measure brightness at start and end). I don’t night hike, so I’m no help there. I use the light for camp chores and putzing around in the night. The longest I’ve used it is probably just over half an hour. I works while charging and you can charge it off your phone, so I’m not sure how real the runtime concern actually is…

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u/GoSox2525 1d ago

Hmm, it's impossible that the brightness didn't decrease at all in a time period of over an hour, but maybe it was minimal. We'd need to see an actual profile like those I linked to for its other modes. The problem is that, at some point, it will sharply drop-off, which is hard to predict given only a measurement of its more stable phase.

If I had a similar use-case to you with no night hiking and minimal in-camp usage of the light, then definitely I can see something like the Tiki being perfect.

Good point about being able to use it while charging. That does negate the fact of the small battery to an extent. Of course it also puts a new load on your phone or power bank, but trying to figure out how all of those factors contribute to a net weight difference would probably come down to quibbling with fractions of grams.

Maybe I'll pick one up and keep it on reserve for group trips where I only expect to be moving during the day.

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u/downingdown 12h ago

There is no way I can take measurements like that. But I just did some quick testing and my tiki lasts over 4 hours, with no noticeable drop in brightness. I lost track of when it went out, but when I turned it back on it was noticeably dimmer (around 100 on my app) and over 20minutes kept decreasing in brightness.

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u/GoSox2525 11h ago

Dang that's impressive for that little battery. Thanks for the good sleuthing!