I am looking at upgrading some lights and i am looking at about $100 for 4 lights. Hence what brought up this question.
I know it may be a difficult question.
Also did you spend an equivalent amount on the batteries (that were not included)?
Also Sofirn’s site currently says:
Being a number-cruncher by trade and a bean-counter by instinct, there is a big spreadsheet that tells all. Lights, parts, batteries and tools. But the question itself puzzles me a bit. I’ve noticed that every time I buy a light, my wallet gets a dent. That dent however, does not go away when I give that light so someone else. So the dents keep on coming, while the number of lights is staying the same or even decreasing.
Totals? A secret shared isn’t a secret any more. Not even (especially) my wife knows.
In short: I’m not the first one to drop his pants 
$0
Yep, for me this is self-funding hobby. My collection is living, each year I add a few and a few I trade or give to friends. Besides, most of my projects hit the auction finally, so I earn some side money. But all I earn i spend on tools and parts and this is how it goes.
I stopped keeping track pretty early on in 2018, 2 and a bit months after the first C8.
Including torches (23), batteries of all sizes, chargers (5), holsters, diffusers, thread/o-ring lube, soldering kit and some tools. Was up to nearly AUD$2000.
You could consider the given away lights as gifts and tabulate the value of the ones you still have.
George Bernard Shaw once said: The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.
Ouch!
Must be thousands.
If I add the cost of parts and hobby equipment, maybe double that?
Lately a bit less because I’m earning less money than I used to, and also we started saving for our son’s higher education.
Thousands, but probably not 10s of thousands. I don’t know. My first real lights were mag lites and Princeton Tec headlamps, then incandescent SureFires. Then I moved to the emissive energy Innova lights, SureFire LED lights, and the early Fenix and then 4sevens leds. I’ve had a few Streamlight weapon lights. Lately I’ve gotten some of the BLF lights along with some of the more popular Chinese lights.
I don’t really feel the need to chase incremental improvements or collect every light that comes out, but I’ve generally bought whenever I saw something that met a need, or when there were large improvements to features. Sometimes I went multiple years without getting anything, and there are times I bought quite a few lights at once. I’ve lost or had stolen a few lights along the way, and a few of my older lights are still some of my favorites.
I can give a very precise answer because I recently built a spreadsheet for my own torture benefit. Including tax, but NOT including separately-purchased batteries or my charger, I’ve spent exactly $1100.75 on 14 lights. Three of those lights came with batteries. I started buying these in 2019. Compared to firearms though, (which I also buy) this is cheap hobby.
Actually, the spreadsheet will eventually be linked in my signature here. I realized that it wasn’t going to be practical to list all my lights there as my collection grew.
The irony of this thread is how many of us are easily in the thousands… on *B*LF.
I easily have 5x the money dropped on parts and emitters, of which very few made it into a light. I actually was thinking about buying a bulk order of a cheap, quality host that I can actually build them into to sell. But its never seemed worth it.
The search for the perfect emitter has not been cheap… still not satisfied either.
Yes. I am aware this is a disease.
Less than I expect.
The perfect emitter for me would be a 110 CRI 2200K SBT90.2 :cowboy_hat_face:
Define budget light.
Wouldn’t it be better (budget) to spend a few bucks more on one good light than to buy many lights just because they seem to be cheap?
All my four lights are used regularly for their purpose.
Older lights i’ve upgraded are given to friends who continue to use them, so none is left on a shelf to rot.
Price of my collection: Less than 100 Euros.
Lol. Mine is an SFT40 in 95CRI FD1/FD4 tint.
Here are some reasons for buying more lights rather than one or two expensive lights:
- Spreading the risk of loss, theft, or damage.
- Different lights for different jobs. Small flooder for engine compartments. Small flooder that’s not full of grease for your nightstand. General purpose light in the livestock barn. General purpose light for the house that doesn’t literally smell like shit. Etc, etc
- Variety. Variety is the spice of life. I don’t need more than one EDC light. I just enjoy having different emitter options and variety in host design/color/material. If I sold all my EDC lights and bought one expensive one I wouldn’t get as much enjoyment out of it because the variety would be gone.
- Collecting is fun. It doesn’t sound like you are a collector. Does a rock collector select their four favorite minerals, collect samples of them, and just stop? No way, they try to collect as many unique samples as possible.
Did my wife put you up to this?
Obviously everything is in flux since I’ve got lights coming in/out, but here are the totals of numerical specs for my permanent collection.
Price: $600 (one or two are review samples but I’m including their MSRP)
Length: 1,428mm
Diameter: 457mm
Weight w/ cell(s): 6.4lbs
Lumens: 21400
Candela: 707,000
Thanks for the question! This was a fun column to add to my collection spreadsheet.
Less than I have in Tube Audio Gear and Guns — That’s all my wife needs to know
I don’t like this thread. I started scrolling down my list and mentally adding retail values of the lights if they were new and I’d paid retail.
Fortunately, I haven’t paid nearly list price for the vast majority. But still.
That’s what I tell myself about my Steam Library and my Blu-ray collection It’s true, but I still don’t want to know the real totals.