So if you ran out of battery with your (easily portable EDC) single cell light, you would have other cells nearby.
Instead of having to go find your light (that is too big to carry around), you could just use the EDC, and go find a new cell, in the unlikely case that you run out of juice.
I mean, yeah i guess the Big Boyz ™ could have better heat sinking and more LEDs and lumens…
Maybe that’s it? Is that it?
I’d just rather have a small, bright, floody EDC that I don’t have to find all the time.
Just me.
Carry on.
(I don’t get THROWERS either, or who uses a knife so much.)
Eh, small 3x18650 soda can lights like ROT66 are very jacket pocket friendly. They’re good as camping lights, power outtage lights, and casual hiking lights.
It’s a flashlight format to have fun with if you happen to like it.
Hey most people don’t get flashlights at all anyway “I got my smartphone light, I don’t need to carry extra weight”
They’re good if you want to poke around the yard, etc., where you might want sustained high brightness and runtime. A smaller light might have nice peak brightness, but not have the runtime nor be able to maintain it without stepping down rather quickly.
Or put a diffuser on it for a long-runtime “camping light” or “lantern” without having to buy a dedicated lantern. A sody-pop flashlight can act as a lantern with a diffuser, but a lantern can’t act as a flashlight.
Lately, if I want to light up the yard, my SF47 is easier to grab/hold/use, but still won’t have the extended runtime of a Q8 or DC7. Series cells (2S), so I’d be wary of running down the ’47 too much (if any cell imbalance), vs a 4P arrangement of a Q8/DC7 which could safely be run down to absolute minimum cutoff.
Beyond just showing off and having fun, there are times people really need flashlights on a more practical level. Broadly, you can group them into regular use and emergency use perhaps? For “regular use”, like edc, dog walking, hunting, and work duties, portability is going to be a major consideration. For emergency uses like a flooded basement, major storm, power outage, etc, different priorities emerge in my experience.
It is in the latter case where I find myself really reaching for, and appreciating, soda can lights. Their sustained output, runtimes, and general endurance are invaluable there. If you are bailing water in a storm, trying to keep your basement from flooding, you don’t want to be worrying about swapping cells or rapid step downs.
When I take my daily walk, I bring a TC20v2 for its portability, output, and practicality. When the last major storm hit, it was my Nitecore TM11 that really shone (pun intended). Being able to set a light up in a room and run it for days at a few hundred lumens, or run several thousand lumens for hours is worth it’s weight.
So now I’ve updated my soda cans to a TN36 and a 4x18a SBT90.2.
I use my SP36 and my Q8 as provisional lighting when working extended periods in a control panel or other. Usually mounted on a camera tripod or some hook – naturally, this was thought out before undertaking the task.
When doing some fine assembly work, the overhead fluorescents cast shadows as I’m moving about. A couple of lights mounted on either side of the work area solves this problem. Of course, these aren’t at full blast and at enough distance that I’m not prone to tripping into them.
At other times I’ve used these for photography when I want to remove some shadows. Again the 1/4” screw mount serves a practical purpose.
And I’ve also used them when there was an outage. Sofirn sells a shade for either and they work well in diffusing the light. Just added a small reflective ‘hat’ to re-direct the top light onto the sides.
I’ve had a few emergency calls where shining a light up along a building I saw the problem or used to follow a line along the ceiling of a warehouse. Many times a pocket thrower helped in finding a fault from a distance.
I’m not a hunter, but I could see this essential at night; more so if your backyard reaches the treeline (rural setting). And just so recently, inspect a sudden crack sound from the balconies above mine (accumulated snow with the recent rain added much weight to the timber structure. 3rd floor fellow hadn’t done any snow removal).
I don’t use my soda can light at home, I use it for photography. My single cell lights just don’t put out the same amount of light that my triple MT-G2 soda can light does on full blast.
I take it you would follow ‘Jake’ from ‘Abandoned’ (YouTube).
Going over your albums I get a sense of wasteful human constructions. I would wonder what drove them out? Economics, poisoned environment? Doesn’t seem to be destroyed by war.
And the intactness of the furnishings. No vandalism, not even broken windows.
I assume it greatly reduces levels on anxiety in these spaces having big lumen flooders?
At least walking in woods with slight more power and wider beam flashlights is less stressful than wandering with narrow angle beam flashlights, after all you have to do more things at once, careful where you step, anticipate where you are going to step in a few meters and still be aware of an eventual creature being somewhere adjacent the the walking path.
I have an instragram account but I’ve never posted anything on it, only used it for viewing every once and a while.
I’ve seen some of those videos, entertaining.
It’s usually economics.
I only bring out the soda can for photography. I have a few single cell triple and quad lights that are good enough for navigating underground. I prefer a floody headlamp and a throwy handheld as I often want to peak down tunnels and so on. At about 2:20 into my video below, a flood on the head and thrower in the hand is the most useful combination. The soda can is in the backpack.
