Harbor Freight 9 LED cheapies die fast!

Hey everyone,

Anyone else have bad of luck with the cheap harbor freight 9led flashlights? Last year they where giving them away every time you came in. Needless to say I came in a lot :)

Anyway I have had this happen to 3 or 4 of these lights, if you have fresh batteries in them turn them on till the battery dies it seems to damage them. Sometimes you will get 1-2 led's die and none of them are as bright as when they where new.

Has anyone else had this happen or know whats going on?

One big mainstream tech site "reviewed" a similar device costing $64 and thought it worth it.

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/06/17/txt_take_true_utility_flyeye_7/

210 lumens!

Aye! Right!

Who said two positives do not a negative make? In Scots they do.

Those 9-led lights are utter crap. Use them until they die, and throw them away... they're free for a reason!

--Bushytails

Doesn't stop people asking silly money for them. If they aren't free then smile a lot and walk away.

Quickly.

These usually should have a small resistor limiting current to the led's. If they're overdriven (ie no resistor or too small resistor), which is probably the case here, then it significantly decreased the lifespan if you put in strong batteries. Crappy led's also take overdrive less well.

Those are supposedly 1W emitters, not the cheapo 5mm ones. It's overpriced, but not because they should be next to free.

No, they're cheapo 5mm LEDs, at least the ones given away at the harbor freight here. Absolutely no claims about wattage whatsoever.

--Bushytails

I was referring to the

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/06/17/txt_take_true_utility_flyeye_7/

After having so many die I have pretty much taped them all to my sons matchbox cars and let him have some fun

BTW if you don't get them with the free coupon they want like $3.99 ea. Not to mention if you leave supplied batteries in, about half of them end up leaking!

Ohh but the reflector looks like it would gather a lot of light so I bet its at least 200LM !!

I remember once this guy came in with what would have been an extremely valuable camera (An early Leica 3g in almost perfect condition dating from 1957) if he hadn't drilled it and fitted two axles and wheels to turn it into a toy car for his kids. In 1981 I could easily have got £2000 (At the time, US$6000) for a Leica 3g that didn't have axles fitted. Today, prices for film cameras have dropped like a stone but it'd still be worth over a thousand dollars (Without axles). At auction in 1981, a really good IIIg (like this one had been) could fetch $9,000 or more. They were by a long way the best of the screw thread Leicas.

soooo... what you're saying is, these harbor freight lights could be worth a goldmine some day!

Yes, because everyone else's will be busted. Remember to keep in it in the original packaging though.

you get what you pay for in lenses

I like them. It's a nice challenge to turn them into something useful and bright.

I just threw away a very old camera that was gathering dust in my garage. I don't want to know what it was worth.

This post train got derailed quickly... Laughing

I have a 30-40 year old (just guessing, I haven't looked it up yet to confirm) Fujica 35mm slr camera with a full set of lenses, 35mm, 28mm wide, and 135mm telephoto, plus a set of macro lenses. It's completely manual; the only electronics is a light meter. I've kept it for years because it takes fantastic photos; I have plans to try to sell it on eBay someday. I doubt it's worth much but it's still a very good albeit dated piece of photographic equipment.