wrote in
:

I've run LEDs directly from AA's and found that without a bit of
current
limiting they tend to damage themselves. Perhaps the AAA has a bit
more internal resistance or the LEDs you chose are a little more
resilient or slightly different material and operating voltage.

I don't know. I've been using this light for several years with no ill
effects.

In any event, I agree that a headlamp would be nice... haven't
rigged one up
yet. Trouble with all the commercial LED lights I've seen is that
they're set up to be like regular flashlights. You know... flood the
area with as much light as possible. That'll wreck any night vision
in a heartbeat. The single LED works great (as you've also found
out).

The headlight I have offers a choice of 2 focused white LEDs or a single
unfocused, unreflected LED, depending on the switch position. It's bog-
standard, except that it came with a red LED which switched for a green
one. Red light makes reading charts and LCD-based too hard to read for
me. Also, it makes no sense to me to use red light when the instrument
lights are white anyway. The human eye is most sensitive to green light,
so you need less of it to make things visible.

--
Regards,

Stan

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin