Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp

Nuwai HLX27K-23AA is headlamp primarily based on Luxeon K2 LED. The headlamp has adjustable focus & beam. Nuwai HLX27K-23AA also has additional three 5mm Niciha LED's; Red, Green and Blue. The headlamp is powered by three AA batteries. Optics used in Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is acrylic based. The main beam, being focusable has relatively smooth to ringy beam output. Electronics in HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is based on Microcontroller (µC) and brightness adjustment is achieved through PWM technology. There is no regulation of light levels though. There are two brightness level settings and a strobe mode for the main K2 LED. Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is built from Plastic material. Although not rated for IPX standards, there are O-Ring seals at various places to prevent dust and moisture entering the headlamp. There are two operating switches, one located on top of head unit that controls main LED and supplementary 5 mm LED's through various click / press combinations. Other operating switch is located on the battery compartment, dedicated solely to the back Red LED. Both switches have bright orange colored rubber boot making it easy to locate. The switches are of electronic click type i.e. there is no mechanical actuation involved to engage contact and current flow. Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp uses clear acrylic lens. Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp appears to be well built overall and having relatively thick body walls. Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp comes blister packaged.

Light Features:

• Luxeon K2 LED
• Individual R,G,B LED's
• Focus & Beam adjustment
• Acrylic reflector
• Electronic switches with multimode operation

Light Operation: Electronic click switch located on top of forehead unit. Click once to switch on, click again to switch off. Light starts in High brightness mode.

Changing Brightness: Click the switch in quick succession to cycle through High, Low and Strobe modes. Stop clicking when desired brightness level / flashing mode is achieved.

R, G, B LED Operation: Press and hold the forehead unit switch until the Red LED switches on. The light now enters in RGB mode. In RGB mode, clicking once will switch on the Red LED, clicking again will switch off the Red LED. Click the switch in quick succession to cycle through Red, Green, Blue and Red Flashing mode. Stop clicking when desired light is in desired color. To return back to main LED mode, Press and hold the switch until the K2 LED switches on.

Here is the table showing total output^* levels.

Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp
Level	3 x Alkaline AA	3 x NiMH AA
High	700	592
Low	260	240

^*The total output levels are based on custom built Integrating Sphere with Gossen Mavolux 5032 Class B USB Light Meter as photometer. To convert total output readings in to approximate Lumen readings, simply divide the total output by 10.

Packaging: Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is packaged spacious, blister packaging. There is a bright green background based insert to display the important information about the flashlight. At the top are highlights & main features such as focus, K2 LED, advertised light output and runtime. At the bottom, detailed features along with example of expected output beam shot for wide and narrow focus are present.

On the back side of packaging; headlamp specifications, light operation chart and battery replacement guides are presented. Notably there is bulb replacement information informing although that the LED will (usually) never blow up. The battery compartment is clearly visible on the back side.


Body: Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp body mainly consist of two active components. Main forehead unit and the battery compartment. The active components are attached electrically through a coiled cable and physically attached through three elastic belts. These belts are mainly responsible for mounting the headlamp over the head. The belts are adjustable to suite individuals head size.


Main highlight of forehead unit is the focusing arrangement which we will discuss in detail a bit later. Notice the foam pads on forehead unit and battery compartment, these offer appropriate cushioning and help comforting for long usage.


Bezel: Not exactly Bezel, but rather the front end of Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp. Distinctively there are three Niciha 5 mm R, G, B LED's on top, Luxeon K2 LED with focusable optics in center.


Optics Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp: Let's have a closer look at the the front end of Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp. Luxeon K2 LED and it's optics occupy major front footprint. The LED is aligned almost in center. Optics in headlamp is built from acrylic material and has smooth to ringy finish. The beam pattern generated by optics in narrow beam mode is well defined hotspot and there is distinct fall off corona side spill, there are slight rings in corona of beam, mainly at the outer ends of beam. Optic produces a very smooth wide hotspot in wide beam mode. Beam quality in wide beam mode is considerably better as compared with narrow beam mode. There are almost no rings in the main beam or the corona, however, at the end of beam a ring defining end of beam is present. The Red, Green & Blue LED's located on top portion present typical 5 mm beam patterns. Red LED is located in center. Blue and Green LED's are located either side of it. The Red LED has well defined hotspot, actually it is more or less square die projection of the Red Emitting area.


LED in Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp: Here is a close up look at the main K2 LED through optics. You may notice that there is slight misalignment of LED. Gold bonding wires connected to hexagonal base are clearly visible. The typical conformal coating of prosper on blue die is also visible on Luxeon K2 LED.


Components: Let's explore the two main components of Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp; the forehead unit and the battery case.


Main Forehead Unit: The main unit of Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is mounted on C shaped clamp that allows swinging of the unit up to almost 90°.


Here is the picture of main unit aimed downwards by 90°. The ability to swing the position of main unit allows easy aiming of beam either straight ahead or below, depending on the need. This is considered as a very good feature.


On top of the main unit, you can clearly see the orange colored electronic switch for operation of main unit.


At the bottom, there is focus arrangement for the main beam. As you can see, there is 4X as the minimum and 1X as the maximum beam. What 4X means is the brightness and at 4X level, the beam is narrowest. At 1X level, beam is widest. You can adjust the slider at any desired level. Slider physically moves the optics back and forth to achieve the desired focus / beam level.


Battery Compartment : Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamps battery compartment accommodates 3 AA sized batteries. Notice the translucent acrylic filled slit on the compartment. The back warning Red LED is placed behind the acrylic lens.


The second operating switch placed logically on the battery is for activating the back side warning Red LED indicator.




The is a warning Red LED has two modes. One is constant on and other is flashing. Note that the picture is overexposed, but still gives a fairly good idea about the brightness. This is one of the brightest Red LED we have seen so far.


Battery compartment cover of Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp has oval oring ring seal to prevent dust and water entering the battery compartment. The cover remains attached through a translucent flexible plastic link.




Contact springs on Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp inside appears to be nickel plated steel. The acrylic lens cleverly placed taking advantage of cylindrical battery shape and the lens also help so that batteries can be inserted properly.


There are appropriate markings allowing correct polarity insertion of battery. This picture clearly shows the cross section of acrylic lens and the metallic return current link as well as the translucent battery cover link. All placed in such a way that batteries slide in between them perfectly and batteries do not rattle.


Focus Arrangement : Here is how the optics look from the wide focus to narrow focus mode. WARNING: Do not look directly at the optics while light is on. Below picture taken through ND filters and is highly underexposed. In reality, the light is so bright that it may cause eye damage.

Here is the beam shot Matrix shows Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp with three AA Alkaline batteries. All beam shots are taken at f/8 aperture with varying shutter speed.

	Low - Narrow	High - Narrow	High - Wide
1/1000
1/500
1/250
1/100
1/50
1/25
1/10
1/5
1/2.5
1

Here is the beam shot Matrix for RGB LED's Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp with three AA Alkaline batteries. All beam shots are taken at f/8 aperture with varying shutter speed.

	Blue	Green	Red
1/1000
1/500
1/250
1/100
1/50
1/25
1/10
1/5
1/2.5
1

Extreme close up pictures will not be available for the headlamp.

Equipment Used: Custom built Integrating Sphere with Gossen Mavolux 5032 Class B USB Light Meter as photometer. Mavolux 5032 B USB is high precision, high accuracy and high quality light meter with conformance to DIN 5032-7 and CIE 69 standards. Utmost care has taken to ensure that the light measurements are accurate.

Alkaline High & Low: The runtime for Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp with three Duracell AA batteries on High light output level is about 1 Hour 42 Minutes till 50%. During the first 10 minutes, the light output drops sharply from 70 to 50 lumens this is typical for unregulated lights running on Alkaline batteries. The output continues to steadily fall following standard Alkaline battery discharge curve. At around 6 Hours 52 Minutes mark, the light output is at 25% level. Light level continues to fall ultimately falling on to "Moon Mode" of about 3 Lumen at around 18 Hours and still continues to run for next 10 or so Hours. The total usable light in high mode is about 7 Hours. Moon mode is further 20 to 21 hours. Such a long moon mode is very helpful in case of emergency.

On Low output mode, the light level does not fall as sharply as High output mode. The Low mode starts at 26 lumens. Runtime on Low light output level is considerably long about 8 Hours 42 Minutes till 50% to be specific. The 25% light level of 6.5 lumens is achieved around 17 Hours 25 Minute mark. After about 34 Hours, 3 Lumen moon mode is achieved. The light continues to run for almost 6 days slowly depleting the batteries to 1 Lumen level.

We performed another test on low mode after 2 weeks with same depleted batteries (marked as "Alk Low 2" in the chart) the runtime started at about 6 lumens and continued another 24 hours reaching moon mode of 1 Lumen. This again is a very useful feature in case of emergencies or if you forget to put new batteries. It's always better to have some light illumination instead of having no illumination at all.

Here is the runtime graph for Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp with Alkaline batteries for first 18 hours.


NiMH High & Low: The runtime for Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp with fully charged eneloop AA batteries on High light output level is about 4 Hours and 14 Minutes till 50%. For the first 8 minutes, the light output drops from 60 to 50 lumens. As Nuwai HLX27K-23AA is not regulated, the light follows standard NiMH discharge curve which itself is some what regulated. For the next 3 Hours light continues to decline from 50 to 30 lumens. As 3 Hour mark approaches, the typical NiMH knee point appears and battery starts loose charge more rapidly. Between 4 and 5 hours the light output drops sharply from 32 to 5 Lumens.

It's a different story on Low output level though. The runtime starts with 24 lumens and then light output is maintained more or less between 17 to 15 lumens for well over next 10 Hours. The runtime till 50% is about 11 Hours and 48 Minutes.

You might have noticed that the runtime tests were terminated at light output level of about 2 lumens, this is to prevent eneloop batteries from getting permanently damaged by deep discharge. On completion of the runtime test, the terminal voltage of each battery was about 0.9V. In case of emergencies, especially when it is a matter of life and death, you may allow the batteries to deep discharge. The headlamp will still provide illumination for considerably longer time if batteries are allowed to be depleted completely.

Here is the runtime graph for Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp with fully charged eneloop AA batteries on Low light output.


Runtimes Conclusion: Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is not regulated, this can either be viewed positively and negatively. Positively, the light will continue to run far longer. Here is the runtime graph comparing for both battery types and light levels. For frequent / daily usage, we would recommend using NiMH batteries. For occasional caving, we recommend usage of NiMH plus a backup of fresh Alkaline batteries. This way it will be both environmentally friendly as well as life saving in some cases. If you plan to use flashlight on rare occasions, try using Sanyo Enloop cells that have very low self discharge.


Here is the graph for all runtimes for first 6 hours.

Overall Nuwai HLX27K-23AA Headlamp is one of those good lighting equipment which on one hand, offers multiple color illumination, focus adjustment as positives and on other hand having unregulated light output as negative. The negative of unregulated light also has one positive aspect though, exceptionally long runtime especially on the Alkaline batteries.