Hi guys,
I’ve recently got a Onewheel and have been enjoying both group rides and riding alone along trails around the Bay Area. It’s been great fun, but it’s summer, and I’ve already been caught out after dark with miles to ride back to my car. Fortunately that time I was with a friend who leant me a Nitecore MH11 flashlight and I was able to watch out for bumps / cracks / pot-holes etc. in the trail.
I’ve been doing some research in to the common flashlights that are easily available on Amazon and have found the Nitecore and Fenix models to be nicely built, offering good warranty etc., but also not so customisable for the application I need. The MH11 was fairly nice, but I was asked to use it in ‘High’ ~250 lm rather than ‘Turbo’ ~400 lm (after the first 4 minutes), and in that mode I found it to be a little underpowered for my liking, and to have a beam spread that has too tight a hot-spot for my liking whilst riding trails on a Onewheel. Having said that, it does look to be a really good value 1,000 lm flashlight with built in charging and widely available with next day shipping!
With those concerns, I’ve started looking in to other flashlight options that might be better for my application. The following considerations have come up during the course of this research:
- 21700 vs 18650 - given my desire for a bright, more diffuse beam, the additional run-time and current capability might be useful
- SST 40 vs XP emitter - This I’m not sure about. I’ve read that the XP die is smaller, has a green tint at the sides, but handles heat better and is slightly more efficient but lower overall output… is that all correct in terms of pros and cons?
- TIR vs Reflector - This is interesting because it seems that a reflector is the source of the hot-spot in a flashlight, which could be seen as a good compromise for common usage; hotspot + spill, whereas TIR is a diffuse beam without hot-spot which can be made in to a broad, tight, or even elliptical beam
- Single emitter vs Multi emitter - More emitters means more light, but that’s not necessarily a good thing for me if that comes at the expense of heat and run-time
In an ideal world, I think I’d like to have a reasonably diffuse beam to see up to 100m ahead in natural colour, with 2 hour run-time. I’m absolutely open to suggestions and feedback, but it seems to me that a flashlight with a 21700 cell, single SST 40 5000K High CRI emitter and a 45 60 degree TIR would fit the bill… what do you think?
P.S. I’m obviously going to get somewhat hooked on this and end up buying a different flashlight for general purpose and another for throw and another for super power… but lets start with what’s needed now!
Thanks in advance!