Ive roughly modded 65 lights this year. So I found it quite hard to only pick a few when looking back at the whole year. Ive manged to restrict myself to 10 flashlights. Ive looked away from the more common small single cell hard or reasonably driven single or multi emitter 18650/26650 lights as I find it hard to pick one or several special lights. They all serve a purpose for their size, price, UI, tint and brightness capability. For some strange reason I did not find any of the "soupcan" lights worthy of my 2014 list either..Maybe if I extended it to 15 lights, but Ill have to draw the line somewhere.
My list:
10th place: UF 1405 (ive posted details deep in that thread). The ability to get over 450kcd out of something I paid less than 32$ for (including mod cost). That is impressive! Most cost effective thrower Ive ever put together. Never seen anything like it earlier years for such a low price. If there is a bit of rain, snow, or bad weather conditions, this light will throw further than anything Ive seen despite having less throw. Especially impressive considering the price. Mostly just a long distance illumination toy for me though.
9th place: This is a bad headlamp. Or is it? I call it the sipik headlamp. I thought about doing a good and proper mod to it, (swapping out the crappy driver among those things) but the only thing I did was to swap in a Nichia 219A. High cri illumination without a hotspot have been everything I need to work on small electronics and such when I needed more light and see things well. I`ve used this light quite a lot and its been very useful. Among my top three most used lights in 2014. So it was obviously a good budget mod. Very comfortable head strap. I like it, despite that its somewhat bad.
8th place: Custom built AA "thrower" by MRsDNF. This used to live on my keychain for some months in the beginning of the year. This means more to me compared to most of the lights on this list. Its a beauty as well. Its a bit large for keychain use, and if I want a thrower I normally bring with me an 18650 sized light or larger. Usability was not the main reason why I desired the light though. A really unique and special light that I like a lot. Furthest throwing AA TIR light ive ever seen too.
7th place: Fenix TK61. Out of all the large reflector throwers Ive had, this is the furthest throwing light of them all. A simple and easy accessible resistor mod takes it up a good step. But not into the risk of emitter frying land. Then a de-domed XM-L2 U3 will take it to the sky. I never posted my final mod on this light. I never took it as far as planned either, but roughly 600kcd with great runtime and no overheating issues for not that much extra cost or work. Epic range, and cheap and simple to mod. (Pictured 2nd from the far right in the picture below)
6th place: Old-Lumen Maglite mod. Call me biased, but I think this is the most gorgeous Maglite I have seen Old lumens put his hands on. Its flashlight art.. That is why its on the list. Best looking light ever. Here it stands in between many of the other top modified lights of 2014. Its gorgeous. That is why I bought it. The internals are pretty nice as well.
5th place: Olight I3s with Nichia 219B on Sinkpad. This have been living on my keychain for the whole year. I bought it in 2013 for less than 10$. Its gotten several emitter swaps. The latest swap was this year. So Ill put that on my 2014 list. A pretty good light on both AA and 10440 cell. It looked like this when it was new:
4th place: Retard light. Not only is it the brightest lights Ive put together this year, or any year. Its also the brightest tint mixed lights Ive ever seen. And its a flooder with over 200kcd. It lights up everything close up and in the distance (just like a thrower) at the same time. Its retarded. Very memorable light to use. :D (Pictured right from the Blue OL Maglite)
3rd place: Acebeam K40M. Best stock light I picked up in 2014 IMO. With a simple resistor mod, this light can get and additional 1000 lumen. (Getting to the driver may not be super easy unless you know what you are doing. You need to do the springs too). The mod makes this light punch well above its class. A great allrounder, especially for the price. Which might have been as low as 80$. Mod cost is just a few cents.
2rd place: Flashgrenade. Dual beam, dual driver, with a dual tint mixed setup built into a WWII grenade. Need I say more. Best light for various close up to mid range cave exploration I have made to this date. Im planning to make a light that will outperform this in most ways next year. Not nearly as unique though.
1st place: TK75 R86 edition. This light punches way above its size as its able to even out-power lights like modified Fenix RC40, stock Supbeam X60 in the both the lumen and throw department (at least with CW tint). But it can fit in a jacket pocket and its got nice features like battery monitoring, thermal stepdown and lots of customization possibilities in a simple UI that IMO is better compared to the stock light. It even out throws most of the extreme throwers, but its got several times higher light output. A true premium hot rod that does pretty much everything with well maintained output. For me it represents the absolute max of what I was able to get out of a any "reasonably sized" light in terms of output, range, usability, sophistication and build quality in the year of 2014.
(Its the light at the far right)
