We’re all here because we like flashlights.
There are certain facts that are indisputable:
1. Many people worked very hard to make it possible for this GB to happen.
2. This group buy IS a first in many ways.
3. There are problems with all GB’s.
4. The lights are, as a design and implementation, amazing.
5. No single thing is perfect.
I could keep going for a long time, but instead I’ll get to the point of why I’m writing this.
I WANT these lights to be incredible.
Why?
Well, I have been playing with LED’s since I was a little kid. My dad had drawers full of all kinds of electronic components and anything that made lights or sounds was always something I wanted to play with.
I had asthma as a kid and had a bunch of inhalers around. They looked like pretty good pistol grips to me, so a little electrical tape, a toggle switch, a few LED’s, some wire, etc, and I had a gun! (Yet I thought MacGuyver was awesome, explain that!)
I still have the first flashlight someone other than my parents gave to me, it’s a AA mini-mag with red anodization. It’s the old kind with the shorter head and reflector, I just can’t bring myself to mod it. It was a gift from my friend’s mom, I just found out she has cancer. I’m going to stop by soon and I’ll probably mention how much it means to me. Not because it’s a flashlight, but because I treasured it as a kid.
I’m not trying to make everyone sad or tell sob stories, it just happens that LED’s and flashlights have been a part of my life since I was a little kid. When I found out that other people were into them I was a little upset, only because it was always MY thing, and it’s not like I was on the football team or anything. (Full disclosure, I got big in my early twenties)
You’d think that because I’ve been interested for so long I’d be just about the most knowledgable. Nope. I knew about the good LEDs fairly early on, I’m pretty dang good at modifying Maglites, and I’ve done a few other pretty cool projects, but nothing like what many others here have accomplished. Here’s where this becomes relevant to this thread again if you’ve managed to read this far.
The people that put these sets of lights together are almost painfully modest.
I read a comment that suggested that it was an easy task due to the fact that the X6 had already been designed and produced. That is a drastic simplification of the situation.
I’m not going to go into boring detail, but these lights are very special. The details of the changes and features of these lights are pretty well documented in this thread. I suggest if you have further doubts to get a set of the SS/CU in your hands. No, you can’t borrow mine
Take a moment to realize that these lights are just a moment in time, there WILL be brighter lights, there WILL (probably) be another group buy that involves lights with a similar set of features, there WILL be moments in which you will be dissapointed for a myriad of reasons about something that you purchased.
But none of that matters. What matters is that most of the people that were looking forward to these lights are not disappointed or jaded or complaining. If they are like me, they have been showing these suckers off to anyone that will listen! These lights are, to be frank, AfreakingMAZING!
All of that being said, I return to my original statement, with the hope that what I’ve written will be heard and maybe even have the effect I was going for.
We’re all here because we like FLASHLIGHTS!
Turn on your favorite light. Don’t you want to talk to somebody who gets it?