I gave away a CuTool w Nichia today, birthday present to my son in law.
(fwiw the Copper Tool w Nichia is on salefor $23, the CuWorm is on sale for $31)
Now I feel like Im allowed to buy another light, or two
Sooo, I just ordere two CuMaratac w Nichia on sale for $35… (one is for a friend, I dont need two!.. do I? )
to my surprise they came with Free Shipping! woo hoo!
(they used to charge $10, when the lights cost a lot more too, and did not come w a Nichia)
Im actually tempted to buy a CuWorm, and swap the pills
A CuMaratac w Nichia on an efficient regulated driver w NoPWM can’t be bad.
(Two lights for less than the price of a Cool White Maratac)
disclaimer, I am not affiliated, just a happy consumer
LOL! I imagine it will, since its part of the Maratac package.
I dont use diffusers, I see no reason to blind myself with sidelight… that would be like using a bare LED as far as Im concerned. I dont “get” diffusers… I prefer bouncing the light off a wall or ceiling.
fwiw, chapstic caps work as diffusers too, you can even get Red ones
I suppose those could be handy for directing traffic, but to me they are just useless, like the keychains some lights ship with.
pm me your addy if you want one of my spare Maratac diffusers (if you dont plan to buy the light)
Happy Shopping!
PM sent, thank you for the kind offer. A copper light would go nicely with my brass worm, plus the maratac has a reversible clip which is desirable to me.
I actually prefer Medium first,
fwiw AAA lights with low first include Thrunite TiS (no nichia option) and L08 (yes Nichia option)
the reversible clip is very useful to me as well, lets me use it as a headlamp:
The Tool has the same clip
reversing the clip on a Maratac interferes with tailstanding, something I used to think was important, but in practice I seldom choose to… I bobbed the clip so I have the option:
note the Maratac head will Lego to the Tool and vice versa
Worm head will also lego to the Tool and Maratac, but not vice versa, because the Worm has shorter threads
It looks like from the last picture the only thing the maratac does not have that the worm has is a key chain attach, which is no consequence to me, as I don’t carry keys.
I am starting to come around to this also, except for my bedstand light, which is definitely moonlight/firefly first.
Maratacs Do have a keychain attachment point, but I remove them. A Copper AAA is too heavy for my keys.
you can see the key connection in this pic
Im all for moonlight, and I do keep a 3000k light with a <0.5 low by the bed, but it happens to be the 3rd mode… I have no problem remembering that, and just twist 3 times against my hand, on the way to the bath…
for me, Warm White (3000k), in full dark, at sublumen levels, is preferable to cooler color temperatures
some concepts Im developing:
Candle Color for Candle Brightness (Warm white 3000k for <10 lumen)
Bonfire Color for Bonfire Brightness (Neutral white, 4500k for <100 lum)
Noon Sun Color for Sun Brightness (Cool white, 6000k for >100 lum)
Congrats! I hope you Love it
no clue on the quote formatting… I struggle posting it too, as you can see in the random font changes below
all in one light could be really interesting, atm I just place different CCT lights in different settings, with redundancy
sometimes I swap my pocket CCT depending on time of day or what I anticipate doing, if Im going camping, etc
bedside 3000k
pocket 4000k
car 3000k
pack 3000k and 4000k and 5000k
imagine a tripple LED head, where Low is 0.5 lumens @ 3000k, medium is 20 lumens @ 4000k, high is 100 lumens @ 5000k… all 90+CRI, with no tint above the BBL… I can dream… but sometimes Reality intervenes
Well, I finally read the website description, and it does advertise a glow in the dark diffuser. I thought when I first glanced at this the specs seemed really good in terms of run time, I am just wondering if anyone has tried to verify any of them:
From the countycomm website for the copper AAA rev 4 Maratac :
Using a single Duracell AAA battery we got the following results:
Medium mode, 40 lumens output for up to 7 hours
Low mode, 1.5 lumens output for up to 55 hours
High mode, 138 lumens output for up to 70 minutes
( Rev 1 model was 80 Lumens and 48 minutes) ( Rev 2 model was 115 Lumens and 60 minutes)
40 lumens for 7 hours is huge compared to my other AAA lights, none of which I have performed run time tests on yet . . .
Lumintop worm - 18 lumens for 4 hours
Fenix LD01 - 26 lumens for 3 hr 8 minutes (such detailed resolution!)
Manker E01 - 7 lumens for 7.2 hrs
Guessing the maratac specs are a bit, it not a lot, inflated. Look forward to doing some testing here . . . .
Yes, something is fishy with the specs on the countycomm website. From the page for the AA maratac rev 4 :
Using A Single Duracell AA battery we got the following results:
Low Mode, 12 lumen output for 12 Hours
Medium Mode, 45 lumen output for 4.5 Hours
High Mode, 205 lumen output for 75 Minutes
I am guessing the AAA Duracell does not actually get more lumens for longer time than the AA Duracell in a different body, although it is a different emitter.
Assuming it is a typo I expect the medium run times for the two batteries are swapped, that would make the most sense. I could live with the copper AAA with these specs:
1.5 lumens for 55 hours
45 lumens for 4.5 hours
138 lumens for 70 minutes ( I think unlikely with Duracell, maybe eneloop)
I will receive my rev4 CuMaratac AAA w nichia in a few days and update the efficiency, runtime, and lumens test info
fwiw, I expect the CuMaratac AAA w Nichia to have different runtimes than the XPG2 version, whose specs were simply retained when part of the page was edited to promote the new version, rev4. County Comm specs are not known for accuracy.
Initial reports are that the AAA Maratac and the AAA Tool w Nichia “look” similarly bright, both have MLH mode sequences, both have NoPWM, both use the same LED, and I suspect both use the same driver and mode levels… pending confirmation
what is less than optimal about the AA model is that it has PWM. It has LMH modes, of unconfirmed brightness, efficiency, runtime, and regulation… I wont be the one to buy one, but if you send me one I will test it, and send it back, as Im PWMPhobic.
stay tuned, meanwhile, speculate to our hearts content
the new Maratac has a driver that stays Higher Longer
on my home-brew lumen meter, the modes on the Nichia Maratac AAA are quite similar to the modes on the CuTool and CuWorm,
about 20 lumens for about 4 hours
about 2.5 lumens for about 36 hours
and about 80 lumens in regulation for about 20 minutes for the inefficient Tool, or about 40 minutes for the efficient Worm and Maratac
The Maratac w Nichia has a slightly different driver than the Worm w Nichia. Both are efficient and regulated, the Maratac is about 10% brighter.
The Worm and Tool w Nichia have slightly different drivers, the Tool is about 10% brighter but the high mode is not regulated and runtime is shorter on high than the Worm and Maratac.
Imo the Copper AAA Maratac w Nichia is a Best Buy atm for my criteria, including NoPWM, High CRI, Regulation, Efficiency, and my favorite metal for a flashlight. It is on sale at County Comm, if you have ever been tempted, this is a great time to pick up a Maratac.
here are some of mine, if you look closely you can see the Knurling has evolved to be simpler (newest on right), as the price has fallen. I don’t mind that the new knurling is not as sharp
models with knurling like the one on the left came with PWM. The middle model is the beginning of the NoPWM series, the right one is the current model, NoPWM plus Nichia!
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