Personal Information

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Product  Information

• Manufacturer : Petzl
• Model : Tikka Plus
• Year of manufacture : 2004
  
• Manufacturer's website : http://www.petzl.com
• Date : July 8th 2004
  

From the manufacturer's website:
Inventor of the headlamp, Petzl constantly innovates to propose "hands free lighting" concepts to people who practise [sic] outdoor sports but also to professionals.

• Combines a variety of illumination with long-lasting battery life.
• 3 brightness settings (maximum, optimum, economic) and a blinking mode.
• Batteries last up to 150 hours on regular settings (up to 400 hours on blinking mode).
• Lamp articulates with new tilt feature.
• Lightweight and comforatable [sic] to wear.
• Water resistant and excellent for use anytime.
• Elastic band is fully adjustable and comfortable to wear.
• Requires 3 AAA batteries (included)
• 78 g with batteries

Technical specifications :

4 LED	Battery Life	Distance of illumination
Maximum mode	80 h	15 m  (50 ft)
Optimum mode	120 h	10 m  (33 ft)
Economic mode	150 h	5 m  (16 ft)
Blinking mode	400 h	-

  

Measured weight as delivered (without batteries) : 46 g (1.6 oz)
Measured weight as delivered (when batteries fitted) : 79 g (2.8 oz)
Measured size as delivered : Lamp body (approx) : 60 mm x 42 mm x 35 mm (2.4 " x 1.6 " x 1.4 ")

Arrival

The Petzl Tikka Plus arrived safely, having been onward shipped from a fellow tester in the US.  The product was still in its blister pack, with a leaflet in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.  The written instructions are accompanied by fairly simple diagrams about switching on and off, selecting power levels, opening the casing and fitting batteries, maintenance, maximum temperature tolerated (but interestingly, not minimum), storage, cleaning and drying, various warnings and the various accessories/spare parts available.   This instruction sheet applied to several Petzl models of headlamp.
Also included on the sheet are diagrams showing predicted lamp range and battery life (reproduced above as a table).
I like the Petzl website and found it easy to navigate to the required page.  The layout was simple and efficient and told me all I wanted to know about the product.

Product description and initial impressions:

The Petzl Tikka Plus is one of a range of small headtorches made by this company.  They utilise Light Emitting Diodes (LED's), which give an intense blue/white light, as the light source.  The Tikka Plus has four, arranged in a horizontal line.  The intensity of the light and the low battery consumption means that they can be run on the small standard AAA cells, which are readily available all over the world.  Unlike many incandescent or halogen lamps, or even some LED lamps now, the Tikka Plus is not focusable.

The on/off/cycle press-switch is mounted on the top of the headtorch, in a relatively large, orange, soft rubber mount.  The actual switch is a button in the middle of this and is easy to locate with an un-gloved fingertip.  The cycles through the different settings are explained fully in the instructions but are also fairly easy to understand 'intuitively'.  A really nice feature is a small, crescent-shaped lip protruding from the lower front of the torch, just below the LED housing.  As a spectacle wearer I find that with a lot of headtorches, light spills down the front of my glasses and detracts from the full effects of the headtorch.  Hopefully, although it appears to be quite small, the 'beak' will eliminate (or at least reduce) most of this particular problem.
The lamp casing is in two halves, the front half being made from a slightly translucent black plastic and the rear half from transparent plastic.  It's just possible to see some of the insides through the front casing and the batteries can be seen through the rear casing.

To facilitate hands-free use, the torch is attached to an adjustable headband and also has the ability to tilt or pivot from the fixed position.   This forward adjustment or tilt facility is made possible by two lugs on the back of the battery casing which click into four raised slots in the bracket attached to the headband.  The clicking through the four possible positions seems positive and clearly defined and there doesn't seem to be any rocking or bouncing of the torch body, once it is cantilevered forward and not resting firmly against the bracket.  The headband is the standard 25 mm (1") Petzl one, found on all of this company's products (bar the Zipka) and will accommodate a head size over 61 cm (24") in circumference down to 35.5 cm (14") at it's smallest adjustment.  This usually means that it's quite easy to use over most hats, caps, hoods or combinations of all of these, but not small enough to wear on the wrist without doubling the headband.  These adjustment sizes are given without taking into account the potential to stretch the headband to accommodate even bigger sizes or objects.

The first job on receiving the torch was to fit the batteries.  I found the small recessed button that separates the two halves of the casing easy to operate with my thumbnail, although the instructions show using a coin.  The three AAA batteries (Energizer Ultra Plus) were a snug fit in their three moulded spaces and it seemed a little difficult to close both halves at first, but once I had the lower lugs of the rear half properly in position, it snapped closed without any problems.  I suspect that this will require a little care when replacing batteries (especially with cold hands and/or in the dark) but I don't foresee it as a real problem, I think it's just important not to force it.

Once the batteries were fitted and the headband adjusted for my size, I found it sat really comfortably on my head.  The bracket that rests against the front of my head has a curved shape and this shape seemed to be just right.  When I switched the light on in a darkened room, I was astonished at the power of the four LED's.  It's definitely NOT a good idea to be looking straight at the lamp and I found it dazzled me for more than a few seconds.  The lamp lit up the room wherever I directed it and after cycling through to the lowest setting still gave enough light to move about the room with complete confidence.  The blinking mode appears to blink at the highest light setting and it will be interesting for me to see how and when I might utilise this facility.

TESTING

Over the next two months of testing, I'll be using the Tikka Plus in a variety of conditions.  I usually walk around the fields next to my home twice daily but at the moment, even at 10 pm, there is enough light not to need a torch.  As the hours of daylight start to diminish though, I'll be taking the Tikka Plus with me.  I always carry a headtorch in my pack whenever I'm out day-walking and this will be in there from now on.  At the end of August I'll be going to the French/Spanish Pyrenees for three weeks backpacking on a combination of three high-level trails, the GR11, GR10 and HRP so the Tikka Plus will be the headtorch that  accompanies me.  In addition, we have a number of shorter 3 to 4 day trips coming up, and later in the year an overnight Orienteering event.  The weather we'll be experiencing during the test period will be tremendously varied between possible high temperatures in the 30's C (90's F) down to around -5 C (23 F).  Hot sun, wind, rain, mist, sleet and snow are all possible for the Tikka Plus over the next two months.  Expected altitudes will be from -3 m (-10 ft) to 2600 m (8530 ft).  The terrain will also be varied, from the arable and grass fields and woodland near my home, to the high rocky passes of the Pyrenees.

Although the purpose of this test is not to make comparisons, the headtorch that has accompanied me over the last couple of years has been a Petzl Tikka. The Tikka Plus is a little larger than the Tikka but hopefully, the added features of the Tikka Plus are going to be worth the additional size and I have to say that I have always been extremely pleased with the performance of the Tikka, so any improvement is a bonus as far as I'm concerned.  I will however, look at the performance of the Tikka Plus in an objective way.

Among the things I'll be looking at will be:
Is it possible to switch the headtorch on accidentally (in a backpack)?
Is it possible to swivel the torch accidentally and will this swivel function become sloppy over time?
Does the light spill down the front of my glasses?
Is it water-resistant? It's not stated anywhere in the literature (I've just noticed a little symbol on the manufacturer's leaflet that reads "H2O OK" so perhaps it is water-resistant, the next few months will tell).
How does it function in wet conditions?
How comfortable is it to wear for long periods at a time?
At the highest setting will I be confident in using it on broken, tricky terrain?
At the lowest light setting, will it work as a tent light?
Is the blinking mode any use to me?

I'd like to thank BackpackGearTest and Petzl for the opportunity of taking part in this test.