Sodas

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).

Sodas are useful for high max brightness, high sustained brightness, long runtimes at low brightness, and increasingly flood/throw switching.

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.




That’s awesome. Would those pics be of the same cave or should I say abandoned mine?

Never mind, I’m mesmerized by your Flicker album.

Thanks! The top two are from one mine, the bottom two from another.

Do you have an insta? I’m also into urbex.

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.

Excuse my ignorance here, tell me more about the ROT66.
I have the Q8, I use it sometimes to light up the yard when there is some commotion or to spot owls. That’s about it.

I am on the fence to buy the SP36 for these (some of) reasons being voiced in this thread.
Would this ROT66 be an viable alternative to the SP36 ?

ROT66 will be smaller, have more lumens, and throw more. It will also be more expensive. SP36 uses a multi-well reflector and give flower petals in the beam. ROT66 uses 12 small TIRs and give a round beam. Looks like SP36 is limited to just the SST40 and LH351D, while ROT66 has only SST20, XPL HI, and CSLNM1.TG options.

I see, that is definitely too narrow of an area to not not you the combo you did.

Not everyone needs a soda can light, but a lot of people enjoy them.

I just have one soda can light (Fireflies ROT66). I like the 3x 18650 size better than having something larger.

It’s both fun, and it serves several practical uses:

1) It’s a very handy worklight when mounted on a tripod. I have also used it for photography lighting.
2) It’s very effective at ceiling bouncing during power outages
3) It can sustain higher output for longer than my smaller lights when spending a lot of time on activities where I want that. Most recently, that was giving my kids a couple extra hours of sledding after dark before the snow melted the next day. There’s also a neat volcanic cave in my area I’d like to go explore again soon, which it will be perfect for.

I used it a little bit for car camping (for hiking I use single-cell lights for lower weight), but then got an LT1, which works better for that purpose.

I really like my BLF Q8 and Sofirn SP36. The SP36 rides in the daily driver vehicle and the Q8 sits on my desk. They are quite useful and feel great in the hand. But many of my smaller lights are equally useful, just with different uses.

Wow… I’ll have to check out your channel. Looks like you’ve had some amazing adventures! You repelled down a face cliff into a massive chasm or old abandoned mine? Where was it? And btw, are you wearing Zamberlans?

Soda can is actually my favorite form factor. Yes, not pocket friendly, but there are only so many ways to have 3-4 batteries and 10-20 LED’s in a light. For example, I much prefer the Convoy 4x18 over the L7 both with SBT90.2. The 4x18 feels so much better in your hand.

Both the ROT and SP36 have rather mediocre sustained brightness for their size in 2022. Single battery Convoy M21 range and M3-C will outperform them in terms of sustained brightness, as will the Zebralight SC700D.

Newer and more expensive Soda Can lights such as the Acebeam X50 and Olight Marauder 2 will sustain far more lumens than previous generation soda can lights, but for more $$$.

Thanks for the brake down. After looking into the ROT66 it is beyond my threshold of spending, and now the SP36 is off my list too.

Let’s be honest here. Marauder 2 isn’t even a sodacan sized light. Acebeam X50 is stretching the limits of that definition as well, but it’s passable. ROT66 is literally the size of a sodacan.

I do agree though it could use an updated buck driver. The smaller E12R manages the same sustained lumens as the SC700D has of around 700 lumens. The only difference is the SC700D does it with a high cri XHP70.2, while the E12R does it with better quality light emitting from SW45Ks.

If looking for sustained high output though, those larger form factor ‘sodacan’ lights like the X50 and TN50 with multiple high efficacy LEDs are hard to beat.