Review: Dollar Tree Flashlight (Lampe de Poche)

Eagerly awaiting continuation of the plot

Worse.

A candle has the opposite of Dimming. Light one, measure your output, then place it on its side on your best sofa, or any pile of paper will do. Give it a few moments to “Ramp Up”, then measure again… Brighter? True “Warm White” light? Let’s see your wee LEDs do THAT!!

That’s why they call it “Candle Power”!

+1 for candle!

Dim

I was at my local Dollar Tree again over the weekend, looking for other shades of purple of the original Lampe de Poche. So far I have found 5 different shades, my wife says I’m crazy and that they all look the same. I went to get my NW C8 flashlight because only then can the difference be seen, but when I got back with it she had left to do some grocery shopping. Anyway, while I was looking around DT I found this great new light, and I don’t need to remind you that this is DT - everything’s $1!

Apparently, this one just came in and not only has a belt clip, but also has a swivel head HOW DO THEY DO THAT. Think about it, with wires and all going to the battery - amazing. I checked out the light engine on this one and it is also NOT led but rather the new clear glass type, only this one is longer and cylindrical. I haven’t had a chance to tear this apart yet as I have been to busy with my purple light collection, but as soon as I do, I will post pics here.
I must say that I am also very impressed with the rate at which new and exciting products are being released. This “Lampe de Poche” - Dollar Tree alliance is proving to be very fruitful. We are definitely in the golden age of tech.

I haven’t seen much of texaspyro the that last few days, no doubt he is busy with that BridgeLux mod. Can’t wait

ROFLMAO This has been a wonderful story of a company rising up and really shining. :bigsmile:

Oh Joy and Joyosity squared! Rejoice and joice again! Los Dios del Poches have blessed us poor mortals with three, yes, count’em three new Lampe de Poches (well dos Lampe de Poches and un Lampe de Poche Del).

The two on the left are incandescents and will probably need a driver or nickel-zinc batteries to do something good.

The one on the right is a 3x5mm DEL monster that uses 3xAAA pilas (no incluido). It puts out 12.5 lúmenes with pilas frescas. The color temperature is a corpse puckering, zombie suckering, mummy humpering 14,000K!!!

This Just In! Breaking News! Lampe de Poche is NOT Spanish. It is some long forgotten, obscure little language called “French!” Only a few people in the known universe are known to speak this language. I understand that they are good kissers, though. I guess one’s gotta do something with that tongue when nobody else speaks your tongue…

Did they have any purple ones?, they are hard to come by.
I noticed another translucent one in the center, I’m sure that will be the fashion trend this spring
How many emitters in the “Del”?
I am so excited for the future, did you notice that time between product releases has gotten shorter and shorter. This is a very good sign, the company is really ramping up production and the R&D team is certainly in it’s stride. I am looking forward to another new, major announcement from them in the very near future. Perhaps a paradigm-shift

The DEL has three 5mm emitters. Wonderful, eye searing, 14,000K emitters. That light is rather purple. I think that they had one purple version of the orginal Poche.

The also had a new version of the original Poche with the “hand grenade” knurling on the body. The new version has a much less agressive pattern.

I think the swivel head incandescent is destined for a Nichia 219 in direct drive.

First a little background. A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch an episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel. The episode was called “Mad Electricity” and featured the life of Nikola Tesla. What is important here, relevant to “Lampe de Poche” is that Nikola Tesla was way ahead of his time in the areas of the transmission of electricity, High voltage experiments, alternative lighting and even quantum mechanics.

I got a call this afternoon from the Dollar Tree stock boy, the one I mentioned in an earlier post - the Solid State Physics major. Well anyway he called, so excited in his speech that I could hardly understand him. I knew something BIG was up and my anticipation was so great that I had a hard time controlling myself also. He told me to come to the store right away, he had something VERY important to show me. He said to walk in the front door and as soon as I make eye contact with him, to turn around and meet him in the parking lot.
Even though I was right in the middle of cataloging and organizing my collection of purple “lampe de poches” I dropped everything and dashed out. The 5 mile drive to the Dollar Tree store seemed like 50. Once I got there I walked in, trying not to look conspicuous. He was over by the Helium tank filling up balloons. (That reminded me that I need to buy some and send up an XM-L in blinky mode some night so that I could read about it the next day) Anyway, when I walked in, he nodded his head and I turned around and waited for him in the lot. A couple of minutes later he came out around the corner of the building, walking quickly with his head motionless, all the while his eyes were darting back and forth wildly. I noticed he had a small brown paper bag tucked under his arm pit.
When he reached me he was out of breath and didn’t even say Hi, but rather told me that he just got these from his ex-college roommate who now happened to be a buyer for Dollar Tree. He said he got 2, one for me and one for himself. They were 2 new “Lampe de Poche”. The first thing I noticed was that one of them was purple, I asked for that one and he said OK. The second thing I noticed was that they did not look like any other “Lampe de Poche” I had ever seen!. Just then a car pulled in and parked right next to us. He got spooked and took the other light and ran back around the store. I also got a little nervous and took my purple light and went back home. What I learned and came to realize over the next few hours absolutely blew my mind!

As I was driving home I was trying to figure out what just happened back there. Why did he call me up, meet outside, give me a “Lampe de Poche” then suddenly run off? Then I remembered, ex-roommate, buyer for DT, aha, He got a hold of a couple samples of pre-release lights. Lights that are not yet available commercially. No wonder he was acting strangely. When I got home, I took the light into my workshop and set it on the bench to photograph. Here it is.

There are so many things to notice here that they can’t be put into a single sentence. First, it is purple and it is translucent. There’s that fashion trend again. You can see in the background of the card that it also comes in green, blue and yellow. The fact that it has a punched hole in the top tells me that this could be an actual retail package, it could be a mockup, but if it is real then we might see these in the stores very shortly. On the back of the card there is a barcode, model number and perhaps a serial number?
Looking at the light source I can’t help but notice the constant progression. During the last 3 interations, we have seen a round glass sphere to an elongated shape and now to a “U” shaped tube! The light emenates evenly from the entire length of the tube.
But what really knocked me over (and I actually did fall out of my chair when it hit me, really) is the Westinghouse logo on both the front and back of the packaging. This is an authentic “Lampe de Poche” but there is also now a Westinghouse logo

Here comes the Paradigm Shift, What is the significance of the Westinghouse logo? It basically boils down to Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. In the early days of the transmission of electricity Thomas Edison and his companies preferred Direct Current (D.C.). Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse preferred Alternating Current (A.C.). A long story short, Westinghouse bought Teslas’ patents. Tesla was known for his brilliant ideas and also his great showmanship. There are stories of Tesla lighting up entire rooms, without any visible source of light. Could it be that Westinghouse has had an old Tesla patent for some new and advanced lighting system? And could it be that it is just now being brought to fruition? Could explain why perhaps “Lampe de Poche”, a technological juggernaut has now partnered with Westinghouse, an old patent rich company?. This new Lampe de Poche that was given me could be just the beginning of a Paradigm Shift. We could on the verge of seeing some enormous advances in lighting technolgy! I for one welcome this new member, Westinghouse to this new triad of “Lampe de Poche”, Dollar Tree, and Westinghouse. Technology, Marketing and Industrial Might. What a combination, who else can compete?

I stopped by a Dollar Tree today looking for that latest Lampe de Poche… no joy. They did have these. Where else can you get a light and three LR44 cells for a buck?

Just finished the mod on the 2xAA swivel head Lampe de Poche a Pince:

Just finished the mod on the Dollar Tree Luminare de Contact DEL hockey puck: Dollar Tree Luminaire de Contact DEL mod

Lampe de Poche..

Do you think it's possible that these designs are coming out of the Porsche factory ?

Just awesome :smiley: Thank you, Dchomak

this is SO much more fun than i EVER had back at candlepower forums, lmFao…

i’m almost p!$$ing my pants laughing, ha ha

i am roped into going to a “baby shower” for one of my teenaged girl cooks at work? anyways… the young girls at my shop know about my “flashlight thing” as they call it…

i was mentioning i WAS thinking about just giving her an envelope with CA$H in it for the baby shower? so that i didnt necessarily have to ATTEND a baby shower? she mentioned that every person that ATTENDS the baby shower DOES get a FREE FLASHLIGHT in their little gift bag for attending the baby shower…

i am picturing one of those 9-led 3-aaa lights everyone gives away with a coupon for a promotion? LMAO… i just highly doubt i will be getting a little zoomie or anything, lol…

I am anxiously awaiting the mod to 9x high power Cree leds :-)

I actually have considered modding one of those 9-LED lights to Cree XP-E2’s because I have them (both the flashlights and the XP-E2’s) lying around. In fact, I’ve even considered asking someone in the OshPark thread to make a PCB to solder the emitters to, but I haven’t done that yet. If someone is reading this, and wants to make such a board, I’ll buy some and try it out! :wink:

so thats what all those shuttle missions were about.space aging plastic.
and you can buy this space aged plastic for $1 now.

like a tiny srk.
i still have a few of these shiny turds here too.
even with 18500 in them they are still alive.
maybe because the - side of the led is in contact with the tube they dont burn up as fast?

LOL

best thread ever!

Very interesting and funny!

I've been looking for something like this and I found it! :D

how the mighty have fallen!
reduce to whoring out their name to dollar stores!