Nearly a year ago I got a L2 with a MF UF 3 mode drop in and after my brother asked some questions he wanted one.
He didn’t want to buy one from China, he wanted one from Aus so he ended up bying a “1300 lumen” Skyray SR5 with XM-L on eBay that was nearly purple and the output was between the low and medium on my Manafont drop in. It come with a crappy $3 charger and 2 blue Ultrafire unprotected batteries.
Anyway $50 later for about $15 worth of junk he implied I am to blame because I told him to get one a XM-L T6 LED and it turned out to be garbae, despite me saying “I would’t buy it”, “Don’t buy it” and “Its not worth it”.
A few months of him complaining later I bought him a MF UF 3 mode drop in and some Trustfire flames for about $27 total, I went to his house and took his old batteries and disposed of them. I cut up a aliminum can in to strips and to wrap around the drop in and it fit very tightly without any gaps. Then used proper flashlight lube to lube the threads and I also told him to get a proper charge for $10.
Fast forward just under 1 year, the flashlight has been outside in the weather for months. 1 battery is missing and the one in the flashlight is flat and he doesn’t use it because he lost the adapter for the US to AU plug for the crappy charger. He wont pay $10 for a half decent one so it can just sit around and become junk, I regret buying the drop in and batteries for it.
On another note, I got my T10 and Ti from the Thrunite promotion yesterday. I picked it up from the post office and went to visit the same brother and open my mail. He asked to look at the Ti so I passed it to him, the first thing he did was rub his oily fingers over the lens…
Thats the end of any flashlight related gifts or even showing him something new I get in the future, he should’t own any flashlights.
On the other hand, my other brother who I have given about 5 flashlights to takes very good care of them all and most of them go back in the original boxes after he has used them apart from the one he keeps in his truck and uses nearly on a nightly basis.
Anyway… just wanted to get that off my chest…
If anyone has any similar stories of flashlight neglect or abuse add it if you like.
P.S. I still cringe when I see Foy putting his new flashlights on the rough cement for pictures but I am sure he takes good care of them otherwise.