First post on the forums. Great information on these pages and I hope that I will be a happy camper soon!
I am looking to get a budget (up to $50) led flashlight to use it in a garage for car detailing purposes. I will make 50/50 spot checkes and take before/after pictures of swirls, scratches, etc. There is no sunlight in the garage (only artificial light) and I don't want to use 400-500w halogen bulbs. The flashlight will be on and off for a brief period every 5 minutes.
I honestly have no idea whether these lights will be too bright for my purposes. Therefore, I would be greatly appreciated if you have some recommendations for me. Also, to be perfectly fair, my first choice would be purchasing a light with AA batteries but their light output seems very low comparing to their 18650 buddies.
Welcome!
The choices you propose seem good
50 dollars should be enough for a flashlight, charger and a pair of batteries
Amount of light can be regulated when you buy a 3mode light
Cheap Charger and batteries found onDealextreme:
Charger tr001
Batteries’ red trustfire ( with flames on them)
The more experienced users here will probably give you more specific advice
Enjoy your stay here
Koen
I don't know much (or anything) about car detailing. But I'd think you wanted very even light for that and you wouldn't need enormous amounts of it. I'd think it would also be useful to keep your hands free while you are examining things. I'd also look very closely at the Ultrafire UF-H2.
There is another person from Turkey here who is interested in car detailing. You might want to contact him as he will certainly know a lot more about it than I do.
If I understand it correctly, the UF-H2 is around 120 lumens. From what I read, for the detailing work, at least 200 lumens is recommended. But again, I may be off :)
I will try to connect with kokopelli, too - thanks for pointing him out.
I do quite a bit of car maintenance myself and as far as getting a true color I see better with a cool tint. I have had the best results seeing details colors and defects in paint with the XM-L T6 and I have a bunch of different lights.
There is also a good T-6 drop in from Manafont as well, I am sure others will chime in with those SKU numbers.
I have a UF-980L and it is a really cool light but the beam is to tightly focused and you will get a lot of reflection plus my driver burned out after two weeks because the light runs so hot so I would not recommend it for this purpose.
Hi, Onur. I guess we are following the same sources for both hobbies. I just tried to poke into a thread on DetailingWorld that they didn't need a $400 3M sun Gun to spot swirls on the cars. You really need a decent amount of light, nothing special or ultra powerful for this purpose but I'll try to explain all the possibilities you may need through PM, as not many of the folks here would want to hear that much of swirls and scratches in a thread :)
My best partner is a Zebralight H51 on the head, and recently (just had a mini detailing session today :)) a warm tinted Thrunite Neutral Neutron 1c but you really don't need to go into that much an investment as I did.
Best to have LiIon batteries plus an XM-L flashlight, but I'll still try to build a good setup for you in case you only use NiMHs. Ok, enough chatting here, I'll PM as soon as I can, but have to take the wife to bed as she felt asleep on the sofa again :)
For working inside closed dark spaces (like a garage), I have two flashlights that I always reach for. The one is budget and the other is not.
The budget one is focusable, you can "zoom in" for a tight beam or "zoom out" for a wider beam. In practice, you can easily have the amount of light you need on a spot just using zoom-in/out: http://www.shenzhen-wholesale.com/szobm-zy007a-cree-q5-led-3mode-focus-aluminium-flashlight_sku2480.html . This light excels in nothing but it is very comfortable for low lightning needs due to its push/pull zoom function and its size which fits nice in big-ish hands.
The not budget one has infinite variable output, you can set it so low that you can look at the led directly and so high to lit a big room in unlimited increments: http://hkequipment.net/index.php?sp=&p=6&cat2=170&cat1=62&cat0=1&id=807&cat1=62&cat0=1&new=&more=&s=8623872088c72712e3e68a7706e3045e&lang=en
not exactly sure of your usage but all of these lights are really bright.
if you are raking light towards you, you may find them too much so.
i use a tank 007 566 AA light in my woodshop to check surfaces and if it catches me full in the face on high i see spots. this is a small light too, directed at something close, the 980 will be blinding.
that said, for lighting dark areas they are amazing. all about specific usage.
Hi E1320. Nice to hear applied results (both for FLs and detailing) from your side. I guess you're on the DW too? I'm the same Kokopelli there, like in www.detailingturkiye.com.
good light but maybe is even to much if you use it on HIGH at 30/40 cm from the surface you are working on. You can choose this and use it in MID mode = good output and long runtime
Yeah, I were just writing a PM that any light with an XM_L and a claim over 150-200lm should work for swirl spotting. I don't know if I did right but I recommended a SF L2P + Manafont UF 3-Mode T6 P60 drop-in + TF flames + TF charger to ooztuncer. Costs a $55 as a start.
A L2r + 3 Mode R5 drop-in for $24 or a Jetbeam BA20 for $44 are my AA alternatives.
Any of those will work fine. I recently did an experiment by looking at color patches with several neutral XM-L 1C and 1D as well as XRE-5C and some cooler ones like a 1A and the cooler the emitter the easier it was to recognize the actual color. This is exactly opposite from what I had expected. I agree the neutrals are much easier on the eyes especially on natural outdoor colors like walking through the woods with lots of greens but the patches were much more easily identified with a cooler emitter like the KD-C8 for example.
Interesting. One time I had a cool white R5 flashlight with me and I tried waxing my car in a dark shopping mall parking space. It showed every swirl iin the paint but my dark blue, metallic paint was all purple. I also couldn't see the great outcome of my work until I took the car out, under the sun.
Today I tried my Thrunite Neuton with Neutral T4 emitter and the colors were much better for my eye. Maybe it's all color dependent. And maybe because cooler lights show your paint more swirly and uglier. So I took the other pill and closed one eye to the truth (and went into the Matrix :))
PS, for daytime swirl spotting a more powerful light or a flood to throw zoom light may take the advantage, so I guess investing in LiIONs and getting a high lumen, multi mode light should be better (ok, but usually more expensive).
If you're taking pictures, you might want to consider an aspheric zoom light as they will project an even beam. A reflector hotspot will make lighting difficult for photos unless you diffuse it.
I think the two posts above are talking about different aspects of color. A cooler light will show the "true" color as it appears under daylight more accurately, but a warmer light will make the colors more "pleasant" as well as slightly better for 3d perception as it doesn't wash things out as much. A whiter light might also contrast between when it relects on slightly darker color cars to catch imperfections.
I'd recommend a cheap xml, or an xpg minimum.I'd agree you need a 200 to 300 lumen min. smaller lights didn't show enough detail .lightmall had a 501 xpgr5 for $13 another $13 for xtar batteries and $8 for a trustfire 001 charger and your done for $34.. so $50 ought to be easy