EEVblog #1010 - Zyntony Ra LED Strap Light Teardown

Teardown and first impression review of the Kogalla Zyntony Ra backpack strap LED light. A Kickstarter and Indiegogo project.

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[mattgarland]

I was interested, so I added up. The EEVBlog has 3 weeks, 17 hours and 49 seconds of content now, all of it fantastic!

[JerryWalker]

I recently bought 10 LED torches from china for £5.00 (for all 10 including shipping) and they are brilliant (excuse the pun). They take a single AA battery at £0.15 which last for many hours and they have a clip to attach to whatever you want and they can be directed (pointed) in any direction and illuminate a wide area very well. They are aluminium, very tough and I could get 400 of them for the same cost and I can then use them for other things.

[mikeselectricstuff]

They could have easily used the PIC to do the boost conversion instead of using an external chip.

[gordonwedman]

Once again Dave proves he's a bright guy.

[Meneltour]

there is a strange lighting effect at around 3:42 you can see the reflection of the room lights on the velcro tape

[vicentvanmole]

great review.thanks for taking it apart

[cemx]

The primary intent seems to be for use on a backpack. I then wondered what the magnets were for which Dave does explain starting at 16:00. Maybe there should be two versions, magnetic and none-magnetic.

[tohopes]

Hopefully these will help you find more oscilloscopes of mysterious origin down in the depths of the dumpster room.

[brzydka_i_bestia]

Nice mosquito attractor, great to see it bend tested.

[timothylamb]

Wait so the PCB runs the whole length? Good thing it does not flex too much, I'm imagining the copper traces on the board not lasting too long.

[redtails]

7:12 they've literally used mayonaise as thermal compound

[RenThraysk]

Magnets... not great for compass users. Some bright spark started putting magnets in zips and then on jackets, and people were wondering why their compasses were unreliable.

[mcuembedded]

Not too nice for night time stuff, as I can tell from practical experience of photographing in the dark.
Also not for walking on a trail one after the other.
A reddish hue is much better and does not kill low light vision. Nicer to let user have high intensity red light as well. If you are out in a group, those behind you can use red so you don't get blinded when you look back.

[rwbishop]

Just my opinion... but I've never found fault in a decent head lamp. Plus at the price of the featured item, one could take along a spare headlamp or two and still save weight & money. Could probably go on; it's just that I feel headlamps are more the correct technology for the application.

[AlexKiritz]

There are plenty of headlamps just as bright as this. This just has comfort going for it.

[UpLateGeek]

I'd be interested to see the quiescent current of the lights and battery pack. It'd be a pain if you left it in the car for emergencies, only to find it drained itself flat! (I know, not its designed application, but still, would be good to see the numbers.)

[philbx]

Opens up a lot of possibility for accessories like the solar panel jacket and flying-nun hat, the leg powered generators and of course the LED cooling fans with ducting :-)
Nicely thought out and manufactured indeed!

[izimsi]

That soldermask on heatsink pads explains why on the thermal photos the PCB was visibly hotter than heatsinks.

[bartomiej]

You said that you have static air in lab, and while walking it will cool down, but you must consider that when you wear it, you isolate back surface with your backpack straps.

[Sephious_VII]

2x Energizer strap-on headlamps.
Take them off the strap and mount them to the accessory loops of your backpack straps. Now you have a multi setting lamp set with way less fuss. And the angle is adjustable.

Less than $45.00 US for 2 of them.