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Lupine Wilma 6
By Steve Fisher (20/06/2007)
Summary: Versatile, as much light output as you could possibly ever need, burn forever, compact and light. A set of lights that compromise on nothing.
Price: £430
Value:
Performance:
Bulb; 830 lumens LED Lens
LiIon Battery; 6.8Ah softcase
Charge time; 4 hours
Weight; 460 g
Burn time at max output; 4 hours
Burn time at sensible high output: 6.5 hours
Burn time at "still heaps of light" low output; 42 hours
The only reason this doesn't get 10 out of 10 on performance, is because as with all thing technological, sooner or later someone will make it yet smaller and lighter. (Unfortunately the form we use do not allow decimals so I have put it as a 10, Gear Ed)
Having tested with Lupine Wilma 4 (LED lamp) and Edison 5 (HID lamp) last year, I made a somewhat flippant comment back to Lupine that what they needed next was a unit with the lighting power of the HID lamp, combined with the burn time of the LED. I was fairly confident in my own smugness this was technologically impossible. So when Lupine got back in contact shortly before the ARWC claiming to have exactly this product I was very interested. Better still, they provided their Wilma 6 test unit for me to use during the ARWC.
Straight off let's deal with the price tag. We are talking absolute top of the range here. A massive capacity Lithium Ion battery is expensive. Then combine 4 cutting edge LEDs mounted in a precisely focused and robust lamp unit. Add cables, mounts, a switch and charger to match.
