Wasn’t into flashlights, I was part of the laser community back then instead.
The laser community is full of bitter, easily-annoyed people who have an extremely dangerous hobby that attracts people who are ignorant of (or who simply ignore) safety precautions.
So almost every thread goes like this:
Anon 1: helo everyone how I buy maximum sterngth lazer? I am 14 yars old and wan lazer for show my frands
Anon 2: OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU WILL BLIND SOMEONE OMG BAN THIS PERSON NOOOOOOW
That’s the one! “SkyRay Cree XML T6 8400Lm Compact LED Flashlight - Black”
Until you told me, I was quite happy with it! Of course, I have rarely used it as I find it NOT exactly suitable as general purpose light except showing to others just for fun.
I had no idea those XML were all fake.
Ha, those Skyrays do still exist! Found them at aliexpress, they simply don’t name it “Skyray” anymore.
Still using XML T6, and outputting ten thousends of chinese lumens.
Perhaps I’ll choose a golden one this time …
LOL yea, I had my share of those conversations. Even when the green pointers first came out but you could “hack” them beyond 5mw so they had a nice visible beam at night, there’d always be some kid running up to me “OMG I NEED THAT!!”. Not “I want…” “NEED!!!”. I stopped when ppl shining lasers at planes and such started making the news. Just not worth it. (I never, ever, did anything like that)
Came here to get the BLF GT/GiggleMonster. I’m even scared to use that.
AZJ
Ditto for me. I never posted there but some amazing things to learn. The knuckleheads around here used to flash planes and there were reports of dummies flashing choppers from Fort Bragg. Very unhealthy
I bought a manker mk35 II (sbt 90.2) and then a weltool W4 and they were basically like socially-acceptable mega-lasers, so I set my Sanwus and so on upon a shelf, and I never looked back.
12~13 years ago all my info on flashlights came from a Brazilian forum (maybe some from another American forum), and one thing I remember is that a LOT of people loved the p60 standard, and scoffed at proprietary formats. How things change…
PS: I do miss Solarforce and regret not getting more products from them, and while more hosts would be nice, getting a clip for my L2T is on top of my bucket list.
Had to goggle it for the dates, but I got my first “real” flashlights, a pair of Quark 2AA-Xes (at least I think that’s what they were called) back in 2013-2014 or so.
But I did like the River Rock (Target house brand) lights, the 1×AA and 2×C beasties.
The Q8 was a BLF initiative after so many people had Sky Ray Kings that had terrible heatsink problems, structurally they were just fairly bad designs and everyone in China was copying that bad design. So we designed our own version that really showed what a sodacan light can be, and were lucky to convince Thorfire to make it, that was the BLF/Thorfire Q8. Then later the OEM manufacturer that made Thorfire flashlights started their own brand Sofirn and then Sofirn made (they asked our permission, that was thoughtful) their own versions of the Q8, and spin-offs like the Sofirn SP36.
Closer to the subject of this thread: I still have my Romisen RC-G2 which I still find a great form factor that was not repeated since, in the meantime it has a BLF-A6 derived direct driver and a dedomed Luminus SST-20 4000K 95CRI. Beautiful beam from the light OP reflector of the RC-G2.