I prefer AA and single AAA lights but 8 AA is too much.
Twisties are awful, with a few exceptions.
Rotary switches are wonderful, so easy to use. Lights with + and - switches are great too.
Turbo mode is silly. It isn’t much use in practice, drains the battery fast and wastes a mode level.
I don’t like twisty lights much either…but I got a free Olight 3e eos and I liked it so much I bought a couple more!
Unlike previous twisty lights I owned it has giant square anodized threads that after a bit of silicone grease
feel great! It makes a good cell holder too when traveling. I never would have bought it…but after getting
it initially…I just love it. Twisty lights on fine threads…not cool.
I have mostly AA and AAA lights too. 3 of them are 4 AA lights that have great runtime when the power is out.
8 is too many.
I'm not sold on high CRI. While I'm planning to make a high CRI light just for the sake of doing it, I don't expect any of my daily carries to be high CRI until the technology improves.
Wellp, you always got those 10000K aquarium LEDs…
Go crazy.
They are not white! Carbon arcs produce great light. Not exactly efficient though!
Sure they are. Blue LEDs with minimal phosphor.
Only they’re well beyond Angry Blue™ and well into the Homicidally Blue™.
Figure they’re about –4 on the Cree/ansiwhite scale.
If you remove the phosphor layer, the light becomes extremely blue. Or even violet, really. Possibly even a little ultraviolet, but it’s hard to say for sure.
Here’s how a Cree XHP50.2 looks without the phosphor…
… and how it looks while it’s powered on:
There is no UV in the 450nm Royal Blue spectrum, there is just the perception of very blue.
Flashlights should have an external charger.
Lemme explain.
I’m always after compact flashlights. Integrated charging circuits take up space and I never saw one with decent amps.
So my wish is flashlight with a charging cradle that charges with the max allowable amps the cell or cells in the flashlight can handle. Even if it reduces charging cycles.
I got plenty of amps in my otherwise cigaret lighter in my vehicles. So amps should be no issue.
True. I don’t see any UV in the royal blue Cree emitters I’ve tried. This damaged XHP50 looks different though, more purple. I haven’t measured it in a spectrometer though. I should find a way to do that.
What improvements in the technology are you looking for?
The way to sum it up perfectly would be "95+ CRI Luxeon V"
It has low forward voltage so a strong single cell can run it to its max, it has high output (nudging out the SST40), it doesn't burn its bond wires at 9A like the SST40, There's almost no tint shift whatsoever throughout the beam, and the tint is fantastic to my eyes (for the 4000k at least, I haven't tried the others).
But really, I'd like higher output and good tint (and tint uniformity). As well as good efficiency.
The better bins of SST20 hold promise. I could put 219b in a triple or quad. I could slice a DOGFARTS lh351d. I could put Lee minus green filters on a few emitters. But mostly, my Luxeons are fine.
That’s literally never going to happen, in terms of efficiency of course.
The current high output, high efficiency LEDs like the SST-40 and Luxeon V only come in 70CRI variants.
If these LEDs would come in high CRI variants, their VF would be insanely low, but the high output would come down by quite a bit, etc.
Unpopular opinion:
Your “aircraft grade aluminum” is_ not worth anything_ in terms of ruggedness but you were just too lazy to add on some polymer armor in critical spots which would increase its drop resistance from 1,5 meters to 20 meters.
Also: How about a light in high viz yellow or orange for those who actuall work lights to death and not just admire them sitting pretty on a shelf?
I mean, anodized aluminium is extremely tough, especially with thicknesses of 30um+.
The anodized layer is almost as hard as diamond.
But I agree.
Some small silicone O-rings around certain points would help immensely in shock absorption.
There will always be a tradeoff between quality and quantity of light.
IIRC doesn’t the Luxeon V require a board with a footprint different from 35x35? That’s a big downside for me and a lot of people, emitters can be cheap but buying lots of additional MCPCBs adds up cost quickly.
I'm hoping that someday, LEDs will have advanced to where 95+CRI is like today's Luxeon V (and, yeah sure, standard footprint too). Maybe the 70CRI by then will be that much better than today's Luxeon V, too.
3Tronics did some lights like that:
It’d be nice to get some more interesting finishes on production lights though, instead of only modded lights.
It’s not a simple progression, there are physical properties of high-CRI LEDs that make them less efficient, low Vf, etc.
All LED tech is rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns, they can only be so efficient, and even less so if we want them to stay affordable.
I hate warm lights. The lowest I can tolerate is Neutral White. But I still prefer colder ones. This is for a flashlight only, at home my LEDs are 2700-3000k.
I love a straight tube forward clicky that ALWAYS starts on turbo or whatever is the highest. The JetBeam BC20-GT is my favorite light in this regard.
I hate the flippy-flappy-rubbery thing that covers the charging port. I had to miss on some amazing flashlights, namely Thrunite, because of the damn flap. Again, the JetBeam BC20-GT’s charging port becomes accessible once you unscrew the head.
I love 14500 lights. So much power in such a little package. For me they are more impressive than the 18650 ones because of the size. I love the new-ish Klarus XT1A, I wish it was a bit smaller but still floats my boat. Direct access to turbo and low, plus a LED for battery indication - brilliant.
My favorite light design-only is the Sunwayman R10A. So clean and elegant. I wish they made a newer version of it with a modern LED, and also change the internals so it takes all 14500, it’s a bit pretentious this light.
I love the durability and LEGO-style of SolarForce. I took them diving, they’ve been dropped from 2m heights and whatnot. All of them work flawlessly with little to no visible signs of abuse.
And a very petty one - I wish Sofirn had a better name. It sounds really ugly in my language, so I have to order them in silver color just so the brand name is less visible.