28-2-2007

Black Diamond Spot

Use it, it's adopt it

Black Diamond Spot

We are in November. "Haloween" holidays are rainy but it doesn?t prevent you from going South at Saint-Léger in the Vercors where I join some climbers. Tons of routes and clouds are there to welcome me... In the evening, the rain started to fall and ends our climbing day. A good occasion to test the waterproof ness of my new Spot headlamp. First test passed!

I put away the manual and try by myself to understand how this Black Diamond headlamp works. Only one button for all the functions. It took me a couple of minutes to understand how all the functions work. A full pressure permits to activate simultaneously either the LED 1-WATT mode, the most powerful, either the 3 LEDs superbright mode, more dispersed and more economic. Then half-pressure pass to different brightness in these two modes. Four for each mode: weak, average, bright or strobe.

Here only LED technology. No halogene lamp. This headlamp is normally for mountain use. The LEDs were chosen to ensure durability but also an increased longevity in extreme conditions. From 20 hours to 150 hours depending on the function. I could test the longevity during a stay in the Swiss Valais at the end of January. At that occasion, an extraordinary Val Ferret completely covered with snow made me totally forget about what time it was. Hopefully my Spot was in my bag just in case to help me during the last hundred meters of the descent. It was the case that day and I realized how effective it was on snow. 40 meters for the mode 1-WATT in maximum position. I did not count... This trip also permitted me to end the doubt I had about using this headlamp with gloves. Conclusion: the half ?pressures on the single button ask a bit of dexterity, but once used to it, no problem!

I was forgetting! The Spot showed its capacity on a technical ground but also during a simple use in the woods. It fells abruptly on rocks. Fell in water and got under my feet during a jogging. With all this, not a single scratch. What more!

Technical details

 Hubert