We had heavy fog over the weekend and my kids & friends would not tire of fighting jedi light saber duels with my flashlight
They were careful and all my flashlights survived but you cannot seriously expect 6-yr-olds not to lose something as small as a flashlight and when they do I'd rather they lost a $10 cheapie than my more costly flashlights
I was thinking of getting a Sipik from fasttech but I'm not sure how lightsaberish the beam pattern could get when I zoom in (obviously they want a tight beam / small hotspot, no use for much flood here)
Any suggestions? Should I get a handful of these (or other) or is there anything better suited to this purpose?
I do not need multiple power levels (kids...) but decent runtime would be appreciated (1 hour or more on max level)
oh, and no 14500's for obvious reasons - just NiMH in these
I just got that light with a credit from a crummy charger, its fine, they will also have fun with its zoom mechanism, i have not tested battery current or runtime though, but it can’t be bad, and output is pretty ok as well
These are fairly cheap and zoomable. They also come in 3 different colors. I've been looking at these for my nephews and nieces but haven't pulled the plug yet.
my daughter loves my new ultrafire cree q5 sk68 i’m running a 14500 in it. unfortunately thats only about a 30-35 minute runtime. but in the dark it was still lightsaber-able with an alkaline. with alkaline it ran 1hr40min with 14500 about 30-35 and with a set of borrowed Ni-Hm’s it was almost 2 hours. i love this little light it’s gone with me everywhere
I’ll throw another recommendation for the sipik sk68. I have yet to have any issues with any of my sk68. I gave my father one of my sk68 running on alkalines and he loves it. Even in the dirt and grime of a mechanic shop it’s still going strong. Well worth the $4 for the clones and $7 for the sipik.
The other cheapie linked by fishin’ I’ve had several small issues with; including, poor internal quality (wrecked o-rings, poorly machined pills), jagged threads, flickering switch after ~15 min of use. YMMV. With the defects they’re probably worth the $2 I paid, but not at $4 a piece.
I’m pretty happy with my red $3.99 Banggood Sipik clone. Good quality, nice focused beam, and it also makes a good light box test subject while I play with the new camera
reading further about the SK68 here at BLF I found these, supposed to be running cooler and brighter than the average (?)
either way it looks like it's hard to fault the SK68 as long as you get it from a respectable seller (whether ebay or fasttech)
my kids will be happy (I already have two Nextorch headlamps on the way for them - very little info on these but they looked good for what they were) 8-)
And another recommendation for the sk68! In the under ten dollars category they are unbeatable in output, lightsaberness and robustness. And buy your kids a good Sanyo or Nitecore 14500, they work much better with them, and if you stay in charge of the charger , I can't think of any safety issues with them.
I am in fact just waiting for my first 14500's, two nitecore's from HKEquipment and 4 keeppowers from wallbuys (doingoutdoor no longer ships those to where I live) so I'll definitely give it a try when I order & receive those SK68's
The light you linked looks no different from the other sk68 clones, from what I heard is that the three-mode versions have less output than the 1 modes. And if you want decent output, the light runs hot, no way around that. But no sk68 clone I had died from overheating yet, they get hot but just keep running.
I stand corrected here, you are right Bort, the sk68 just keeps draining the li-ions till death, even starts boosting when the battery gets under the led voltage... Will be fine if you replace the battery (and charge them soon enough) when the light gets dim, but that is exactly the kind of thing not to expect from kids.
