Update 5/20/16: They don’t have the production capacity for any new models of any kind right now. They are in the process of moving production back to Texas. Nothing new would be considered until they start producing there, hopefully by the end of the year.
I got the impression that if they had the production capacity something might be possible. I plan on circling back many months from now and see if the situation changes at all.
Update 5/6/16: Feeler email sent out to Zebralight.
This is a wild idea, but there’s never been a BLF Special Edition Zebralight. Special editions don’t seem their style, but to my knowledge no one has asked them before. I haven’t reached out to them yet but I’d like to gauge interest here and if we can put together a team with some good ideas maybe we can make some magic happen.
First off it wouldn’t really be a “budget” light, that’s not really Zebralight’s market and they are pretty strict about retailers not offering discounts. So who is in knowing that it would be a special edition, but not discounted, price?
Also, what could we possibly ask them to do? Other BLF special editions start with a base light and make improvements, but Zebralight has already set a high bar.
Right now let’s collect everyone’s ideas and we’ll see if there’s anything that gets people excited. What’s the wildest or the mildest thing we could ask Zebralight to make for us?
Spitballing ideas:
SC63Fw - The neutral white SC63 with the frosted lens. They don’t have any other 18650 handhelds that are flood or floody. Should be easy for them to do
SCx2 - Two cell version of one of their lights, like a SC5x2 with a double length tube for 2 AAs.
SC63knurl - SC63w with HI emitter and knurling on the body
SCsneak-peak - Early access to something like SC600Fd Mk. III Plus (with some special BLF engraving?)
SC63P - Accepts protected cells
SC63NF - UI with no flashy modes
SCmag - SC/H model with a tail cap with a magnet in it, maybe just a special edition magnet holding tail cap people can buy to add on to their existing lights? One tail cap would probably be able to fit a whole series of lights.
SC63z - Everyone needs a zoomie.
Q50 - Release the announced but never released light 4xAA light
SC63 SS/TI/CU/BR - SC63 or other light in a special material like ss ti cu brass
S6330 - Rerelease classic 3 emitter 3x18650 soup can
H600c - H600 body with HiCRI XHP50 and floodiest Carclo 10140 TIR and tailcap magnet.
There was some talk of this on the Reddit flashlight sub last year. I believe someone there even reached out to Zebra but nothing ever came of it. I’m not sure why, but I’ll report back if I can find out.
Follow-up: I found that old conversation I remembered. Unfortunately it took place in a private sub so I can’t link it, but it never got very far. Basically the guy emailed Zebralight about doing a custom run of SC62’s with a simple mod - either an emitter swap or frosted lens or something. Zebra was open to the idea and wanted more info from him, including an order quantity. It never seemed to get past that, probably because its a smaller community (or at least was a year ago) and we couldn’t get near the MOQ. An assumption, but a reasonable one.
Understandable, and you won’t be alone. There’s plenty of folks here who will though. I think it could be done.
Perhaps there is a slight chance they would at least be open to some level of modification, as noted in the second post (#32) on the following page of a thread.
Consideration was given to a woman suffering from night blindness, and they made a customized model for her at the factory, a frosted lens sc62.
I think we can all agree it’s a long shot, but if we put together a serious proposal and ask nicely who knows what we can pull off .
Right now I’m collecting all the ideas into a list in the first post so we can have a place to organize them all. I’ll keep my opinions out of it, this is a brain storming session and all ideas are welcome to the list.