I'm an electronics engineer, a researcher on a research center, working on computer hardware and software mainly. I discovered the hidden feeling towards flashlights and lasers in myself lately. I have been a follower of DX forums (I'm the one who shouted "Saw XML on EBay" :)) for a while and decided to get into a more focused community and found here. As always I've been obsessive in my hobbies, things gone really fast and I collected 15 lights in two months time, from various Chinese sites. I love DIY'ing but trying to keep things slower on that aspect (don't take me seriously on this, I've ordered more than a dozen of driver boards and emitters already :)). Now I open the old books to remember the principals of power electronics before burning things into smokes. Maybe to give some hint about myself, I must try to explain how my brain ticks (or mostly tacks):
I almost always follow a route in my hobbies, unplanned, unavoidable, buying something cheap first ($10-15) and liking it, trying a cheaper second (<$10), jumping some more expensive upper ($40), reaching the peak by buying something expensive (~$150) and stall (collection never ends) at somewhere ~$20. This makes a good bunch of quick experience and a garage full of material to talk about. :)
My other hobbies are, photography and (car) detailing, I've been a member of DetailingWorld and various other forums too.
Hi there Seckin, welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy your budget light hobby here. Feel free to post modding advice, reviews, links to good deals, questions, or anything else that you find relevant to flashlights!
Neither have I, yet. I'm on the $30-$40 part for the moment :) I could have paid $70 for a SST-50 though, XM-L leds saved me. May build a 3 x XML flashlight one day instead, for the same money or less.
I own two lights that cost more than $100 but to be honest there is not a lot of point in spending huge amounts as there will be better and brighter LEDs just around the corner.
The second most expensive light I own with three K2 LEDs in it is now a poor dim thing compared to the XM-L dropin i just paid $20 for.
What we really need now is a company to design and manufacture inexpensive high-current drivers. Like a maximum of US$5-10 each which can efficiently supply 4A without melting themselves or starting a fire or killing batteries.
With a good enough heat sink, an XM-L can be run at 4A. At those currents, the LED will not last for 50,000 hours, but there will be newer and brighter ones by then and it isn't hard to swap a star-mounted LED.
