I got a cheapy little Coast hp1 for my dad. It’s the only cheapy zoomie I’ve seen that isn’t terrible to look at. When its zoomed out its got a decent beam pattern with no extra rings of light. It only zooms so far so you never see the shape of the led.
I wish more were like this, using a regular zoomie fully zoomed I always end up backing out just a bit to eliminate the die pattern, just to where the hot spot becomes rounded, this seems to provide better vision as the die pattern disrupts it.
I’ve thought about finding a way to do a mod to resolve this so they don’t quite zoom in all the way.
Lights that use a lens will show the square image of the die when focused, though as mentioned if defocused slightly the square turns into more of a circle. Lights that use a TIR type optic will look more like a reflector beam.
This is one of the mini AA I’m going to get next. But I’m going to try this version, I like it has a knurling pattern on the head instead of just grooves:
Not for many years. The optics are slightly different, with at full zoom the Coasts having a bullseye hotspot (hotspot and spill) and LED Lensers having a hotspot with no spill.
I like mine, feels very solid and high quality. I’m planning on getting an empty pill and fitting a fet driver and dedomed spg2 with springs bypassed just for the hell of it and seeing how far it’ll throw.
Heard that set up is a bit of a monster, albeit with a narrow beam.
I think these lights with larger lens fitted with dedomed XPG2s are best as dedicated throwers. They have narrow beams, but when you are looking 300+m out, the beam is 10+m wide, wide enough IMO to be useful.
Better to fit them with de domed XP-L’s or even better with dd XM-L2 emitters cause they’ll have same performance as “new and improved” dd XP-G2 emitters and they have larger die which can be useful.
Answering previous queries about the LED Lensers … they do have the nice round hot spot with no spill but I’ve been disappointing with the step down and run time of every one I’ve had … I’d never buy one again.
Coast’s hot spots depends on the model, some of them have just the hot spot and some the hot spot and spill, if you have a look on Coast’s website they show which each torch has …… scroll down the page a bit to the video and on the right hand side it shows the type of beam https://coastportland.com/product/hp5r/
I’ve very recently bought the Coast HP5R which has the tight hot spot and no spill …. I haven’t tested run times that extensively but I have to say so far I’m very impressed with the torch although one of the batteries wouldn’t hold a charge and the retailer have immediately replaced ….
Whilst I wanted a small light torch the retailer said the HP7R for not much more money was an awful lot of torch but obviously slightly bigger.