I’m looking for an 18650 lantern and found this. I want enough flood to split wood at night with.
Any other suggestions? Runtime is not an issue because I always have plenty of 18650s to swap out. Brightness is.
I have had the 14500 version Sipik SK51 for a couple of years and it is great for a cheapie (sorry, budget) light. Very useful during power outages, zooming function isn’t very good on the flood end because of cheap TIR, but the area light when in extended mode lights up an average room quite well. I would think that the larger 18650 obviously will have a whole lot more runtime. I may have to order one of these myself! The best area light I have is the Solarforce LT1 lantern head on an L2P. Price as a kit with the tripod & head used to be very reasonable.
Oh yeah! The Solarforce lantern. I’ll have to check that out. I love SF stuff, great quality.
I have an AA light like that. It cost me more than that and was hard to find. It needed some glue, but works OK now. It is not great quality. Maybe I will pass on this one.
The price is low and the LED not all that bright but I see some uses for it. But I got an flashlight with a build in diffuser ordered so I wait for your impressions.
I received it today
Man oh man, this is such a waste of alu/paint/plastic, you just want to cry about it
OK the beam is so ugly, you can see the square LED shape in any poition interfering with the very dim “hotspot”
The plastic diffuser tube feels very flimsy.
Button is hard to press
zooming maes the beam more ugly, yes it is possble
It only accepts AA sized cells
the threads grind, so they do not squeek, it is grinding, I am not even going to waste 1 tiny blob of grease on this one
So I am going to file a dispute for a refund
had some damage near the LED
Pro:
Design of tailcap lets you use lanyard and tailstand.
All alu parts look very nice grey
This one is going to be taken apart and dumped in the parts box thogh the lack of O rings and small size make it highly doubtfull if one of the parts ever will be used again.
It is a very complicated design actually, indeed with much unnecessary aluminium. I disassembled it, but it is a challenge to get as far as I got. The stock light is terrible, but a major modding session (involving diffusing the plastic window, placing the led on a pillar to make use of the optics the way it was designed, and changing out the driver) could make it into a nice flashlight/lantern.
nice pic, how did you get the centre AA holder out of the rotating alu part around it?
But it seems there is hope, with an elevation of the led you say… hmm
Can't even remember how I did that (a year ago), there is one piece press-fit, I recollect that some very controlled violence was needed with a hammer, to not break the plastic.