I’ve recently had to do some work on my car and felt the lighting I had was inadequate, particularly after modding all of my flashlights with high CRI emitters. Seems like most work lights are very cold temps and very harsh on the eyes.
Came across Milwaukee line of lights, they have things from tower/flood lights, all the way down to flashlights. The best part is, they actually use emitters of decent temperature and CRI, they market it as “TRUEVIEW”.
Anyway, I ended up buying two handheld size flood lights, model number 2114-21. Runs off of a proprietary 18650 and is directly usb-rechargeable. Pretty good light output, and isn’t annoyingly cold light. Very happy I found these.
Yo I love this light so much a want like five more lol. Just getting into this world of lights and I thought that looking for a superior alternative to this light would be a great place to start… haven’t found anything that surpasses it. Especially when looking for strong magnets, removable battery, built in carabiner, and a pivoting head. Also I love the horizontal setup as it really maintains the “floodlight” feel. Let me know if you find anything better!
I agree strongly with the praise for Milwaukee using high CRI emitters (high”ish”, they’re like 85CRI IIRC, but still way better than all other options in prosumer tool lighting). I have a couple different worklights in the M12 and M18 battery family - I use them all the time in my shop and recommend them highly to anyone that will listen.
I like the assortment of features on that little light (clip, magnet, rotating).
That said, as a single-18650 light the deal-breaker for me is the proprietary battery. (although I totally understand why Milwaukee did it and I’m not blaming/upset at them; they are a tool company not a flashlight company)
I’ll just use one of my several modded right-angle 18650 lights (magnet in the base, clip, high-CRI). One big thing (for shop use) that the Milwaukee probably still does better is durability though.
But for non-flashaholics that don’t have a stockpile of hundreds of various flashlights and 18650s on hand, I can see this being a winner.
The light looks real useful, but
I agree about the proprietary battery, it kills the desire of the light for me.
Maybe a Chinese knockoff is in the future
Are you getting good life out of the battery? Reviews at the battery website seem to indicate quite a few folks are not so happy with it, rating 3 of 5 stars.
A quick google seems to show it’s a 2500mAh battery, so yeah it could definitely be better. You definitely don’t need a 30A cell for 550 lumens. An MJ1 or 35E could increase runtime by 40% if that is the source of the reviewers complaints.
Being a proprietary “tool battery” with proprietary charger, I’m going to assume that the protection logic is also quite advanced compared to the typical over-current protection PCB on a typical protected 18650. The Milwaukee battery probably also monitors temperature, charge and discharge rates, number of cycles, etc. Any number of reasons could make the protection circuit shut down the cell either temporarily or permanently, either for good reason or due to error. And you (generally) can’t bring the cell back once the Milwaukee protection circuit has decided to shut it down permanently - as opposed to a “normal” protected 18650 that can be easily reset if it trips the over-current protection.
So yeah, more complexity + more protections + more proprietary = more chance of non-functional battery.
Yea in the last two months I’ve had it the battery works just like they estimate, 2 hours and and like 20 something minutes. But I rarely kill the battery though. Theres a ton of YouTube Tool guys that love this light so I thought Id try it out and i completely agree with them. I think if i remember all those bad reviews were from contractors that used the like light every day as much as they could keep it charged, perhaps that means the durability isn’t there…
(although I totally understand why Milwaukee did it and I’m not blaming/upset at them; they are a tool company not a flashlight company)