Tag: Titanium

Today I have a new headlamp the Klarus Titanium H1A. This is Klarus’s first headlamp, and as you can see this is is a multi emitter headlamp, with multiple buttons. It’s a dual fuel headlamp running on the included LIthium 14500 cell or alkaline/rechargeable AA batteries. Thanks to FlashlightZ(link is external) for sending this to me to further look at.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/GQwEL(link is external)
The YouTube Version of this Review:

Construction
The front and side shell of the headlamp itself is made from Titanium. It has a brushed finish and seems to have a clear coat applied over top. On each side there are little rubber notches that are glued on/molded on that give it a little extra grip. On top the buttons are silver plastic and are different sizes that correspond to the different LED’s.

The light pivots at the bottom and has 5 points of defined stops and a full 90 degrees. This is the easiest way to open the battery door and replace a cell. It clips on here at top. You can remove it from the strap which I like but I question if the all plastic pivot and mechanism can stand up to doing this repeatedly.

Inside the screws and springs are gold in color. The battery compartment thanks to the spring can accommodate longer 14500’s but you do need a button top battery.

Klarus markets the titanium in the outside of this light as being super durable, and very heat dissipation. While titanium is a strong and durable material it’s not the best for heat dissipation. Titanium has a relatively low thermal conductivity rating. For example Titanium has a rating of 19 watts per Meter C, Aluminum is 205-250 w/M C, and Copper is 386w/M C. In this the higher number is better means the material has better thermal conductivity and in this application that means it dissipates heat more efficiently. The benefit titanium has is that it’s very high strength for its very light weight which is why I suspect it was chosen here instead of it’s thermal properties. Klarus should just stress it’s high strength and lightweight instead of thermal properties.

The head strap band is one of the nicest I have seen on a headlamp. It’s very elastic, and two tone. The outside is a gray with the Klarus name weaved into the fabric. On the Inside the band is bright orange which might aid in finding it in the dark or in low light. There is also a thin strip of silicone embedded into this inside of the strap. This helps you keep it on your head, and would help it stay put on a clean hard hart or similar helmet.

Weight with strap and battery comes in at 96.6 Grams. Water rating is IPX6 rated. This means it will be just fine for rain and dust but not full submersion.

LED + Runtimes
This light takes a little different approach to others I have looked at recently by having 3 different LED’s. The main brightest emitter is a Cree XP-L V6 LED in cool white with a maximum of 550 lumens. It has 3 modes, High at 550 lumens, Medium at 100 lumens, and low at 30 Lumens. This emitter is almost all flood and even under the lens. The second white emitter is in the middle of the light, and is a Cree XP-E2 R2 LED with a warmer 4000k tone. It’s output is 50 Lumens on medium and 10 on low. This LED also has a Strobe feature at 50 lumens Lastly there is a Cree XP-E2 P2 Red LED that has one mode at 10 lumens and strobe at 10 lumens in red. I wish red had a lower lumen mode as it’s decently bright. On an alkaline or rechargeable AA battery the lumen outputs are the same except for Turbo which is 186 lumens instead of 550. You can run the main emitter and one of the smaller emitters at the same which is a little different.

Main emitter

Secondary emitter

Both

Red

Runtimes are timer based it seems. The light doesn’t get beyond slightly warm when in use for long periods of time. This is disappointing on turbo since it only lasts for about 3-4 minutes You can bump up again but it requires a manual trigger. Runtimes in the middle mode with the main emitter on the included Klarus branded 750 mAh was much longer at about 55 minutes before it dropped off significantly with runtimes ending at the 80 minute mark. The light does have low voltage protection and working voltage is 0.9V to 4.2V.

On a standard Enloop battery the output isn’t as much in Turbo and it’s shorter too at only about 2 minutes. But that middle output 100 lumens ran for nearly 115 minutes before a sharp decline over the next 20 minutes.

UI
On the main LED, the light starts off in high mode in a nice slow fade in, with another press it goes to low, and press again it goes to medium. I would prefer it start out in low, then go to medium and then to High mode. One could argue that if you want low mode you could use the secondary white LED instead of the main one for less output but I think it would be simpler UI wise if they all started in low and left it to the user to bump up in light as needed.

On the secondary LED’s the UI is similar. From off if you press and hold the secondary button you get the lower white output on the secondary warmer LED. Press again to get high output. To get red long press from the light being on to activate red medium mode, and to turn off press and hold.

The light also has a strobing red feature double click the secondary button from off to get into strobe and double click to exit. Lastly there is lockout and to lock/unlock press and hold both buttons for 3 seconds.

Charging
The included Klarus branded 14500 battery is a button top, it’s rated for 750mah, the protection cell on my charger didn’t care for this battery and I was unable to run a capacity test. The built in Micro USB charging on the 14500 is pretty slow. In my testing it was 0.34A for pretty much the entire length of charge. This results in pretty long charge times via USB, in my test it took 3 hours go go from full to empty. For a 750mah 14500 battery this is slow. When charging via USB you get a red LED at the top of the cell that goes blue/white when full. You can always throw it in a charger and charge at 1A faster. I wouldn’t recommend charging faster then 1A though.

What’s in the Box
Packaging is small and compact. The box is nice and designed for retail. Inside is a black and red zippered case, that contains the headlamp, strap, and battery. The battery was preinstalled and mostly precharged. The manual had no major translation issues and is available online from Klarus as well.


Packaging error?

Conclusion
I ended up liking this headlamp more than I thought I would at the beginning. The 3 different emitters are a nice way to give this headlamp alot of ability to cover a variety of situations. For me I this is going to go in my Go/Tornado bag because of it’s dual fuel capability. I generally prefer 18650 headlamps and have a 18650 based flashlight in the bag too, but from reading about peoples experiences after disasters the general consensus there are usually lots of AA batteries available. This headlamp gives me the ability to utilize those if I needed to and give me a headlamp which I find really useful. The case keep everything in one place and all together.

While I personally love Titanium and a large part of my EDC is all titanium, It’s really not necessary in this headlamp from a functional standpoint. It does give it more cool and style points though. FlashlightZ has told me an aluminum version is coming out later this year which should be a little less expensive. I think it would be cool if Klarus did some anodizing on the titanium version to make it a little more special and help justify the increase in price.

To find out more on the light visit Flashlightz.com