New Costco 500-lumen Duracell Zoomies?

Has anyone bought these? If they didn’t have the Duracell logo on them I’d have come home with a pack, but as it stands they need some serious potential to make-up for the cheesy branding. They’re $25 for the pack, BTW.

They look like they have XM-L emitters and the packaging makes me think that the pill is fixed in the body and the head moves, but I’m not so sure… Has anyone bought some? It seems they’d be good candidates for a 2x26650 conversion with driver swap, but at $12.50 each it might be a bit much for mod hosting.

I actually just came home with a pair of them for my wife. They’re quite bright, although the modes are a bit odd; low~~high~~>seizure inducing disco strobe mode and pressing and holding the button when off gives you a momentary on after a 1-2 second delay. The head does slide over a fixed pill.

Overall, it feels solid in hand. It focuses the LED die into a tight square and you can even see the individual lines on the die. When flooding, it’s fairly smooth without any major hot spots. I doubt a flashlight connoisseur would be happy with it, but for my wife who was just looking for a simple Maglite 2C replacement, it’s perfect.

Thanks. How about the pill? is it fixed in position with good sinking or does the pill move?

I’m not sure. I haven’t done any runtime tests or anything, but they stayed cool during the 5-10 minutes I played with them. However, given the design of the head sliding over the body, I’m doubting the thermal path would be beefy enough to support much of an upgrade. It doesn’t look like it has much sinking near the head but I can’t access the pill to investigate further without tearing things apart. Since they’re hers and she doesn’t want me screwing them up, I won’t be tearing them down unless I purchase a pair for myself. I personally would prefer something that runs on li-ions and with a brighter maximum, so as of now, I won’t be doing that.

Right :)!!

As long as it’s the lens that moves and not the emitter then it’s fine. On zoomies with a floating pill that does the movement sinking is generally poor, but at least with this one the tube/pill are the same solid unit, probably plenty of sinking for the 1.5-ish amps going through it.

It’s definitely the lens that moves, not the pill. There just doesn’t appear to be much in the way of fins, just a couple small ridges, so I thought that might be what concerned you.

It’s understandable that there’s not much external sinking with a zoomie, at least that maintains a traditional appearance. If I wanted a super powerhouse I could get a Sipik SK98 and boost it, that’s got some aggressive finning relatively close to the emitter. The idea behind converting one of these to run 26650’s is runtiiiiiiiiiiiiime. 8)

Lol, it claims 35hr on low and 7hr on high w/ 3xC batteries, 3x26650s would be insane. Good luck with that, it sounds like a cool project. :slight_smile:

3x26650? There’s nowhere near enough room for that, I was thinking of 2x26650. Because 26650’s might actually be cheaper than good NiMH C-batteries. :bigsmile:

Bought a set because why not.

These aren’t mod-friendly lights. The pill is fixed within the body of the light, so heatsinking is good. But the sliding head does not unscrew and the lenses [two, an aspeheric under a flat protective] are pressed into place. Disassembly would involve the destruction of one or both lenses. A pressed-in plastic pill retains the tailcap components. The tail switch is a momentary switch, so the driver is also in there. Taking a tailcap current measure puts the light into high and high only. The current draw is 2.6ish amps. That high a draw on three alkalines will not last very long. A King-kong just barely doesn’t fit into the tube. Pressing and holding the switch takes it into a momentary-on mode after about a second.

But the anodizing is good, the lenses are as clear as you can expect from plastic. One of the emitters has a bit of shmutz on the dome, and the zoomed image is a little fuzzier than the other one.

These are good utility lights for the house, but if you already have utility lights then don’t bother, unless you want a challenge. If you can get them apart there is certainly potential as it would not take much honing to make the tube accept a 26650. That aside, I’m putting these in the cupboard and forgetting about them until the power goes out.

From local costco in UK for the kids to take camping with scouts , they are easily the 500 lumens they claim to be ( beating the ebay 1000 lumen zoomeys)

The included Duracells seem to last quite well ( not sure how long ,kids just said “hours”) they stilled worked the next day so it seemed quite good, the flood was good for the night time walks they did.

I’d still have them if it wasn’t for the fact that the dome fell off the pill ( excuse my lack of technical terms not sure what else to call it) and the light stopped working so both went back for a refund ( by the way Costco’s return policy is the best I have ever seen)

A friend also bought a set and has had no issues and is very pleased with the performance for the money.

These are $20 now with batteries and I picked them up today . Not a lot to add but I believe for $10 each . Good deal !

These are just up at my local Costco. Has any one done anything with these?

I threw them in the spare tire well in my wife's

car

The lenses, tailcap pills, are all pressed-in and can’t really be removed without damaging things. They’re utility lights.

I remember taking apart a broken Duracell Daylight led light (3xaaa) in the past. The entire insides of the head ended up getting destroyed as it was glued and sealed up to the point of being ridiculous. I don’t remember it having that much heatsinking either, but that was a different light and many years ago.

Im a big time flashlight nerd. It started 5 years ago with my maglite xl50. And then i moved up to a colman 500 lumens then a deffiant 590 lumens let me just say. This one blows them all away. Not just with its 1000 lumens performance but with the build and feel also. This does not gel line a $20 flashlight by no means. It fells more like the ones that go for $100. That fyi i was actually thinking of purchasing the fenix tk41. Before i seen this beast. I’m 100% happy with my purchase. Get this light before duracell figures out what they got here.

Pretty much a noobe for the high end LED lights out there (Till I get my new amazon orders in, heh heh…) but the Costco 500 and 1000 3c and 4c lights have been pretty darn good lights. I use them for home use, checking on my animals and noises around the neighborhood at night. Bright spotlight and long throw beam when zoomed… great for the back of the property. No long term use yet, but good buys for the price, IMHO.

i found a 4C Duracell Zoom 1000 in the bargain bin at a store and it looked promising, so i bought it; then did some searching for how to open it up and found this thread, but didn’t find any instructions.

There is a seam such as where a thread or sleeve might be located just behind the fat lens section of the zoom head, and in front of a strange “hex nut” looking flange that has a pattern of 6 longitudinal grooves in the face such as for holding with a special wrench or fixture.

Has anyone taken something like this apart? Is it a thread with locking compound or some kind of sleeve with super glue?