Not bad. Pricing might be deter people. The cost is about $40 before any shipping. Decent powered lights average $40-$60 these days ready to go even USB. Unless person has hosts available then might not be encouraging purchase.
BTW, BLF Sofirn is $58 shipped and puts out more than this P60
True on all accounts. Except it’s the Surefire that’s battle proven and this legacy has been passed onto a few clones even. The 6P is one of the toughest and finest engineered flashlight/tool to date. They fly across parking lots, drop into all manners of water and after years of abuse still work. USB ports are water and crap magnets that let evil things into your life saving tool. I’ve got lots of flashlights but it’s only the Solarforce clone with a PFlexPRO that goes on the utility belt. I’ve got probably 12 or more Solarforce lights around the house, cars and a spare at work. I’ve collected a few dropins and these look promising. Solarforce single mode dropins work okay, Sportac and CUXP/CUXM XM-L2/Nichia are very durable. PFlexPRO are near perfect and bullet proof. One of my fellow deputies takes his scuba diving. His, I’ve tricked out with thick grease and Teflon tape and he swears it stays dry inside afterwards.
Wellp, the point of lights like the SFs is that you can (as mentioned upstairs) repeatedly do things like bounce ’em down a parking lot, drop ’em off a bridge, dunk ’em down a well, the kind of light that certain popular brands here (as much as I like ’em) wouldn’t be able to survive even once.
It’s kinda like saying that for the cost of one tank, you could buy many many SUVs.
So now also use outdated not rechargeable batteries, best in series so if one fails it gets reverse charged and goes fireworks
Boost drivers not potted can be easily damaged dropping on hard ground if they use a reasonable sized inductor for 2A output current
P60 does not mean it can handle g shock or bad abuse its just a standardized dropin size
There is no real advantage of draining cell to dead voltage it is so quick that it cant handle 1900 lumens anywhere close at that point
With protected 18650 you are left in the dark when it trips, even if there is still some power in it on lower modes you cant get it without reactivating cell in a charger
There are way too many cons to rate this anywhere good
Sportac blink at 2.9 volts and cut off around 2.7 volts. It has a mechanical reverse polarity protection. As a First Responder light 2 modes are plenty. Those who work in difficult areas can appreciate what these lights can do. Small 1-2 cell Surefire and Streamlight Flashlights stay in their number one spots for these reasons. I do agree that potting is needed in these dropins. My preferred cells for these lights are NCR18650GA. Dare I say the Glocks of the flashlight world.
Total failure to understand so many basic things that do matter, and an attitude of “I know best, no other opinions matter and I can’t be bothered to try to understand”. I’m disappointed.
Edit: It’s not even as if he as any skin in this game.
I have no idea about “first-responder” lights. That’s not a concept that we have in the EU, but when disasters happen we generally muck-in and sort things out as best we can. With whatever we have to hand, be it torches, motors, chainsaws, inflatables, outboard motors or just grit and determination. Oh, and trucks. And helicopters.
Edit: I’m talking about the wet season. This summer has been horrendous, maybe not reported in US, but we have also had fires like you would not believe.
Well we did have “Neighbourhood Watch” in the UK, but that was quietly finished, it seemed to attract the wrong sorts.
We are not keen on vigilantes, and we don’t like guns.
That said, I’ve had to keep a neighbour going with CPR for half an hour, (overdose), but he knocked on my door, explained what he had done, then collapsed. NHS behaved quickly and impeccably and it was sorted. Up to a point. Still dead.
Every EDC light user doesn’t require Narsil, Bistro, 12 mode groups, 4 strobes, 2000 lumens etc …
These drop ins are perfect for the K I S S crowd that care about quick, usable, simplistic reliability and longevity.
These same folks will have their bullet proof go-to host that they’ve been using consistently.
They need/want the light to be on or off - it’s that simple - and this drop in does exactly that.
I enjoy both worlds of K I S S and customs. I have uses for each.
Since 2008, I’ve collected a few dozen old school SureFire 6P, 9P and about a dozen SolarForce hosts to run several dozen various P60 drop in units to use in them.
Malkoff, NailBender, SporTac etc … McClicky’s in all hosts.
If this quality drop in does not fit your use - don’t buy it.
Soooo… still wondering what the advantage of these or other one/two-mode dependable lights is?
I mean more output is cool but for the price of this + host I could see better options. I’ve never owned any P60-family lights but I’ve heard they don’t handle heat well.
All I hear here is “boost driver is more easily damaged” and am immediately turned off to this as an option for SHTF light. Do these have temp reg? Without that I could see serious issues as well.
Edit: They do have temp reg so that factor is handled actually, I just can’t read.
Since before I even knew what’s a BLF (or CPF), I was EDCing a plain ol ’502B with simple 1-mode 5000K drop-in. Click on, click off. No modes. Just about 1.4A draw, plenty of lemons for most uses, a nice smooth artifact-free beam (surprisingly nice OP reflector).
I was going to do something similar only with a 4500K emitter, and a really simple 1-mode driver, just 4 7135s for about the same 1.4A, not even a µC (so no LVP). Nothing to go wrong. A 7135 crokes, it drops down to a nominal 1.05A, etc.
No LVP, as I’d know when it’d start dropping off and pulling out of regulation. If I had to (ie, was desperate enough to ruin the cell in exchange for much-needed light), I could always run down the cell ’til the lights only “moonlight mode” bright. I’d decide, not the µC.
Was going to pot it as well, but wasn’t sure what’d be good to do that, whether epoxy, JB Weld, or spring for something pricier that’s designed for potting electronix.
Anyway, still got that ’502B and its drop-in, never really got around to the Sooper Simple Driver, and I know I can always throw one together and have it be pretty much bulletproof.
As much as I like my Convoys, Sofirns, Thorfires, even Nitecores, I know I’d be able to count on that donk above all the others, if only because it was built to last.
Now, take a reliable host like a Solarforce, use that to house a bulletproof drop-in, and you got the makings of a light you could literally bet your life on. If you have a 2000lm 12-modegroup ramping e-clicky light that ups and crokes when you drop it the ground while pulling it out of a pants pocket, that’s not quite reliable. It’s a great flexible versatile light that works as long as you’re careful to not drop it. But for on/off when you need it no matter what, I’ll stick with my ideal SSD drop-in and a rock-reliable host.
See my post above for a good overview as to why you’d want one.
True, drop-ins have a chintzier thermal path, and you need to wrap the base with Al foil or better yet Cu foil to make better thermal contact with the case. That’s why I wouldn’t push one to even near 2000lm, or even 1000lm, as that’d turn it into a curling iron pretty quickly. For me, 500lm-600lm was plenty for pretty much anything I needed a light for. Again, I was EDCing it, not using it as a do-everything light from firefly to turbo with just a few clicks.
As for drop-ins, I call them the more proper D26 (as in 26mm across), as P60 (6V, two ’123s) and P90 (9V, three ’123s) were terms generally used for hotwire bulbs (like a whopping 80lm!) and the voltage they took. But mention “D26” and you tend to get strange looks, so “drop in” usually suffices.
Anyhoo, if you want a light that supplies lots of light, and you can keep it on from cells right out of the charger to fully depleted, then you got a reliable light. And 1A or so would give you about 3hrs runtime, 1.4A maybe 2hrs. You don’t need a high-drain cell, but any decent cell geared more for capacity than drain will give you lots more runtime.
So the whole goal is reliability, not whiz-bang features.