I’m currently writing a review for the Nitecore TM11. It’s a 2000 lumen 4x18650 light that, as of 2011, was the smallest and lightest 2000 lumen flashlight in the world. That was about 5 years before my time (in the hobby), so I have questions.
- What would its competition have been?
- Was that the era of the SRK? What’s the history behind that light?
- What were people EDCing back then, if that was a thing?
What was the brightest flashlight in the world at that point? Probably some HID light, right?
Unno. Back then I’m sure I had my share of Mags and Minimags, that’s it.
Well, and a little fish-light on my key-ring. Yeah, actually shaped like a fish, coin-cell inside, blue LED in the “mouth”, squeeze the “gills” to light it.
I think the SRK came out sometime early 2013.
The TM11 I can’t help with, never owned one.
I was probably edc’ing a Akoray K-106 or maybe a ITP A1 EOS.
Hids where the kings around or before that time period.
I think the xml error is probably where things really began to change. The old P7’s leds had good output but were huge (floody) and produced quite a bit of heat.
Cree has probably changed the output in a flashlight more than any other. Times change and now they got some good competition.
There was a guy at BLF selling dropins for M@g 2xAA lights, I still have several. Driver plus LED in a single unit.
Uh, I can’t remember his name. Anybody? They were excellent for the time, many choices of driver and emitter.
One of mine has “2002” on the circuit board.
Dropped into the tube replacing the plastic parts that made up the bipin socket, and followed by an O-ring to keep them from falling out while replacing batteries.
And when did Gransee come out with the Arc flashlights?
Hey Google …
Yeah, I jumped right on that. Still using several of them.
Red, blue aqua-green, red-orange, “snow white” and blue-white choices.
And there were, apparently still are, these bipin dropins:
Nitecore TM11 Tiny Monster was out first, for a retail price of $160. Then came the Sky Ray king (and all the clones) which cost about $35-50. I was also at CPF, until SB56637 started this forum and moved over here. They didn't like budget lights over there. :FACEPALM:
I remember the SRK (coming from the TM11) was so desirable at that time (first pop can, multi-led, high-lumen) that l began reading all articles about it, and being the most-copied light at that time, deciding on which was a chore l ended with nothing!
That old SRK review is weird to read. As long as I’ve been around, anything that looked like that has been junk. I assume the original had a proper thermal path?
Sept. 2011 I bought my first led flashlight. From “ledscherp”, a brick and mortar store that still exists. The 600 lumen 4*AA Sunwayman D40A. It was the first light I know with an XM-L T6 emitter. The previous version had a 4-die MC-E. The owner showed the difference on a white wall in the basement of the store. Still have it.
After that I bought mostly CR-123 lights. Though a few of them were LiIon compatible. In 2014 I bought my first LiIon batteries, from NKON. For a TN32UT, also from NKON. That’s about a 100 lights ago.
As far as I know, even the original SRK did not have a proper thermal path. But it did not need one since it did not put out a whole lot of light, in nowadays honest lumen I’d guess about 1500, while with the XM-L’s of those days (and non-DTP boards of those days) and good heatsinking it could do double that.
The first SRK clone properly done was the Thorfire/BLF Q8.
But personally I never had a SRK, like RC I was very much into single li-ion flashlights. Any original SRK owners still around?
2011 was when I first came across this forum which hooked me immediately as I’d always loved flashlights as a kid. I was always dissapointed with the incandescent globe flashlights and moving to LEDs was a major step up. I recall in my early days surefire clones were popular. From memory 200-300 lumens was a decent output. I had a small number of flashlights and ended to focus on solarforce and other surefire clones. There was probably higher at the time but it wasnt necessarily budget. The progress over the years has been amazing and really satisfying for me and keeps me constantly excited about the hobby.
My first flashlights in 2009 were a Fenix TK12-R5 (Cree XP-G) and a Jet III M-R2 (Cree XR-E). I was EDCing the TK-12.
In 2010 I purchased my first budget flashlight after reading a review on CPF, an AKOray K109, to test the built quality of budget flashlight but mostly because it was smaller to EDC and because it has 3 programmable outputs. I really liked this flashlight.
The AKOray K106 and K109 were pretty popular back then.
The brightest budget single-LED flashlights were using Seoul SSC-P7 and Cree MC-E. I also remember the Olight SR90 with a luminus SST 90.
At the end of 2010 I purchased a HDS with Seoul SSC-P4 high-cri that immediately put me on the warm white and “less lumens but better lumens” route, except for cycling for which I needed more brightness. Mostly P60 hosts and drop-in modules (Cree XR-E, XP-G, XM-L) to follow lumens improvements but I was never chasing max lumens so I never bought an SRK-like before the BLF-Q8.
