I'm in need of a new flashlight for work. My job involves crawling inside machines, sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors. As you can probably imagine, having a flashlight is essential. Ideal light for my use should have a super floody beam, decent runtime (3-4 hours or more) and NO blinky modes (1 mode would be enough). I currently use a Sipik 68 clone which is small and (nearly) bright enough but the battery life ain't so great.
You can shorten that light by not adding the diffuser and just putting a piece of diffusion film behind the front glass lens.
If you want something even smaller with good runtime just get an XP-G flashlight with the body cylinder and head the same size and add the diffusion film.
It won’t be driven any harder than 1-1.5A so runtime will be good. It will be more than bright enough for the inside of a machine and the light will be nice and diffused.
You can do the same with a XM-L as long as it’s not driven harder than the XP-G.
I think for your application I can recommend this light… it has the best flood of all my lights period… and you have the option to zoom if need be…a great buy for $20... perhaps not as small as you would like -but still a good size... you will be amazed by the bright flood.
Solarforce L2 2011 with diffuser film behind the glass. Original bezelring off, use SS ring to save some length.
For dropin, if ~450 lumens is enough, 1,4A driven XM-L.
If 3mode driver is acceptable, you should get around 3+ hours on Med.
I use as my everyday worklight a similar L2m with extender but with 2,8A driver. It diffuses almost 180°.
At work I have to inspect stuff from a 6m long, 20cm high, dark & rusty place that eats up all light you can put in there. Absolutely not a place to point your 120lumen Ledlenser with spotty beam :|
But if you need runtime, you need 18650.
You can use diffuser film in about any other light there is.
I get great diffusion results by spraying the back of the lens with window frosting spray . If you put the lens on a piece of printed newspaper when you do the spraying , it's easier to see how much diffusion the lens has aquired .
And I found out that if you wish to remove the frosting , soak the lens in Greased Lightning ( a weak sodium hydroxide solution ) and it will remove the frosting in about 10 minutes .
Here is a nice floody beamshot . (~ .5 meters from wall )
Jacks picture with the frosting spray sure looks good. It's either that or the diffusion film. Didn't really find any place that sells the film with quick googling. Where have you ordered yours?
I got some DCfix from someone selling it on this forum and the same guy also sells in on CPF. If you Google DCfix it will probably come up.
Scotch Magic Tape will work as well but DCfix seems to let little more light through (more efficient). You can also order the filter sample pack from Lee Filters which includes some diffusion filters.
I’d just buy a piece of DCfix from that guy I mentioned for a couple of dollars. You will get enough for several flashlights.
Still recommending the UF-H3. Fully variable output. Perfect beam for working on/in a machine. Can run for a week straight on lowest setting or hours on high. Magnetic base will allow you to stick it to any steel surface for hands free work. Small (not much bigger than the 18650 cell itself) and has a good clip for pocket carry. Can't beat it for what you are describing the need for.
