adjective they use for LED lights is "superbright" in my eyes. They use it litterally for any crappy 5mm LED light. I hate it.
Well they are, as long as you are comparing them to 9 glow-worms shoved in the same housing. The glow worms where I used to live in Zambia looked just like low powered green LEDs in the dark. :)
It's the purple that makes it brightest. Sort of like red for cars.
Varapower 2000 has powerful light
I am selling the MTE 1,000 lumen M3-2I with the CREE XM-L diode that have been insanely bright! These are at www.mte-usa.com or www.gregmcgeeengineering.com . You can use the discount code "PRACTICAL" for 10% off bringing it to 80something dollars and add "upgrade me to priority shipping at no additional cost" to get priority at first class price.
Now...if you want budget, you can go buy an SST-50 diode and hack a $8 dollar walmart 6v camping lamp (they also have a 4 dollar version) with the big reflector, kluge it in there and make an 18650 battery pack to give the diode about 6 amps and you will have a 1200 lumen Frankenstein light... I got the diodes from Luminus as engineering samples but you budget guys can probably figure out where to buy them retail but you have to make sure they are real Luminus diodes. You guys want to see pictures of my half built kluge or wait till its done??? I have 3 18650 batteries in there in parallel now and I think that is sufficient... The short tests I have done indicate it will work. One problem is I haven't really heat sunk the diode and the Luminus, and most high powered LEDs, get dimmer as they get hotter so to keep it bright you need to keep it cool. That said, I have a peltier effect CPU cooler I was going to kluge into there as well. You can get the peltier plates off ebay for a buck (search on peltier plate) but have to thermally epoxy a heat sink (and a fan if you are daring) to the hot side of the peltier plate and control the current going into the plate. If you can keep the LED cool you can literally run the light on high mode for as long as the batteries have life...
If you guys want I'll try to glue the peltier plate in mine too or make a subsequent version...
So, even though I sell kick ass flashlights at www.gregmcgeeengineering.com I am still budget at heart...
If you are really daring you can try the sst-90 diode and more batteries.
I am not liable if anyone gets hurt trying to make this light, and it is for design discussion only, so if you try it at home you are doing so at your own risk. Always remember to use safety goggles if you dremel the reflector on the walmart light and use adequate ventilation with epoxies and adhesives.
Thanks,
Greg McGee
It's sad that it is a little bit difficult to find budget lighting that actually works well. I mean, how much does it really cost to create lighting? Well, I could not answer that for sure. But it would be nice if somebody would start posting links to really good light models.
Well, this is a pretty old thread so there are tons of new lights out there and it sort of depends on what price you consider budget. The Jetbeam BC40 is a tad over $60, is rock solid and puts out 800 OTF lumens. My Xtar R01 only cost me $44 and puts out around 500 lumens OTF and seems built quite well. The Xeno E03 is only $30, is built incredibly solid and puts out around 450 lumens OTF on 14500. You can also buy one of the solarforce hosts and an XM-L drop-in for well under $40 to give you in the 500-600 lumen OTF range. These are among the most reliable of the more budget priced lights that give high output. There are other cheaper lights that are as bright or brighter but there is some question on how reliable or consistent they are from sample to sample.
Sure looks like this one takes the cake:
But I don't like the size or the styling personally. I would say that a good P60 host with the Manafont 3-mode XM-L dropin is the best for me. Some have measured close to 900 lumens with it!
For what purpose would you need such a light?
The OP was What is the brightest budget light? I don't think that meant a National Budget 
That Xeccon is almost 200usd. Sorry but your posts are starting to get a little too spam'ish for my liking.
Spammish for sure. I am still a big fan of the XM-L diode. I know CREE is going to start putting out a more efficient diode at around 1200 lumens this year and I will have those in the same package. It is all about efficiency with diodes as the XM-L creates a ton of light but it also pulls about 3.1 amps or a little more to create the light. I think in the next 5 years we will see a 2000 lumen light at about 2.8 amps or less. I have a ton of HID lights including a 6000 lumen one but I'm not sure what it is good for since it is too friggin bright. Light is almost like sound and above a certain level there is a logarithmic diminishing return on investment.
Thanks,
Greg McGee
Those Ebay/Aliexpress alu HIDs are bright....a bit over-speced but still bright esp for the money. HID long/short arc + lanterns or modded with PAR56/64s or auto ballasts/bulbs are the only way to get crazy throw and/or lumens which sort of makes custom LED lights look pretty dim. Unless you stick 50-100 pieces of XM-L on it. 
Yeah, the only reason I sell the HIDs is that if there is ever an issue with parts it is such a hassle dealing with China for replacements. I just buy 10 extra of all the parts and stick them in a box so that people can get fast free warranty replacement. China will want you to pay 50 dollars to ship a 50 dollar ballast/bulb (just guess price) and then take 10 days to get it to you, at a minimum. I just buy the extra parts in advance, just in case...then they will replenish the used parts with my following paid shipments. I still like the LED's best for size and weight.
I sawy a Duracell 170 lumen "daylight" light at Costco yesterday for 11.95, takes 2 d-cell batteries. I was truly excited, a true budget light! I got it home and barfed on it... It focused but the light color sucked and super "artifacty." My C3-907 is at least 50 lumens brighter. I'm taking it back today... They had some 3 sets of 150 lumen lights but they sucked as well so I took them back.
Thanks,
Greg
The Prices quite not budgetary.Or we again have a standard explanation that all other sites will sell the cheap forgeries?))
P.S This was an answer tank007 , but his message to disappear.I not powerfully distressed))
brightest current budget light? i'd say the sky ray 3800 for 52$ is probably the brightest out there for the price..
I am a big fan of wash lighting and I do like to get the led effect lights out if I can use smoke but I'm using discharge effect light.
The brightest flashlight I have found for the moneys the KEYGOS XM-L T6 light for $25 shipped. It puts out a legit 850 lumens. And it's only 5 and 7/8" long.
That light will beat out a lot of the bigger lights. I know. It will easily throw a beam 300yds. It may not beat some of your better thrower lights for beam distance, but it will give most a run for their money in brightess up close.
Check these out.
Those trees at the end of the street are 260yds.