Hi All,
First post. For the last few weeks I’ve been reading the backlog of posts on this forum as well as CPF. It all started when my dad asked for a flashlight as a birthday gift. His request sent me down what has become a rabbit hole of semi-obsession with flashlights. I never realized there was such a vast community of flashaholics. I still consider myself a newbie, not quite a “holic” yet, but might end up in that camp if I continue to indulge this new hobby.
Anyway, I started out by ordering the following four flashlights:
- Solarforce L2P - the P60 class seems to have a lot of potential for customization as well as a “proven” design
- Convoy S3 - somewhat of an impulse buy when I was ordering batteries and chargers from FastTech
- XinTD C8 - couldn’t really find any negative comments on it, and cheap enough to to say “why not”?
- SkyRay King - had to see what 2000 lumens looked like
My dad gave me pretty vague requirements for what he wanted, so my thought process was to just get a variety, see what he (and I) liked, and go from there.
My dad hasn’t had a chance to come visit yet, so I haven’t received his opinion, but after playing with the four lights above, what I’m looking for is something that meets the following specs. Not sure if such a thing exists, but I thought I’d ask:
- Knurling of the Solarforce L2P - I really like the “grippy”/tacky feel of the could-be-used-as-a-file texture
- “Tube” shape of the Convoy S3. This flashlight I find is my favorite of the four I bought. One problem though, is that it gets hot pretty quickly on high. I’m sure this is a limitation of the light’s small mass. But I’m wondering if there are any lights out there that are like the S3 in that they have a consistent diameter front-to-back, but maybe have more mass overall, to better dissipate heat.
- Floody-style light of the S3 or SRK. I wasn’t sure what kind of light I’d normally use, a thrower or a flooder. I’ve found that a flooder works better for what I need. (I suspect my dad might get more mileage out of a thrower, since he lives in a wooded area, and might want to spot critters at night.)
- A clip and lanyard. None of the lights above came with a clip, but I think that would be immensely useful.
- A super-low power “moonglow” mode. None of my lights have this… but we have a newborn baby which requires a lot of night work. It would be nice to have a little light for working with her when she’s fussy at night, but without having to turn on an actual table lamp.
I think I could get most of the way there with an L2P build with the right drop-in. I think that would meet all my specs except the tube shape/consistent diameter. But I’d be willing to try. But, on the other hand, I’ve read a lot of comments that the P60 design might be nearing the end of its usefulness with the newer, higher-powered (i.e. hotter) LEDs.
