Hello everyone, my name is Jake and I would like to learn more about lights and get to know you all. My facination with lights started a few years ago when I was coming home frok a friends through the woods and walked right by a panther because my maglight was to dim. Anyway since then I’ve had several surefire lights that promised over a thousand lumens but never really added up to that and broke in a few monthes. I want to get a new light now but I guess I shouldnt include all that in my intro. As the title says I’m a part of airsoft society with Joe, he’s been inactive their so I thought I would come here! Anyway looking foreward to learning.
Welcome and Howdy!
Welcome, and good luck finding your tough and bright as **** flashlight :-)
We can offer lots of advise. If you want something fast, Home Depot has a 1000 lumen job, and a couple others about 500:
Then this:
Where should I post what I’m looking for? And other questions of the sort.
How about just here and now? :-)
Ok guys so here is the deal, in about a month im going to the beach with some friends. Its a group of 5, guys and girls, and we are gonna be out on the beach pretty late at night. This isnt the worst beach ever, but im also not overly familiar with it and the surrounding area. Since we have girls in the group, and the other guys are not exactly ones who can hold their own in a fight, i want to be prepared. Ill have a knife with me, but i also have been needing a new flashlight anyway so im gonna pick one up for this trip.
For you that dont know, many lights come with a strobe function for this purpose, when your eyes are flooded with fast strobing, bright lights, it basically does the deer in the headlight reaction. You simply cant respond. So what i need from this light is as follows:
- Over 1000 lumens
- Battery life of at least 1.5 hours
- Medium throw distance.
- a strobe mode
- hopefully water resistant as this is the beach,
Hopefully Joe will come along and help, but maybe some of you know about this subject as well. Also if need be i can build this light vs buy it as a whole. One thing i dont like about many of the lights you see that claim 3800 lumens or something like that is that they are not really that bright. So something that is what it claims to be would be nice.
This is what I had posted on airsoft society hoping joe woupd come along, so if it doesn’t seem right in context, that is why. Also I really want whatever I get to be as bright as it claims. If that means buying an after market bulb or whatever that is fine. I want to stay under 100 $ and preferably under $60. Also could someone explain or point me to a thread about upgrading lightsor whatever. That intrest me.
You need lights on the cheap, and this is a forum for cheap and (relatively) cheap lights. 
Are you prepared for the added expense and complications of adopting Li-ion batteries? Because you will be very hard pressed to meet all of your objectives on a $100 budget even without the cost of batteries. there are very few flashlights powered by AA/AAA cells that can achieve such output, and certainly not for 1.5 hours (on high).
-Do you really need 1000 lumens?
-What do you mean by a ‘medium throw’ distance? How well illuminated does something need to be at the end of your given range?
-I advise you do some research on strobe as it really isn’t as useful as it’s hyped to be.
My advice for lights for your friends is to go to Costo (if you have a membership or are good with someone who does) and look for the 3-packs of lights they have. 200-300 (ANSI rated) lumens depending on the particular model that store got shipped, high-low-strobe, powered by 3 AAA’s. Buy a couple of those packs and if that Costco doesn’t have them, look online and start buying Eneloop rechargeable batteries to fill the flashlights.
At night, 200-300 lumens will be more than enough to see clearly, the low mode on the lights will let the battery lift stretch far enough (on rechargeable cells, alkaline cells do not like high drains at all), and since you’re giving these lights to your friends, if one of them gets lost you’re not out very much. If you;re buying equipment to loan out you don’t want to invest a whole lot of money into it.
If you really want to give them something powerful, my local Costco was selling two-packs of 500-lumen zooming (adjustable focus) lights powered by three C-cells, $25 per two pack. You buy three of them, that;s one each for your friends and one for you, and you still have $25 left to buy the bulk-pack of C-cells you’ll need to keep them running. (and these lights also have the high-low-strobe arrangement.)
I’m advising the locally-sourced flashlights because of your admitted inexperience with these lights, and li-ions are expensive and require solid knowledge of the way they behave.
I kind of made the post soubd more complicated than it needed to be. I need a new light anyway, and I just want to have a strobe because there is no denying that if your eyes are acustom to the dark you all the sudden it is hit with a strobing like it will at least give me a chance to react. Anyway I’m not really expexting anything to happened but I would like to be prepared. I would like at least 500 lumens, you guys are the experts. I’ve used the batteries that arnt AA before, I forget wuat they are, its a long string of numbers. In airsoft the only thing with Li-ion batteries is you have to use a special charger so are these any different? Other than that I can answer any other questions you have.
Being hit with a bright light period is going to be disorienting.
The charger for airsoft gun battery packs are electrically similar but are geometrically incompatible with li-ion flashlight batteries. You would need to buy a separate charger, and the cheapest charger you’ll get consistent advice on buying is a Nitecore i4, which are usually in the $20 range. To buy batteries that aren’t crap will cost at the minimum $10-$12 a pair, higher end cells go up to $18 a pair. And then there’s the risk that they’ll be confiscated by the screeners before they leave China.
Welcome to BLF, Jake! :party:
Sorry if I made it sound like I was giving them out, but this is just for me. I don’t really see how Li-ion batteries are that hard to use. I onow the chargers arnt compatable obviously. Really the only thing with li-ions is don’t high drain them long. If they get hot, let them cool. Is there more than that with these batteries? Just curious why can’t you get the batteries inside the US.
You can get them here in the Us, they’re just hideously expensive.
And there are some li-ions that may be put under high drains. Some cells will have more voltage sag than others more severe loads, but for the most part the higher quality cells will tolerate the drains of generating close to 1000 lumens just fine.
So the $70-$100 budget you described is for one light/acc, for you?
Yes, just for me, one light and the batteries and charger with it.
How about this
With these
And
I doubt the output is what it claims it is, but how is this combo?
A XM-L2 driven at 4 amps will get very hot and also generate 1000 lumens pretty effectively, though it will be fairly wasteful at that current.
A charger and a pair of batteries
The Trustfire 3T6 will work with two cells and on the batteries I linked above, it will last a good while and it will produce well over 1000 lumens. The 3T6 is a highly regarded light when it’s the real thing, and Fasttech don’t stock Trustfire knockoffs.
If you want lots of light for cheap I would suggest the following set up:
Tr-3t6 from Fasttech
advertised as 3800 lumens, more like 1300. I use mine extensively for search and rescue missions, and it is by far the brightest thing anyone around here has. I love the fact that it will take 18650 or 18500 rechargeable lithiums or disposable cr123s or even 4 AAs. Its a hell of a light and the endless battery configurations are what really sold me on it. At $32 shipped it won’t break the bank either.
Nitecore i4 v2
A decent charger for only $20. Runs on either 220 or 110 ac depending on where you are or 12 vdc from a truck or solar panel. At 750 mah its not going to charge as quick as a hobby charger, but still pretty decent charge times. It’ll work on a large range of Li-ion or nimh batteries and if you want you can even make yourself a set of magnetic leads for it for odd shaped cells.
As for batteries, check the forums for deals on laptop pack pulls if you are comfortable with getting your hands dirty and feel safe running unprotected lithium cells. I got a pack of 12 18650s for $12.99 and a pack of 6 18500s for $8.99 on ebay. If you decide lithium ion isn’t your thing you can always get some good nimh AAs for now (a lot of people here like eneloops, I personally run duracell “duralock stay charged” cells) or cr123s like your surefires did if you don’t mind spending obscene amounts of money on batteries.
As far as I’m concerned its a steal of a package for $52 plus batteries. Your mileage might vary, but I find it suits my needs perfectly. I know you don’t like lights advertised as brighter than they are, but I’d strongly encourage you to make an exception for this one.
Quick question are both fast tech and bang good going to ship from China, and if so does it take the normal like 4 weeks to ship?
And that light takes 3 of those batteries correct? The package with the charger only has 2 with it…
Hi!
Welcome, you have found the right place!