Saturday, May 4, 2013

You light up my life, er, ah, Hardhat!

Hard hats are great, but they don't offer a lot of options for attaching headlamps. We work in near darkness many places in the theatre, and holding a pen-light in your mouth for any length of time can result in drooling all-over yourself and the flashlight - not mention the yech factor of where it may have recently been.  The typical elastic band type headlamps that hobbyist wear won't stay-put because the elastic band will slip across the slick surface of the hardhat and fall off at the most inopportune time.  Securing your flashlight to your hardhat frees-up your hands for more productive work.
Helmet Light
Streamlight Rubber Strap Mount on firefighter's helmet, and Streamlight Clip Mount (inset).

Streamlight, makers of industrial strength flashlights for fire and rescue teams has a good solution:  The Haz-Lo Helmet Lighting Kit.  In includes a clamp bracket so you can secure the flashlight to the helmet rigidly with a pivoting mount, a rubber helmet strap with holes you can thread the flashlight through, and a 3AA LED flashlight with a tail cap type switch.  The clamp bracket has a captive screw so you won't be loosing those tiny parts.

More info at:  www.streamlight.com/en-us/product/product.html?pid=283

A pair of these lights provides redundancy and doubles your work light to 240 lumens, each running 6-1/2 hours.  Remember:  It is still a good idea to safety cable the flashlight to your hard hat, and safety cable you hard hat to your gear belt.


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