Unpopular Flashlight Opinion Thread

Potting the internals should make them fairly waterproof, which I recently did on the Convoy S9

Most of those phones also cost $500+, are manufactured in huge quantities and use proprietary tech from huge companies that invest LOTS of money into R&D.

Goodness me. I compare this to people who like the feeling of wet sleeves when washing dishes.

Good post, imo.

My 2017 Samsung A3 is waterproof and has no flap on the type-C connector
Anyway, I like the idea of simply potting the internals with silicon.
Oh, and I doubt that the majority of lights here sees some water, when they are actually used of course :innocent:

I couldn't take the green on my Nichias. The Luxeon Vs I swapped in might be low CRI, but the tint is amazing and the 5000+ lumens isn't bad either.

Holy... is that a SS SC62? Oh, my SC62 is jealous I even looked at that.

All Westerners sleep in crowded rooms, walk dogs at night and hunt scorpions.

Not exactly.

Standard aluminum SC52 which was used heavily and then had most of the anodizing forcefully polished off.

Hahaha, this will go underappreciated but its golden.

Whoa… 2nd light from the right is definitely a Zebralight. An older one, judging by the body ribbing pattern. Did you do this yourself or send it out to be chromed?

You’re planning to go near water don’t take your non waterproof light with you.

Potting is a viable solution for USB-rechargeable lights not being waterproof with their flaps open. Fenix, Nitecore, and Armytek offer lights that have USB charging and stay waterproof even with the flap open.

I take an opposing view though: I wish many of the other devices that use USB charging had removable, standard-size batteries I could put in one of my several slot chargers instead. That lets me have the device back in action with a full battery immediately. In theory, I don’t mind a device having both, but using removable, standard-size batteries is far more important to me.

Okay, so the usb socket is potted from behind and is thoroughly waterproof to 50m… what’s to keep crap from getting wedged in there, saltwater or acids corroding the contacts, etc.?

I got enough issues with some knurling trapping crap in the valleys, so imagine a usb socket getting crapped up.

Well made nickel-gold plated contacts should not immediately be affected by saltwater.

Like other equipment, I would just clean it after use.

Some possibly-unpopular opinions:

  • Most of what we do in the flashlight community isn’t about seeing in the dark. For some it’s entertainment, for some it’s fashion, for some it’s work, for some it’s mostly social, etc… but if it was just about illumination, we probably wouldn’t be here.
  • More people should make their own user interfaces. It can be fun and educational, and nothing will ever be as good as something you made yourself.
  • A 1x7135 driver is generally sufficient for most practical purposes. Brighter and more efficient designs are nice, but suffer from seriously diminishing returns.
  • Simple answers are rarely accurate, and accurate answers are rarely simple. Almost nothing is ever truly black-and-white; it’s pretty much all shades of grey… and even that is probably oversimplifying things, because the most topics have complex multidimensional solution spaces. Reality is complicated and nuanced, not simple and gratifying. If a belief fits on a bumper sticker or is satisfying to express, it’s probably not true. So beware of things which feel good to say.

You’re right.
Or maybe….

“Truth” is the result of believen beliefs, with feelings being one of their results.

And if I don’t plan to go near water but end up going near it anyway? Hasn’t the “electronic hits rain puddle” thing never happened to you? To me it has.

  1. That is very very true. The hobby goes way beyond having a portable light source. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to explain it to muggles.

2) I don’t really need to, not after you launched Biscotti :heart_eyes:

3) Honestly, as far as practical purpose goes, I feel a 3* or 4*7135 Nichia S2+ doesn’t quite do it for me. The moonlight at 0.1% is nice, but most of the time I use a torch, the 1% is too low and 10% is too high. Might swap the driver for a 6x7135 from one of my CREE’s, and all should be good in the ’hood.

What's up with Sunwayman?

For people whose needs and tastes vary significantly from the majority, we have a lot of source code available for extensive customization. It can be a little daunting at first, but most people who have tried it found it was significantly easier than they expected.

As I was saying just a few posts ago, more people should make (or at least customize) their own user interfaces. There’s really no other way to get a perfect flashlight, because we all like different things.

You’re implying the UI on every light has the “muggle mode” of Anduril (a UI specifically designed for enthusiasts). That is not the case. There are a number of highly customizable tail and side switch UIs where accessing the settings mode takes a great deal of effort.