Several years ago I used to work in mainland Europe, and while there I had met my current girlfriend. I proposed to her to come back to London with me and she accepted. We were pretty poor at the time so we hadn't the budget to rent a house or flat to ourselves in London. We finally decided upon this house share with 4 other people in a terraced house. There was 6 of us, two single guys who were aged in their early and late twenties, and a couple who were in their early thirties but looked like life had been very hard on them so they appear to be look their forties. The house was cramped enough as it was without having to deal with the couple's drunken exploits on a daily basis. They would keep us up at all times of night ranting and raving and singing drunken songs. This all came to a head when I confronted them and told them to be damn quite once and for all. This didn't go too well and while being abusive to me they also decided it was a good idea to be abusive to my girlfriend. It was then that I realised they could not be reasoned with as I could see they had zero capacity for empathy or consideration of others. Seeing as none of us would back down I genuinely thought me and the guy would come to blows so all kinds of things were going through my head to include my girlfriend getting hurt - it doesn't help that I'm very protective and have little issue with physically engaging an aggressor who is in the wrong. I remember they came outside of our room and messed with our handle as if trying to get in, and would shout at us through the door in order to intimidate. It was then that I decided to go to the local Argos, a British catalogue store, and buy a 3D Maglite. This was to be our protection should they engage in an attack. I kept that Maglite right by my side of the bed at all times, ready to be wielded should they try anything. With my girlfriend's help I kept a level head and remained calm, and thankfully they also calmed down so the Maglite never got the opportunity to protect us, but at least it gave us peace of mind.
This was a long time ago and I was able to quickly increase my salary in order to afford renting a whole flat to ourselves in London. It's got a nice but small garden that we have summer BBQs in. I still keep that Maglite by the side of my bed in the unlikely event intruders break in, but I rarely ever use it as a flashlight.
The last time I switched it on was a of couple weeks ago. I had bought a Thrunite TiS 1xAAA torch with max output 120 lumens, and I wanted something relatively week to compare. The only thing I had that was sub 300 lumens was the Maglite with its incandescent bulb. I switched it on and the beam profile made me cringe it was so full of artifacts. This little TiS was superior in every way, asides from one little detail - the Maglite's ability to protect my family.
I’ve still got a couple of old maglites I haven’t thrown away but the bigger ones 4D and 6D have both been reborn into LED tools. The size of them has been of benefit once (so far) but they are very intimidating having a big lump of metal and a very bright light to point at someone.
I also have a HID “torch” that is somewhere in the house. I don’t like it but I paid too much for it so wont get rid of it.
I have a 6D Maglite with incandescent Osram 64623 fully regulated with driver at 18V to the bulb and power shuts off at 16V to preserve the cells. The bezel is a 2.5in throwmaster from Fivemega and while technology is outdated its still amazing and relevant.
My other is a 1960’s Flashlight that is fitted with xHP-70 and runs of 2 IMR 26650’s mule style.
That’s it. Only 2 big lights but both different and opposite of each other.
YES, in the booth of our car are two lights, build in by Citroen so I am not talking about things I put in there.
and 1 of those can be taken out of its place, the light on the side of it goes off and a flashlight reveals itself, 1 mode wth an old fashioned incandescent bulb. The car is about 9 years old.
I have not taken it apart to check the cells lol.
I still have quite a few non-LED flashlights. They don’t get used anymore and are stored in a box. I’m not sure why I keep them, except that some of them bring back good memories.
Well i must say that after a decade (2008) using only LEDs i am converting back to incans. When i saw super and custom made bulbs, tint, intensity i finally figured it what i was looking for all this time. Now all of my Mag heavy LED mods are stored in a drawer and they have got from 1600lm bulbs up to Osram 64657 14000lm.
I even bought small E size custom made light that has 990lm output from 2x18350.
This is just a quick reply, no pictures.
I have a few wolf-eyes with lumens-factory incan upgrades I bought to use for work (these have the battery pos terminal towards tailswitch).
A 9-volt 3-cell (3 x CR123A) for which I use 2 x AW 18500 with a D26 sized head. It’s an emergency go-to light in a particular part of the house. Those AW 18500s are quite robust (had them since 2004-2005) as they still charge to max and have ultra low self discharge.
A 12-volt light w/ 13-volt conversion (Wolf-Eyes Rattlesnake M90-13V/EO-13 ) - 4 x CR123A with 12V lamp - 3x18650 for 13V lamp. This one is a storage box resident now since its batteries went to other lights (1 went to Solarforce L2 custom with Triple LED Drop-in and the other 2 sitting waiting for emergency back-up action in a Solarforce Masterpiece Pro 2 w/ Cree MC-E Quad die LED…. and another to bind them to darkness and rule them all… sorry got carried away). The lamp has a large bulge near the tip, kinda like a blister per-se, from running it too long and melted the bulb glass… it’s still works if powered up…
I also have couple of MagLite flashlights as well:
A well used MagCharger 85 (dead ni-cad battery back) that was given to me but is sitting in the same storage box as the wolf-eyes rattlesnake. I had plans for upgrading that has been on the back burner for ages…
A red Mag 2D with the following mods/conversion (It serves as emergency nightstand duty light on the wife’s bedside table):
Lens is a UCL tempered glass lens from Flashlightlens.com
Reflector is a FiveMega Aluminum LOP (light orange peel)
Bulb/lamp is a ROP Lo (Roar of The Pelican - low ouput bulb)
FiveMega 2D-6AA battery conversion pack filled with Eneloops from 2008-2009.
Last but not least, a solder wick spring bypass at the tail cap.