Companies could sell upgrades for their lights

That’s the one!

I wish companies would at least start making the heads more readily available with interchangable battery tubes. It seems to me they could make 1 universal tube for each battery size and the consumer could put any one of a dozen different heads on it they could buy seperately. The same battery tube could be used for throwers and flood in a wide array of led configurations. It would even be nice if the battery tubes were universal across brands. I know that would require some collaboration of competitors, but they did it with houshold lamps, electric outlets, DVD players, blueray, etc. They could do the same with battery tubes for flashlight heads. Then not only would my light collection be less costly, but would take up less physical space as well. Is the tube and grounding spring that different between my astrolux FT-03 sst40-w and the astrolux FT-03S…I don’t think so. Why cant they standardize battery tubes? It would save tons of aluminum.

AFAIK, the only company that has been successful doing that is Maglite. Don’t the 2D—>5D use the same head?

A very large number of my flashlights are not cheap at all, unless you are very wealthy. Some cost over 200 dollars, but that is about the limit I am willing to spend, and I am financially secure. Sure there are decent led lights for 20 bucks, but we collectors seem to go for the more expensive lights as well. I am starting to be much more selective though. With over 200 flashlights, it is getting somewhat ridiculous, and I am thinking I may be more of a hoarder than collector.

We can make it, better, stronger, faster.

I’m surprised that no one bothered to tell you that the Convoy M1 doesn’t have a pill to be able to get an upgraded one for replacement.

Most flashlights today have an integrated shelf, so there’s no possible way to provide an upgraded pill. A pill has poor heat transfer compared to an integrated shelf.

Learn to solder it’s not hard. I can do it and I’ve got terrible hand tremors

Debatable.

Integrated shelves could be paper-thin, and it’s just like having a mcpcb mounted on another mcpcb on a chintzy little ledge.

Pills often come with assloads of snug-fitting thread-area for pretty good heat transfer. Lookit the S2+’s pill as an example.

Well, on most decent brands. Isn’t this why Simon moved away from pills on the C8?

I hate soldering drivers onto pills and it offers more chance of a short if you’re clumsy (like me!).

The most likely reason most brands don’t do it is because it doesn’t offer more chance of profit for them - if it did, they would offer it.

Many of the brands like Malkoff, Lumens Factory, Overready, etc. that offer drop-ins and head replacements sell their products at a premium and market to customers that are often looking for that specific feature.

Worth noting that unglued retaining rings and pills as a mounting/retention method is on paper more prone to issues than more permanently secured methods - an important factor for lights where users don’t know and/or want to have to be tightening down retaining rings when their light starts flickering.

Many brands also seem to have an aversion to letting customers easily disassemble their lights at all, for a number of reasons.

Unno. A bunch around the same time started going with shelves. Convoy, UF, XinTD, etc., all started going that way, but no idea who was first, etc.

For example my Convoy S2 has a screw in module that is the LED, pill and driver, unscrewing it and replacing it would be a 30 second job.

Yup! :laughing:

You could ask Simon to send you a new pill with driver and LED installed. This may not work though as the thermal compound may dry in shipping.

Why would you though? Sell the old one and get another. A new pill with components would be close to a new S2

nope, mostly wrong.

Convoy hosts are around 20, copper pill included. for Linear driver it’s dirt cheap, leds are usually cheap. buck drivers are more like $20-30 and worth every penny.
BLF GT hosts are 100+.

You can just reuse the pill, driver and led are just abit of wire soldering if fully assembled otherwise

I think drop-in modules would work, they can be marketed in the right way. but anything that requires an actual skill to put something together… not sure if the normal customer can do that. BLF people are WAY more skilled than the normal person out there.

….feel your frustration but unfortunately, it’s the same lack of common sense from the end consumer’s viewpoint on a whole range of consumables. Look at car’s - oil, air, fuel filters…there are hundreds of them when there could be just 4 - small, medium, large, extra-large. I service my family’s cars and pain in the rear when every car is different. And when you look at battery packs for electric vehicles, they are heading down the same path. Yes, would be great if torches had standard tube/threads for interchangeable heads.

The NiteSun HT series has 4 different interchangeable heads you can buy and they use modules. I modified the HT12 with an Osram CULPM1 and it’s brilliant at approx 1,400m. Great zoomie model

Wasn’t one of the Brynite zoomies “modular”, ie, you could swap in white/red/green/IR pills?

Whichever one I’m thinking of, it came in a blow-mold case, had the light and other accoutrements, and came with all the color pills.

Fairly certain it was the T18. NiteSun make Brinyte’s flashlights

A relevant thread from the past:

Often pills have limited size for driver upgrade.But if you want do that still better than choise brands with glued drivers...