Harborseal, the Darkbeam is still the price I paid, $18.99 plus local sales tax. See my prior post on visible light, which is minimal for this light with the ZWB2 filter in place even in a semi darkened room. I have not tried removing the filter.
After reading my post again, I realized that I didn’t make it clear and it appeared that I may have been talking about Simon… the “dingdong” wasn’t aimed at Simon. I like Simon, and I like his lights. What I don’t like is a different guy who is a patent-happy slimebag (patent troll) trying to steal from others - including from Simon, in an attempt to force people to buy from him, plus lawsuits against other manufacturers.
William G. Gardner of WTC
I do have a slight grudge against Simon for bending the knee to the lawsuit from WTC, and making them the official US distributor… but I guess that’s a small concession. It all adds up though.
That said, I believe you can buy from Ali and cut WTC out of the loop… possibly?
Or buy straight from Simon himself from convoylight.com
IIRC for USA you can ask him to include the filter but not installed, then you can install it yourself (which is pretty simple)
2 Thanks
This is what confused me… It’s not like Simon just cuts the option completely out, he’s just trying to comply with what he’s been told is the legal thing to do - which is an asinine thing in the first place, but I don’t fault Simon for trying to stay out of some foreign court case.
That and the reputation Simon has for being responsive, helpful and, in my experience, gracious with his customers.
3 Thanks
Yeah, if only Simon gets paid, I’ll order through his site because there are some lights that I’d like to have. I should email him
Yes, order direct from Simon. That is what I did recently: I ordered from the listing that didn’t include a UV filter. Then I went over to the accessories and added the filter to the cart for the same order. Simon shipped both without issue. I also picked up a decent battey in the same order for a good price.
As far as which light, I carefully read the 1lumen comparison review already posted in this thread, and strongly suspected from it and other discussions on UV lights that the S12 UV was going to have the best balance of features, including power and a balanced beam profile. I also read Tactical Grizzly’s review, although he has the older linear driver, 2 mode version, not the slightly more expensive 3 mode, constant current boost + buck driver that should be both more efficient and maintain output better. A couple of the Alonefire models on Amazon appear to be in the same ballpark for power, but give no info about the drivers (which I tend to suspect means unregulated), and I doubt have quite Convoy level build quality
Based on all of that, and my impressions when I received the light, I think the S12 UV is likely the best option for most people who want a relatively high output UV light. I’m quite happy with it, and even my wife seemed to think it was pretty cool.
If you don’t need as much power, I suspect the Convoy T3 UV will do pretty well. The 400mA specified output of the driver is slightly more than the 10% mode on the S12, which I found to be pretty useful.
1 Thank
As far as everyday stores. My personal favorite is the black color husky pen light rechargeable led light. It has white light and UV light at 395nm and 365nm. It’s $15 at home Depot. But it’s mostly a 395nm UV led flashlight. But As far as just 365nm. There is the defiant grey LED pen light. Its $10.00 and they also sell them at home Depot. It has white light and UV at 365nm. It’s 20w or so. So it produces good light.
Just get a woods glass or a heat nighttime bulb break it and tape it over the flashlight. Then u are only getting UV and violet light. Since the defiant penlight flashlight UV mode doesn’t have a filter or woods glass. But the best cheap 365nm UV LED rechargeable flashlight with a woods filter is the darkbeam on Amazon. It cost $11.00. I’ll post links to websites so u can look at em and maybe want to buy them. Also some images from me, showing the flashlight capabilities.
https://www.amazon.com/DARKBEAM-Flashlight-Rechargeable-Blacklight-Flashlights/dp/B0CNXCJRCC
