Spider-fire headlamp 200 lumens

Here's an interesting find at work, my friend at work had bought this head lamp from Hong Kong for $15 plus shipping at 200 Lumen s. When I saw how bright the thing was, I had to try one. I just got it in today and man it is extremely bright with 3 modes. He doesn't use his headlamp as much as I do (to check battery time)but I an going to see what I get from run times (He's still on his original batteries after 2 weeks). Anyway if your looking for a very very bright cree p4 headlamp at 200 lumen s easy then check this out. The shipping takes about a week to get to the states but worth the wait.

e-bay

spider-fire manufacture page

Neat looking product. Very good price. For me, 200 lumens seems too bright for a headlamp the way I would normally use it -- especially if the beam pattern is focused like a normal flashlight. Is the pattern adjustable or more of a flood pattern?

It's a spot beam David (non adjustable), like a flashlight. That was the only bad thing I saw so far, I'm suspecting the battery life is probably going to be not that great with all the power, but I'm running rechargeable with a 15 min recharger and 2 sets of batteries at work due to I will use the light 8 hours a day on constantly. So I should get an idea on battery life soon but it's too early to know if it is viable for camping or what have you with the battery life.

With 8 hours of constant use I would be concerned about overheating, possibly damaging the light and/or the batteries. Does seem like a good deal if you need a ridiculously bright headlamp, but I am wary of cheap lights.

I'm planning to get this light by streamlight which is much less bright, but has a respectable 56 lumens and the fantastic streamlight quality I expect. It has regulation, but not very good regulation unfortunately(the output curve is far from flat). Nevertheless, if it's anything like my Streamlight propolymer luxeon it should beat any other headlamp I've seen.

Actually I have a stream light Green Trident ( http://www.brightguy.com/products/Streamlight_Green_Trident.php ) I've been using for work for quite awhile (not very bright) and I usually go through 2 sets or rechargeables per day (At work the headlamps stay on almost all the time). Last night I tried out the Spider-fire on the high reach for the whole night (lower 50 degrees with heavy wind at 60 foot up in the air). It went from 12 am to 4 am on the highest settings before swapping out the next set of rechargeables. I must say the light is impressive and is really nice to work with at night. I had several workers are interested in getting them as well and I dropped it a few times but only 4 feet with no problems. We compared it against a true 3 watt steam light and the stream light was a little brighter but it is way brighter than my primary light Stream light Twin-Task 3C LASER ( http://www.brightguy.com/products/Streamlight_Twin-Task_3C_LASER.php ). I have yet to find a light that can do all the functions this light can do (Stream light Twin-Task 3C LASER) and take 3 to 4 story drops on concrete constantly. So far I've been impressed with the light, I'm going to start to run it hard this next week and if it holds up I may get one for the house.