Choosing a Caving Headlamp: A Guide

Looking for a caving headlamp? Here's our guide to what factors to think about, as well as an overview of each of the models we stock to help you choose at a glance.

Battery Life & Type

An important factor to consider, and one largely based on the type of trips you undertake. If your usual caving is standard UK sports trips, you should be looking at a lamp that uses an 18650 or 21700 battery really. These Li-Ion batteries offer a good battery life, with the bigger 21700s offering higher capacity that can be trusted on much longer trips. For big continental trips or the most serious UK trips, you should ideally be looking at 21700 headlamps.

A smaller selection of AA and AAA lamps are available on the market, more suited to shorter trips, or for example novice/centre lamps where easily swapping out cheap batteries rather than dealing with recharging is required

A key safety consideration for lithium cells is choosing a protected cell. Any battery cells used for caving headlamps should be protected - this involves a tiny circuit soldered to the top of the cell which provides some basic protections against short-circuit, over-charging and over-discharging. You can often spot these in the form of 'button tops' on the positive end of the cell rather than unprotected flat-top cells. Unprotected cells are often available cheaper but they risk all kinds of nasty accidents if any water were to get in to them - nobody wants a lithium fire on their forehead. Any caving headlamp batteries you use should always be protected cells!

Durability/Protection

Caving's a tough sport on electronics, so make sure to choose lamps with the appropriate protection for your needs. As a minimum, a trustworthy lamp should meet IP66 specifications. This specifies the amount of water exposure the device can handle before damage being caused. Higher end lamps will meet IP68 which is essentially the highest protection needed for any mortal caving - handling extended immersion.

Brightness

Brightness is, in some ways, less important a factor. Most of the time you're underground, you'll probably be on a medium setting, as this is all your eyes tend to need for basic movement: 300-500 lumens is more than enough for this. High power/turbo modes are useful for lighting up bigger chambers temporarily or for photography, but not an absolute necessity, so if you're not as bothered about these uses don't shell out extra for them. However, the lamps with higher maximum output do tend to have bigger battery capacities, meaning at regular brightness modes they have longer battery lives too.

Some buyers will even be actively looking for less bright models, for example outdoor centres - kids will naturally choose the brightest setting available to them and limiting their ability to blind each other is essential!

Brands

The go-to brand for most UK cavers for the past decade has been Fenix, and their reputation is rightly deserved - solid lamps at an affordable price, they revolutionised cave lighting offerings. Their 5-year warranty is well-trusted among cavers,

It's also worth looking into more recent competitors too - we also stock ArmyTek, a German manufacturer who as well as supplying police and military forces around the world with rugged lighting solutions, are very popular among continental cavers. Their 10-year warranty offers a little more peace of mind for a long-lasting lamp, and the cost per lumen is much more competitive than Fenix.

Our own-brand headlamp offers a cheap but reliable entry-level

Backup Lamps

As you should know, every caver should carry a backup lamp! A spare battery is a good start, but to avoid being a liability underground an entire second backup lighting solution is needed. This also eliminates the need to carry a spare battery, which is also liable to getting soggy or damaged in transit. As a backup lamp, you can look at much cheaper solutions, as the light output needed isn't as high - if you're on to your backup you should be heading for an exit, not gawping at high avens or making a photography stop! Ideal options we have available are the ArmyTek Wizard C1 Pro, the Fenix HM23 or our own-brand ActionStash HLE Headlamp.

Our headlamps - Quick Guide

Fenix HM23 - low cost AA ultra-lightweight option - backup/centre lamp
ArmyTek Wizard C1 Pro - low cost Li-Ion lightweight lamp - backup/shorter sporting trips
ActionStash HLE Headlamp - low cost main beam, good battery life and brightness for most UK trips
Fenix HM65R - solid mid-range option,
ArmyTek Wizard C2 - solid mid-range option,
Armytek Wizard C2 Pro - high end lamp with a big battery, suitable for most trips you can throw at it - for bigger trips
Fenix HM70 - high end lamp with a big battery, suitable for most trips you can throw at it - for bigger trips
ArmyTek Wizard C2 Pro Max - top end expert lamp, big battery, super bright - suitable for expeditions
Fenix HM71 - top end expert lamp, big battery, big throw - suitable for expeditions