I'm posting in the Off-Topic forum so I don't interfere with the Tank group buy thread.
I went back through the thread a bit but I'm curious (and not clear) as to what the specific attraction was for this particular group buy. Was it the low low feature or the neutral emitter aspect or the smooth reflector that was the attraction?
I get that AA/14500 was part of the attraction of course.
Looking over it I would have liked it more if it had a clickie, no memory, Cree emitter, L,M,H sequence and an OP reflector along with the low low.
Anyway, just interested in the specifics of what was the main interest for everyone at the time. Thanks.
I like the idea of being able to get something that isn't commonly or easily available. I'm sure it's hard to find something that everyone agrees with however. If it's not something that's exactly what I want for instance then there would be no advantage to me over just buying what's already out there.
It also looks like it's hard to count on the manufacturer getting just what exactly the group wants communications being what it is under these circumstances. These group buys also always seem to take a lot longer than just ordering what is already out there.
I agree except for the OP reflector. I like at least a bit of throw in my EDC lights. After all an EDC is for unpredictable situations and that may require a bit of throw. If the situation was predictable then you'd have a specific light with you anyway.
I think the idea was that it would be part of a series of three Tank007 lights (see link below). So the other two use Cree XP-G and XM-L LED's and have clickies. This one was an Osram with a twisty to fill other niches. First released a couple of years ago, the E07 has a lot of good reviews, so it is already a known in terms of build quality and many of the E07's had a neutral tint. In fact, the only thing most reviewers said would be an improvement was to add modes. So a 3-mode E07 with a nice Low seemed like a no-brainer. I'm still looking forward to getting mine, but I'm concerned about the tint, the PWM, battery fit, the memory, and not crazy about the mode order.
This best sums up the reasoning behind the BLF Edition. I personally always admired the E07, and read positive reviews, but I needed modes. I never expected that Tank007 would have to change the dimensions of it and introduce new glitches into the design.
The mode memory was per our request, although we didn't expect it to have this rather different logic. Still works at least.
I don't have any special narcissistic reasons to emblazon the BLF brand on all sorts of flashlights just to have it there. It's simply a differentiator so that it won't be confused with the standard version, since many of us own and many sellers carry the standard version of the lights we choose to customize. But if it's not customized, I see no reason to put it there.
I can see only one problem with this kind of thing. Budget Chinese lights don't really have any new product testing that goes on in the design phase (if you want to call it that).
So, the market becomes the testing grounds. Many fail and we don't buy them due to word of mouth. Some turn out to be good and those are the ones we buy.
When we ask a (budget) manufacturer to customize a light in some manner for us all bets are off. Since they never did do any new product testing and changes that we request won't be tested until they hit the market.
In companies with actual new product testing no changes of any kind make it to production without (expensive and time consuming) testing.
I don't see Tank continuing to be interested in these custom orders if they have to take the hit if things don't work out as we would like. They aren't making a lot of profit in the first place. They make more money not customizing lights.
It's an interesting experiment and as long as the members of BLF don't mind taking the hit you may get some interesting lights from a manufacturer but the odds are probably not in your favor.
If a company like Tank007 can’t make a custom light for us after claiming that they can, then why would we really want them to make one at all? Not only are they taking a hit but we are too. At this point I’d rather have a standard model of the E07 that at least works perfectly as advertised with nothing more done to customize it than having the BLF logo on it. At least we know they can do this well and it’s less headache for everyone. We support BLF, get a good deal on a quality light with no surprises, and everyone wins.
