Flashlights with thick walls are more sturdy, can stand more abuse.
They also conduct heat better.
OTOH they are larger and heavier.
But…what exactly is thick and what is thin?
What is the thinnest wall that’s thick enough?
My goal is lights that are tough enough to survive throwing around but nothing more than that - I’d rather reduce weight than overkill.
I haven’t seen that discussed but I don’t remember ever seeing aluminum flashlight that would crack or break.
I think I’ve seem some crushed but only after extreme abuse.
Thinking about it I came back to not so new thread:
Fireflies E07 is an example of extremely thin walls, 0.3 mm in the thinnest place in a not-so-lightweight 21700 light.
I haven’t seen one that would brake yet.
This makes me think that maybe all our regular lights have extremely thick walls?…
All depends from proportions. You don’t want 0.3mm wall in alu can-style flashlight, but it can be more than enough for 10180 or AAA light from stainless.
You can easily bent 0.5mm alu, but if this thin ring have supports like thicker material in both directions - you should not worry.
My fear with the 2019 RRT01 and 18350 is that when it falls and hit something with the battery tube, you’ll end up with a canned battery. Else I wouldn’t mind.
Interesting.
I searched for that and failed to find any mention of such failure. Though I’ve seen a number of posts saying that lenses cracked from minimal abuse which some interpreted as the body being too thin around the lens. But a photo doesn’t confirm that:
The lens is thin though - just 1 mm.
And maybe the lens - body gap is too small and minimal flex of the body already stresses it?
My DQG Slim AA has pretty thin tube walls
The thinnest measurement I can make out is under the O-ring of the battery tube. Outside diameter is 15.07mm, inside diameter is 14.64mm. The difference is 0.43mm, so the wall thickness should be about 0.215mm. (That’s thinner than a slice of cheese on a cheeseburger for my fellow Americans.)
The DQG Slim impressed me due to its thin walls and very slim form factor (my other 1AA lights have a wall thickness, at least at the end of the threads, of well over 1mm. I am very surprised the E07 has such thin walls. This DQG is also titanium, so it’s got a bit more strength there.
Yeah, that’s the one. I only have the short version but it is essentially a C8 with a 26650 tube and massively overbuilt head. Even the one I modded with a copper spacer, 6x Luxeon MZ’s, and a 12A driver handles heat like a champion. It certainly isn’t a pretty host, but on a utilitarian level it’s fantastic.
Barkuti, do you know how those compare to Kaidomain hosts (such as this one ) and how much space there is for a driver with a large inductor (I’m thinking XHP70.2…)?
