The gottcha might be the battery voltage, the light possibly stops working before the NiMHs are fully discharged.Good point, Bob. I'm planning to build a simple adapter so I can use some old battery packs I have, by putting them in my pocket and then running a wire to the external power port on the light. If I do that, I'll hook up my bench power supply and then lower its voltage until the light starts to flicker or dim. If I do that test, I'll come back to this thread and post the cut-off voltage I find. I'll also note whether you get any additional light by using a higher voltage. I doubt that will make much difference (going up to the max 15V) and I expect it might lower the life of the light.

BTW, we get frequent power outages here, and this light, because of its long life and wonderful wide, uniform coverage will make an excellent light to illuminate a room (like the kitchen) during outages.

Oh, and completely OT, I'm watching the final rider cross the line in the Tour de France, and it won't be good enough to beat the Australian Cadel Evans who, apparently, is going to be the winner of the race. Congratulations to everyone down under!

At the risk of sounding a bit paranoid I think I'd be a bit leery of the magnetic filter holders. I have a Litepanel Micro that is a staple in my camera bag, keeping it in there assures me that I've always got it when I need it and it's never accidentally forgotten. Though I was tempted by these lights the first time I saw them posted something about keeping magnets next to my camera and media freaks me. I have absolutely nothing to base this on, would just hate to find out the hard way. Of course I could pack it separately but that kind of defeats the purpose of having em.

- Ray
Underground Planet

I would only be worried about magnets if you are using magnetic tape.

"I would only be worried about magnets if you are using magnetic tape."

Even then only if it was analog tape. We've tried to erase all manner of digital tapes with a quite serious bulk eraser, the kind that has a conveyor belt. A VHS tape is blank after one pass, after 20 passes DV tape, Digital Betacam, DAT remains perfect.

Aside from anaolg tapes things such as flash memory etc are totally unaffected by magnetic fields or at least apart from magnets that will not rip a stainless steel implant out of your body.

Bob.

So what is it about the digital recordings that make them so tough? Robust error-correction? And are there bulk erasers made for such tapes?

"So what is it about the digital recordings that make them so tough?"
From my understanding the use of high coercivity tape.

"Robust error-correction?"
That helps but in our feeble efforts at erasing Digital Betacam we couldn't even induce extra error correction to kick in.

"And are there bulk erasers made for such tapes?"

Yes.

Bob.

RE: John Cline -
"As long as we're on the subject of the Z96 lights, does anyone have an experience with these 160 LED lights from Amazon? They look quite similar to the Z96 and even take Sony F, FH and FM batteries. They don't have the nifty magnetic filters, but they do have 64 more LEDs and can be dimmed."

I have a number of these lights John and they are pretty well made for the price. They run forever on rechargeable NiMH or even Duracells. Suggest the warming filter be added if they are the sole source of light but you don't need it outdoors mixed with sun for fill light. The price varies hour-by-hour. When I realized that it did, I watched and found them late one night for $32 each with free shipping. Next day they were back up to $40 plus shipping.

Kent

Posted some Z96 images here if anyone wants to see my cheap DIY kit bag.

Paul.