I came here yesterday afternoon looking for a simple flashlight recommendation, and now I’ve spent about 6 hours reading mod threads, and shopping Aliexpress and mtnelectronics, lol. This place is great, other than the damage it could do to my wallet.
Edit: As of 4pm today I’m up to about 10 hours of research, and I may be ordering 2 lights and some drivers and some LEDs…
You start on BLF with a search for the flashlight that fulfills your need
Then you go on for the light that is the very best you can get or make that fulfills that need.
Then you create new needs that demand all sorts of other types of flashlights, one for every need of course.
Then you just let it go, the types and number flashlights you obtain have no longer any relation to whatever actual need.
The word ‘budget’ in the forum name is very sneaky!
Welcome to BLF :party:
Tell me about it. My first flashlight purpose was supposed to be the Astrolux S1. Then I saw some review about the Convoy S2+ and couldn’t decide which one to get so I just ordered both. I now have over 8 lights on the way to me from China and I cant stop buying. I need an intervention
Ha! Good one. Welcome aboard. Great time to get into the hobby with Winter not far away.
Next is… knives, lol
yeah, me too. I can’t stop buying. Somehow its like I try to keep up with people that has lot of flashlight collections. and the wallet is crying.
Don’t forget to have a flashlight for every cell size available just in case SHTF and only certain sizes are left! 
Nicely said! and also welcome.
It’s a sickness. I had my car stolen the other day and as soon as I had reported it to the police and sorted out the insurance I was on this site looking to replace the light that was in my Glove compartment!
There, I fixed the wording in your OP... 
Just wait till you get into modding. Then you’ll be buying all these $2 and $5 parts, and $5 packs of sandpaper and solder, and a great deal on a heatsink, and you won’t even notice that when you’re done you’ve already spent $50 on a light that started costing $20 
Welcome to BLF
You had me with that title, almost didn’t click it but then remembered how friendly of a place BLF is
Lol…too funny!
I find before I go on road trips or longer drives, I spend days considering what light to bring. Granted I end up bringing my Olight S1 most of the time just cause its so small.
I started down my journey starting last Thanksgiving (2015) till now. I’m not as bad as other flasholics (here and the other forum and reddit), but admit I have more than enough lights compared to “normal” people. I did think about making an Excel spreadsheet of all the lights I bought since then…but didn’t cause I’d probably cry at how much I’ve spent. And I’m usually a really thrifty person who don’t spend on much.
Hello, and welcome! You are sure right about spending!
The best advice I can give a newcomer is to learn about neutral tint, CCT, and high CRI. That way, you won't have to replace all your blue-tinted flashlights when you discover that high CRI is really much nicer. A good place to start reading is here.
Generic SK-98 - $5
Replacement Driver - $5
Replacement emitter on Noctigon - $5
Knowing that you have a quality light you built with your own hands? Priceless.
Haha, I am in the same boat! I’m building some flounder lights and now I am ordering stuff to rebuild an old mag light I found while spearfishing! I have already bought a new soldering iron, about $50 worth of electrical supplies, and about to place my 3 online order for emitters/driver/ect……
Just what I needed a new hobby!
My wife doesn’t understand the appeal of flashlights, to her a flashlight is thing you keep in a drawer until the power goes out and you haaaaave to use it. And that’s if the batteries haven’t leaked and killed it.
To me, they appeal to my meticulous and tinkering nature, and generally speaking they won’t put you in the poorhouse like some of the other hobbies I enjoy. (cough auto racing…) It’s fun to catch up with the rapidly advancing technology - when I bought my last light, the XP-L and XHP lines didn’t even exist. I like looking at the wide variety of designs out there, and trying to match my constraints to find the “best” light for my needs. Poring over lumens and currents and tint charts is all right up my alley.
And after all that, if you can’t find the right light, the fact that you can MOD a flashlight to make it better, or make it outperform more expensive lights… I’ll just say that I drive a minivan because I’ve got two kids, but it has a 6-speed manual transmission and I installed a turbocharger and coilover suspension on it, so… I get it.
“I’ll just say that I drive a minivan because I’ve got two kids, but it has a 6-speed manual transmission and I installed a turbocharger and coilover suspension on it, so… I get it.”
Ok I’m going to need to know more about this minivan. Honda Odyssey with a TL type S tranny perhaps?
Well, it does make my budget light… 
Mazda5 Sport with 6MT from the factory. It WAS the only minivan you could still get with a manual trans, but Mazda discontinued it in 2016. I put on AST 5200 suspension, and a Garrett GT2871R turbo. The 2.5L MZR engine is stock internally but is considered pretty stout and some say it can handle 12+psi reliably - for me this is not a racecar or project car (I have several of those), this car is my DD and needs to be dead-nuts reliable so my upper limit goal for boost is 10psi. Life got in the way and ECU tuning stalled so right now I’m running 6psi, but I’ll get back to tuning soon to get closer to that 10psi goal.
Traction is an issue with FWD open diff, so I’ve already sourced a Mazdaspeed3 transmission with a LSD, and it will be installed in the future as well.
HERE is a build album for the turbo install.
It gets autocrossed semi-regularly and embarrasses a fair share of sports cars. :smiling_imp: