Headlamp – step 1

The following image shows the headlamp that I used. Yours will probably look very much the same.

LED headlamp

We will be disassembling the headlamp in the same way as the flashlight. Simply turn the bezel until it comes out in your hands. Once again, we are talking about a $2.00 investment here so you might want to buy a couple, just in case you have to sacrifice a few in the name of science.

Lamp with lens removed

Once you remove the two small Philips screws, you can now remove the circuit board containing the LEDs. The headlamp I purchased came with a switch that allows you to have one, three, or all the LEDs on at the same time. I'm not sure how practical this is for our project, except possibly to conserve battery power.

PCB removed for modification

Now that you have the lamp apart, it is time to fire up the soldering iron and solder removal tool and go to it. As in the previous project, simply replace the white LEDs with IR ones and off you go.

The cool thing about this lamp is the LED selector switch that allows you to turn on one, three, or all LEDs. If you are going to use it for nature observation, you could build yourself a lamp with three red LEDs and four white ones. That way, you can move about with the red LEDs and not ruin your night vision, unless you see something interesting.