One of 3 new additions to the family is (yet another) MC-E light. Why I am somewhat partial to this particular emitter is a question I myself have not answered, but I know the output does not disappoint except when put up against a well-endowed XM-L, but even then not by much.
Arriving at my doorstep right at three weeks time from ebay seller Micro.Digital, I popped the cheapo batteries in (came with the 2 blue 18650s and charger) and I had light. It's bigger than I thought, longer. Scratches easier than you'd think, too. The clip is not really solid (which is to say, not very tight to carry the light securely) and the case it came with jiggles and moves around on the belt. I ditched it after a few hours of use and it falling diagonal to the front and back of my waist. It went with me for a night of slow patrol in cool weather before...one of the crappy Trustfire batteries decided to pass on, so no beamshots from work.
If you look closely, you can see some melting around the emitter. Came that way, I think.
So I make a quick trip to the store and then do some playing and comparing the next day...
Here it is at full focus against the Coleman 500 Lumen MC-E
Yes, that + symbol I was warned about (by some of you, no less) is indeed a slight annoyance, which is why this baby does her best work as a flooder or even partial flooder.
That is quite a lot of flood! And no ugly artifacts when so adjusted. Had I chosen to cut out the edge of the beam, you'd think I had had the hallway light on!
The seller sent two new batteries and ONE of those worked. Pairing the one that worked from the first batch and one from the second batch, I again had light.
So I am told, this torch is about as bright as the XM-L version (around 490 OTF lumens--measured, supposedly, by a guy with the equipment to do so properly). But that really doesn't matter. It's the "wow" factor that matters.
Aside from its length and remote awkwardness in carrying, this is a screaming bright light that had everyone at work talking about it (then again, I show off all the lights I bring). The flood is in-freakin'-sane and as a thrower (overlooking the beam pattern) it is effective and blinding.
Within 1 minutes of use, the head gets very warm. After 3 minutes, you begin to wonder if it'll make the trip through the batteries. But it doesn't continue to get hot. It stabilizes, and as far as I can tell, there is NO noticeable dimming in brightness. After a second test with a 36-minute run going through all five modes at random, I came to think this was, in fact, not a bad purchase. Wish I'd waited for the XM-L version, but this thing appears to stay the course when driven hot and hard.
