Thanks, I will check that out! But my definition of “weighs almost nothing” might be different from yours ;-).
Good to know. Ordered one.
Wow lots of good info here! Thanks. We’ll see what I come up with… will post the results at some point.
Have just checked on my scale, olight is 8g, aaa Nimh Duracell is 12g, and an AA alkaline is 24g. So the Olight with battery is lighter than a bare AA battery and looks like it is possibly smaller in volume, though slightly longer.
8g, that is pretty good for off the shelf. I’m using ultimate lithium batteries which are 7.77g on my scale… (are they well regarded in the flashlight world? …not exactly budget, but maybe they are when you factor in the value of long shelf life.) My hope would be to eliminate most of that 8g and bring the total weight including battery down to around 10g but we’ll see.
Just for perspective on weight, I recently made (well girlfriend did most of the work) a string backpack that weighs 10.61g including its carrying bag, and is capable of carrying my laptop, which is sort of a medium laptop in terms of weight (old 13” MacBook Pro). In its carrying bag it’s about the size of a walnut… outside of its bag it’s a little bigger than a laptop. Yeah I’m what they call a gram weenie.
If you take the head off the olight it probably weighs 4g, can’t check it right now.
That gives you everything you need except a return path for the negative at the back of the battery.
If you can make a spring mechanism that holds the battery in by pushing the back end, you have a functioning light at about 4g. The positive end of the battery will sit 1cm inside the head so it will be quite secure, and if you splay the head apart by 1-2mm an AA will also fit, giving you much longer battery life, but heat dissipation might be an issue unless you add resistance to reduce the current.
Yes that’s actually what I’ve been thinking! I got the copper one today, not going to destroy that one (it’s also heavy), but have an aluminum one coming in another day. Another idea is to cut away all but a couple thin rails of metal, just enough to hold the battery contact in place, and replace the missing material with light fabric.
This won’t be a light for daily use. It will be more just a lightweight part of a small kit… more as a backup than an everyday light.
Let’s see if I can do this image thing. Off topic of lights, but here’s the ultra-light string backpack:
Compared with the weight of some US coins:
Looks good. You can get something similar in outdoor shops here made of (I think) parachute material, also comes in a bag about the same size.
the singfire 348 does unscrew at the head, you can take the lens and the driver/led out and use in your bubble straw 
wle
Yes you should weigh one of them and see who wins ;-).
Nice. I have ordered one but it seems that the shipping will take a little while. Looking forward to it!
Well it arrived, earlier than expected, and I can’t figure out how to unscrew it at the head. Any tips?
Push the head on a rubber surface and twitst the body
I had a few that wouldn’t unscrew either.
I used pliers because nothing else worked.
Yes, it did leave some tiny marks…
By the way, since you’re in USA, maybe check out the Olight store on AliExpress (that unfortunately doesn’t ship to NL EU).
They recently had the i3S on sale.
The i3S has 3 brightness modes: low - high - moon.
It may be too heavy for your liking though, but it’s a sweet little light, has the best twisty switching i know of.
It weighs 0.43 oz (12.1 grams).
By coincidence I did recently order one (edit: based on what Jerommel said earlier)! Waiting for delivery. But in this case I didn’t care so much about weight, and got the heavy brass one (the coated one just because I’m unsure about whether the raw brass would have any lead which I’m not interested in absorbing into my skin).
Thanks for validating my purchase ;-).
“based on what Jerommel said earlier” well, duh, that would be you! 
what you gain in weight you lose in ability to make it bright .
lights use the whole light /body and even your hand as a heatsink .
give and take what you gain you also lose .
give the g3 to grandma
the lithium is an easy way to lose weight .downside is just the price .
Time for a progress report…
Version 1 of the ultralight AAA flashlight is done!
Final weight for this version is 4.77 grams without the AAA battery. Not as low as my initial overly optimistic goal, but not bad. With the battery, the weight depends on the battery, but with an Energizer Ultimate Lithium for example, the weight is 12.5 grams total including the battery.
I’m pretty happy with this overall package weight.
What makes up most of the 4.77 grams? Well for one thing there is a solid metal bar spanning from the back to the front of the battery. This part is sourced from a cheap flashlight I got at a surplus place, and cut down. That cheap flashlight is unbranded and is a 2 AA light with four old-school LED bulbs… the metal strip was serving the same role in that light so I just took it out and snipped it in a couple places.
Then another heavy part is the pill, which seems to have significant metal mass to it, probably for heat dissipation. This comes from the SingFire 348 (thanks skinny_tie for suggesting the SingFire, and wle and Lexel for helpful tips!). Based on what I saw with the Olight i3e pill, the 348’s pill seems comparatively heavy; I will have to do a weight comparison on a scale.
But the i3e pill was too big for the straw. I could attach it on to the end of the straw with some heat shrink tape, but that seemed to complicate things and the SingFire 348 pill allowed a much more straightforward solution.
The SingFire head is tricky to open because you have to know that only the very edge (about 2mm or approx 1/8 inch) turns. So if you use a tool like pliers, they need to be applied to the very tip of the 348 flashlight.
The parts are: bubble tea / boba-type straw, battery, metal strip, pill, reflector, cover glass, and lanyard.
Everything pops into a straw, with the lens being glued in place on one end with Gorilla Glue, and the bent metal strip follows the battery into the package to provide some friction that holds the battery in place. A small tab at the back end of the straw holds the lanyard.
A couple of drawbacks: First, you need to hold the “button” (the metal strip) with constant finger or thumb pressure for as long as you want light. Second, I’m not sure this thing would pass a drop test. But for the weight, it seems pretty OK. I’m very happy with the weight of this version, and it also works well, stays together simply, is not very fiddly to use, and the battery is fairly easy to change. There’s also a small cosmetic flaw, with some extra glue mess around the edges of the lens… I’m going to see if I can do a better job on that next time.
BTW the weight listed includes the lanyard ;-).
Pictures soon…