Costco 3 pack 4XAAA Duracell flashlight

FWIW… I have the 300L non-zoom lights from last year, the version with the half orange peel reflector.

My MNKE IMR26650 does not fit. Its just a mm or two too big. You can completely alleviate parasitic drain by unscrewing the tailcap about 1/2 a turn, well before the point of the gasket being exposed. I like 4xAAA better than 3. Nice white tint XPG2. Low mode PWM is really bad.

The head is glued together and its all direct drive at the business end. In other words all the regulation and mode switching circuitry is contained in the tailcap e-switch. Not sure how to take the switch apart, its not the typical brass retaining ring with 2 holes. Furthermore, there’s no where near enough thermal mass or heat path under the LED for this to be worth modding. If I remove the tailcap, battery holder, looking into the barrel I can see light pass through beneath the LED… so theres not much material there to conduct or sink the heat away.

OK lights but nothing to get excited over. If you want instant gratification, $$ would be better spent on a thorfire AA or 18650 on Amazon and expedite the shipping to same day (or 1-2 days if you can wait).

I am highly doubtful that zoomy aspheric optic one is 350 Lumens OTF. Maybe 350 at the emitter but not OTF, lot of wasted lumens on those small diameter aspheric designs. I guess it would all depend on the optic design and how close it gets to the LED.

my .02

[EDIT] I was just playing around with mine (first time in a year) and I remembered why I dislike multi-AAA designs so much… picking out the batteries from the cell caddy with a finger nail is dam near impossible!! Nails on chalkboard!! Back into the flashlight graveyard drawer it goes.

time to mod to accept 18650 or 18500 if you dont have room.
anything stuck with 3aaa here gets relegated to disposable/loaner status.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh,
But these are 4AAA lights :slight_smile:

The problem here is that some people think every light should me modded, and if can’t be it ain’t worth owning. That may be true, but the allure is these lights is the PRICE. And they are very decent performers as is Give a non flashaholic one, or three of these and pile of AAA cells and they should be very happy for a long time.

The included cells (12) retail for at least $6. Subtract that from the cost of 3 lights, $8, and what is there to think about?

Yes!
dispose of as in “gift”

they are disposable at that price point.
and with the lack of sag with 18650 should run fine on it.
if i get some i will toss the batts in the aaa bucket for the tv remotes and mod them.
hell modded and fed laptop pulls they are still disposable.
use them where loss,theft,damage are a real possibility.
they are a tiny step above $2 trash lights.
would be better without that parasitic e switch.
if they have real cree,nichia,ect could even be cost effective to mine them for leds.

So if I understand correctly your 2016 purchased lights are 350 ZOOMies?

I just got a pack and they are not Zoomable at all.

The 350’s that I just got are Zoomies. The 300’s from last yeat were compound reflectors.

And just to confirm what kramer5150 said. I estimate that the 300 reflector has more OTF lumens than the 350 zoomie.

Would you be able to tell anything about the LED emmiter from this pic?

CLICK to ZOOM

No, my lights from 2015 are the NON-Zooming versions. With the half orange peel reflector.

I got 2 of those model number slips my mind 1 is a zoomie the other is not. Both are decent lights. I keep saying I'm going to beef them up. Just never got around to it.

I got to compare the tints of these lights. the 700 lumens is cool white but the 350 lumens ones have an awful greenish tint.

Checkout these 2 flashlight deals I came across in a Costco in Massachusetts.
A 4 pack of 350 Lumen lights. Includes the Duracell AAA cells to run them.

And this 2 pack of 3 - C cell flashlights for $10. That’s $5 each and includes the 6 Duracell C cells to run them.

A few months ago these were on special for $15.00 the pair.

How about this deal?

The 4 pack of Duracell 3 -AAA is now $9.99!

Real honest to goodness XP-G2’s

And the package includes 12-AAA Duracell alkalines!
I looked and those 12 cells cost more than the $9.99 for the 4 flashlights with included cells

To be fair, even COSTCO gets 50 cents per cell in quanity, meaning that at COSTCO prices those 12 cells are worth $6 alone.



That means the net cost of the lights is 1 buck a piece.

Note, these lights can not be modded and as far as I can tell can not even be taken apart. They do have 3 modes and work very decently just as they are. Even the cell carrier is custom and I don’t see an easy way to convert over to 18500 use. But for the functionality and price, this is a killer deal.

Yeh, pretty good. I’d still consider the lights disposable, ie, use ’em up as-is ’til something fries, then just toss ’em. Well, after gutting it for the emitter and optix, at least. Probably a decent XP-G or a LB clone. :smiley:

I wouldn’t try refitting any of these to Li use, though. 3×AAA lights use the internal resistance of the AAAs to limit current. Stick a Li cell in there, and you’ll have a DD light that would probably fry itself to bits in no time, as there’s near-zero heatsinking.

I forced one apart this morning. I took pictures of the destruction and will post pictures tonight when I get home.
For me, it was very interesting as to how these were made.

If they came with a nice neutral-white emitter, they might make a nice cheap light. But, I’m guessing they all have an ugly bluish cool-white LED.

Yeah, you would think it, but not so!
Beautiful tint, I’ll post pics later tonight.

My AstroLux S42 stainless with 4 - XP-G2 is much more blue
And I paid $42 for that light, and it has problems.

Here are pics of the 4 lights in the pack side by side shot with my iPhone. Not the best way to compare tint, the 3rd from the left is a little warmer than the other 2. All lights are on low.

Now on top is my quad XP-G2 S42 on a brightness level comparable to the Duracells

Finally a Mag mini, 2AA light and 272 Lumens

This morning I really tried to get one of lights apart. I had tried before in the past with strap wrenches with no luck.
This time I tried a torch and pipe wrenches. With 2 - 18’ wrenches I could budge the tail section from the head, but just barely. Body started to deform, so I stopped and decided to use a hack saw.
Before I show pictures of the massacre, here are pics of the tailcap and switch, I did have success with that.
What you get for $10

The unfortunate victim.



XP-G2


The battery carrier

The driver is in the tailcap.


I couldn’t pick up any numbers on the MCU



This was after using a torch trying to separate the head, the centering ring around the LED melted

I tried to pound out the slug, a 17mm socket was a perfect fit but it wouldn’t budge.

socket in tube

After this didn’t work, I hack sawed the light into 2. The head actually is pretty beafy.

Even at this point I could not pound out the center. It must have been either pressed in by the guy that does the almighty press videos on YouTube, or it is put in place and then swedged out into a channel machined into the tube. There seems to be stops on either side of it in the tube.


There is no metal star, aluminum or copper. Just a fiber board with what looks like copper foil on each side. I lost the emitter during the operation.

Believe it or not, after all this I put it back together and it still worked! :confounded:

Hmm, that’s a nice chunk o’ metal!

From the usual 3×AAAs crowbarred right across nine T-1¾ LEDs, there’s maybe 200mA-250mA being pushed through them. A bit more than their 20mA/unit rating, but doesn’t cook them that fast.

I wouldn’t count on more’n a few hunnert mA going through that G2 with a fresh set of cells. A little usage, and that’ll drop quite a bit as the cells’ internal resistance rises.