Episode: 4219
Title: HPR4219: Black diamond head lamp and other gear
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4219/hpr4219.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:35:34

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4,219 for Thursday 3 October 2024.
Today's show is entitled Black Diamond Head Lamp and Other Gear.
It is hosted by some guy on the internet and is about 24 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Scotty talks about using his headlamp and backpack during his day job.
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q.
We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled.
This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive.
Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
I'm your host, some guy on the internet.
Okay guys, today is going to be a lot of noise in the background.
Probably, I'll try to edit most of it out.
I'm on job site today and there's heavy machinery moving around.
I got my unit turned off so you won't be hearing like diesel, engine idling or anything
like that from me.
But again, lots of vehicles moving around and of course, I came to a nice little secluded
area where I could park and get out of the way.
But then a couple of four men I guess trying to sneak away, they came and parked beside
me so I was like, can't get away from them either.
Today's topics about the Black Diamond Head Lamp.
I believe Dave Morse to the show, actually I don't know, I'm probably attributing every
show I've ever heard today at this point.
Someone did a show about flashlights or I think over in the UK to refer to them as a torch.
Here in the US, we normally call them a flashlight and in this case it's a headlight or a head
lamp rather and this brand of headlamp that I'm using is called Black Diamond.
And before I started working on this site that we are right now, I've never really had
to use the lamp too much.
You know what I mean?
You're doing pre-trip inspections in the morning and stuff like that.
A lot of times there's lights and stuff like that on site so you don't have to worry too
much.
They got those, I guess they're battery powered LED lights and stuff that they set out on
the site and you just pull up close enough to one of them and try not to look directly
at the light.
It provides tons of light for you to get your pre-trip done.
But if you accidentally glance over your shoulder, it basically annihilates any hope of you
seeing anything for the next 20 minutes because the lights are incredibly bright.
But yeah, I bought headlamps in the past and were the cheap old ones like certain stores
you can go to like discount stores or even Walmart and stuff like that.
You can go get a headlamp for a pretty cheap and I bought the two packs where you can
get like two headlamps for $5.99 or some craziness and they work, you know.
They get the job done.
But then I saw the black diamond headlamp one day when I was at REI and it was for 50 bucks
and I thought to myself, who on earth needs to spend 50 bucks for a headlamp?
You know, they sell these things for dirt cheap and everywhere, they're all LED so it's
not like they use a ton of energy or whatever the batteries last for a pretty good amount
of time.
Why 50 bucks?
Is it just a name, brand thing?
You know how some people spend, you know, $3, $400 on the pair of sneakers just because
of the person's name that's on the sneaker?
And that's what I thought was going on here.
I was thinking, okay, black diamond, that must be some sort of, you know, I spent the
most money on my gear brand that people can use whenever they're out and about.
And I thought, okay, I got to try it because it's REI, I got a membership at REI, normally
their stuff's really good.
Like I used to buy a bunch of just, you know, random backpacks to keep as my operator's
kit where I just store all my stuff in, you know, tread depth gauges and things of that
nature, gloves for, you know, doing your pre-trip post trips and other maintenance in
on the vehicle, whatever.
And I bought a Patagonia bag years ago and that bag, I still have it and I put it through,
I'm not going to say the word, but I, you know, I give it a lot of, it has survived a
lot of rough usage.
I'm talking about being thrown around, slid behind seats, being snagged on stuff and
I, you know, I'm not really paying attention, I'm just grabbing it by the strap and snatching
it just to get it free of whatever it's snagged on, not paying attention as to what has
my bag.
And I mean, this thing has withstood the test of time.
So if it does go out in the future, I know I'm going to definitely be looking for another
Patagonia just because it has just, it's been through a lot and it's still going strong.
Another thing I learned while, well, I guess you know what, this episode is now about
other gear that I use on the job.
I was going to just do the flashlight, but the Patagonia backpack is worth a mention as
well.
With the Patagonia, the one that I have anyways, it's one of those ones that has the
cinch top and the flap that goes over the cinch because the main compartment, for me
anyways, typically gets snagged somewhere and if it's the zipper style bag with the main
compartment is sealed with a zipper, that's the point of failure.
The zipper gets damaged, you know, the tracks that the zipper goes along, that'll get
damaged and then all of a sudden, now your bag won't zip up anymore.
So basically, unless you're going to repair the zipper, you've got to use this bag now,
which I'm simply not going to repair the zipper, hopefully the bag lasts and if it doesn't,
I got to get a new one.
And I used to use high Sierra bags and I used Jansport a couple of times, you know, old school
Jansport because they're cheap and you can get them almost anywhere a little bit in the
style, but they weren't really big enough and I, you know, I got to try to bind a new
Jansport roughly, roughly like every nine months because they just, you know, I put them
through a lot.
So I don't want to say they're bad bags, it's just when you're putting them through what
I put them through, you can probably hear the truck over here now, oh crap, he's about,
I want to pause the recording for a minute because I might have to get out and, uh, okay,
okay, okay, never mind, they're not going to kill each other, uh, see no matter where
you go, somebody's got to come over here and, um, hopefully the edit for this goes well
because I don't have much time right now and I don't have internet, that's another thing
where I am right now and I could use my phone, but man, my data, I only have two gigs of
data on my phone and I've been burning through it a lot this past month with these different
sites and everything going, uh, using my, uh, data in who, yeah, the, the high Sierra
bags were all right, um, the high Sierra bags with the Jansport ones, they were tear alone
in the fabric like just somewhere along the walls or the, the scrap that goes over the
shoulder, uh, that would tear.
The high Sierra one, it was almost always the main compartment zipper, almost always.
And again, when the bag gets snagged on something like I'll tuck it behind the seat or something
like that and maybe, you know, you got your triangles, your fire extinguisher, chalk blocks
and everything, you know, whatever's back there that's grabbing it, when it's time for
me to get my bag and get it out of there, I'm just grabbing it.
I'm not looking to try and dislodget or anything, I'm just going to snatch it if it gets caught.
So that, that's what I do, you know, a lot of bags, you know, they put up with it for
a little while, but the, in depth, they always give after a while and it's usually alone
in that zipper area.
So when I saw the Patagonia, it was for $100 US at the time that I bought it.
And again, this was years ago, um, I was thinking to myself, man, you know, for $100, I could
buy like three, four of these high Sierra's, but I really want to see if the Patagonia is
going to be worth it.
So I spent $100 on a single backpack, the Patagonia.
It actually was a little more than $100 and then you had a tax on top of that, but I'm
just going to say $100 just to be, uh, yeah.
And since I got the Patagonia, man, I have not regretted at all.
It's fairly weather resistant.
Now, I'm not going to pretend like you're going to be out there and in the pouring rain
for like 20, 30 minutes and your stuff's going to be dry.
That's not the case.
But if you're traveling through the rain, getting to and from vehicle, you know, and you
happen to have a quick 15 second, 20 second chat in the middle of that, you're going to
be fine.
Nothing to worry about.
Yeah, the bag is going to be wet, but your gear is going to be dry on the inside.
Now any more than that, and I just, I have not experienced it and I'm not planning on
experiencing it either.
So, uh, you know, your mileage may vary.
One of the things I want to point out here now, let's go ahead and segue on over to the
Black Diamond.
The Black Diamond headlamp, again, when you're out there doing pre trips, post trips and
it's zero dark 30, and for anyone that doesn't know about that term, that's just basically
any time in the really, really early AM when it's dark, right?
You know, well before the sun has came up, that kind of that's the time period that we're
talking about.
So when you're out there at zero dark 30, and for me, it's typically three to four AM,
depending on the season, uh, when it's warmer, I mean, it's definitely going to be a lot
earlier because more work during the warm season than it is the cold season, but right now
they're building new data centers and that's the, you know, I'm not giving the location,
but I'm working on a site where they're building new data centers and it's, I mean, it's
looking awesome.
They're building up a ton of new data centers out here.
And, uh, that's more work for me and, uh, I've been putting the Black Diamond to a lot
more use lately because there was a bear out here.
And I, you know, I'd use this headlamp for a long time, just doing, you know, pre-trip,
post-trip, looking up under wheel wells, things of that nature, nothing big.
You know, I had no reason to really test it until the other day, I thought I saw something
moving and I, I have my Black Diamond on and one of the lights that it has on, it has
three lights on it.
It has like one of those area lights that just sort of gives you a wide, uh, spray of light
and like a wide cone so you can see, uh, more of what's in your, I guess, your line of
sight or something.
I don't know how, how do you explain that, but, uh, yeah, it's not meant for distance, more
of, uh, yeah, viewing angle, I guess, something, but there's that light.
So I just call it cone because I keep thinking about the light almost like with a water hose,
when you put the hose on the cone setting or whatever, so it sprays the water out in,
you know, in the area.
And that's what I use most of the time when I'm doing my pre-trip, post-trips and all
that good stuff.
And then it also has a beam meant for shining just like a, a really solid beam of light
at a distance.
And it's pretty powerful because while I'm out here in the pitch black, you know, and
I hear something in the woods like this rabbit's in crap over here, oh, what happened to
the laptop?
Oh boy, hopefully it's still recording, uh, oh yeah, I think it's still recording.
Hopefully it didn't mess up.
You know, you, you hear something in the woods and you go over there to check it out and
you can barely see.
So I tapped the black diamond, which that's another great feature.
I don't have to kind of take it off and fiddle with it.
It has this feature where you could just kind of tap it on the right side with your finger,
not even on a button.
It's like a, a touch sensitive area.
So the moment your finger comes in the contact with that area, I guess there's some kind
of sensor there or whatever, but it triggers the spotlight mode.
So you get that nice beam that shines straight ahead and, you know, gives you more visibility
at a distance.
And that's when I saw something big and black and fuzzy.
This was a good time for me to make water.
And the black diamond also helps with that as well.
Now the bear didn't try to attack me or nothing.
It's just I did not know what it was.
And when I saw it, I almost couldn't believe what I was looking at.
And it wasn't that close to me, but still it was close enough that, um, it was too close
from my comfort.
But it went away.
It did not come at me or anything like that or grow or nothing.
It was just in the woods.
And yeah, you know, I was now nervous about getting my pre-tripper done over in this area.
So I went ahead and thought to myself, I need to do a show about this black diamond lamp
because for 50 bucks for a lamp, you know, the functions that it has, it also has like
one of those red lights on it.
So I guess if you're doing that night vision or something like that, it'll, the red light
supposed to help with the, you know, with night vision cameras or whatever.
But this thing is super helpful.
Always use rechargeable batteries in them anyway.
So I would recommend always using rechargeable batteries.
They're not that much more expensive than, than disposable batteries.
And you get so much more for your money.
And I run mine about two, maybe three days.
And then I have a couple of different sets of batteries because I have batteries that
go on some of my camera gear, I have a DSLR camera and other components that connect
to the camera that uses double and triple A batteries.
The black diamond headlamp uses triple A batteries.
And the closest thing to the model that I have that I was able to find on my phone is
one called a spot 400 headlamp.
That's the closest one to the model that I have with the, with the, with the different lights
and features that this one has.
Mine's all black and it has almost like a camel type band.
And I saw that they had, they also had a camel one there on the site, but mine isn't the
camel one.
Anyway, I recommend the black diamond headlamp.
It's a little bit pricey for a headlamp because I mean, you know, before having a situation
where I'm needing the extra functions, I figured a headlamp is a headlamp, man.
I'm just going to use it either I can see what I'm doing, which makes it, you know, a functioning
headlamp or I can't and it's terrible and I don't recommend it to anyone.
And then there's the situation where you hear something moving in the woods and then
you think, huh, let me just tap on this lamp real quick and get some extra visibility out
of it, you know, easily and quickly switch modes to see what the heck that is in the woods
because it sounds bigger than a rabbit.
Yeah.
So there's that.
Oh, I'm not.
I know somebody's going to probably ask, no, this isn't sponsored, nobody knows that
I'm doing this.
Nobody asked me to do this.
I spent only my money on this product, oh, it goes my alarm time to get back to work.
That means I got to get down the road.
Let me go ahead and get that going.
But yeah, nobody asked me to do it.
Nobody knows I'm doing it.
And I'm telling you about this lamp because you're a bunch of weirdos out there.
There is no telling what you're up to.
But whatever you're doing, you might like a decent headlamp, maybe not one that costs
$50 because if all you're doing is inside work like you're in a building work or something
like that, I wouldn't recommend to spend $50 on any kind of headlamp.
Not even this one, even though it's nice, I wouldn't recommend it.
But if you're outside and conditions change, especially working around machine, oh, that's
another thing.
From time to time, you might have a breakdown, right?
I forgot all about this part.
From time to time, you might have a breakdown and you got to get out there and get the traffic
to go around you and you're putting your cones out or your triangles or whatever behind
your vehicle.
Because if you're a commercial driver, you know what I'm talking about, you got to put
the triangles out a certain distance.
I'm not going to go into all the specs of that, but you have an obligation to make sure
that other vehicles go around you or whatever.
And I'm fulfilling my obligation.
One of the things I do is I put this black diamond headlamp on, but I wear it backward
where the lamp is actually on the back of my head or slightly to the, like the back
left side so that the light is aimed down, not, not up to where it would hit you directly
in the eyes.
Because that's another thing.
It has this tilting head.
So you're going to hit some clicks real quick here as I tilt the head so you can hit that.
Yeah.
So you can tilt the head down and it would, you know, hopefully not shine like directly
in the eyes of the motorists that are passing is, you know, last thing you want to do is
blind them and then they smack you with the car.
So, you know, the lamp has a strobe feature where while you're out there putting, you know,
putting the cones down or your triangles, whatever you got, and you're making sure that you
got the proper spacing, all of that good stuff.
You can also have that strobe on and again, I have it backward.
So when, when I'm not looking at the car, I want the flashing light to flash off of my
high visibility vest that I'm wearing, right?
So, so even if your headlights aren't working, that's the here's the thing.
You should have no excuse why you cannot see me.
It's not a solid beam of light.
It's not aimed directly at your eyes.
It's just from, you know, it's a flash of light, which flashes directly onto my high visibility
vest and gear that I'm wearing and it illuminates me repeatedly.
So you should, you should not have an excuse for why you couldn't see me.
That kind of thing.
So I use it for that during breakdowns and even on the yard, like on site, depending
on where you are, like if you, right now I'm doing the job with construction, but say
for instance, depending on if works kind of slow and I end up going to transit, right?
If you work in transit, you know, you can get a P endorsement on your, on your CDL and
then you can work transit.
So say I switch over to transit for a little while, depending on what shop you're working
at, you might be out there on the yard and I'm like a fill in driver, right?
You know, I'll come in and cover a router to whenever people call out and you'll have
people racing out there on the yard.
Now the rules on the yard are straight up five miles an hour.
You should not ever go more than five miles an hour because there's a lot of human beings
walking around out here, not to mention the way the units are parked.
There's a lot of units back and out.
So you know, you want to make sure that you can always see what's going on and going fast
as a good way of killing somebody or injuring someone, not to mention causing, you know,
tens of thousands into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
So yeah, don't do that.
One of the things I like about having the black diamond light on with that scrub effect
because the other headlamps I have, they do like a really fast scrub.
This one is a more, I don't know, less, less seizure inducing strobe and you can, you
can turn the light brightness up or down for all of the different functions or at least
that's what I've been able to notice anyway.
I've been able to turn it up and down because I want to preserve the battery life.
So I don't want it, you know, especially when you're doing the strobe, it's already an
LED light.
You don't need to have the brightness turned all the way up.
You just need it to flash indicating there's a human being somewhere near here where,
wherever you saw that flash at, there's a human.
And man, I've seen some situations not with me because I normally take extra precautions,
but I've seen some situations that were pretty nasty out on the yard and, you know, small
things like having a torch that flashes along with the high visibility vest is great
and all, but it doesn't produce its own light, right?
So if the person is paying attention, if, you know what I mean, because they're rushing
me get off the yard trying to dead head to wherever they got to go and you want them
to be paying attention, but if not, hopefully a flashing light catches the corner of their
peripheral vision and gets them to look where, where the light's coming from, hopefully
that's the case.
But yeah, that's, that's me over here talking, talking about the black diamond headlamp.
I'm looking for a model number on this thing.
I don't see a model number.
I opened it up, take the batteries out and everything.
I couldn't find anything, but on my phone, the closest one I could saw was that 400.
Yeah, if you guys have any sort of headlamps that you use as well and how you use them,
it's the important thing because again, a regular, a regular old $5 headlamp, I mean,
you know, even something like journaling, remember, I mean, bumblebee did a show not too
long ago about journaling.
When I'm sitting in the morning and I'm taking notes in my journal, you know, there's
an issue, the tread on this tire back there is a little bit low, I need to remind maintenance
to check that out, that kind of stuff.
When I'm sitting in the cab, I can, you know, sit there with my lamp on because the lamp
and the cab, it's nice in case you drop something on the floor, but the positioning of it
is terrible if you want to journal because it throws the shadow on where you're writing.
So it's, it's terrible.
Having the lamp on your forehead, doesn't matter what kind of lamp it is for this type
of stuff, right?
So it can be any old lamp for this, for what I'm talking about right now.
But yeah, it's just, it's just super helpful to have a headlamp and I wanted to talk to
you guys about that and this particular headlamp because I guess spending the extra money
on a $50 headlamp can turn out to be helpful, especially when there's bears around.
So that's me, I'm done rambling, I'm some guy on the internet and hopefully this audio
is usable.
There's another tractor coming down here and I got to go to work, so catch you guys later.
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