Looking for a new compact floody high CRI warm light EDC.
Just killed and revived my all time favorite EDC the Astrolux S42 High CRI Nichia version. It spent 8hrs in my pocket in a river during flashflooding and got a little moist. Everyone was OK thankfuly, but the light didn’t work and batery was toast. no visible water intrusion but after a week in silica gell it works again but I don’t really trust it anymore. they don’t seem to be available anymore so looking for an alternative.
My favorite features were the nice floody even beam and low power settings paired with a very pleasant high CRI 4k color which no lights seem to use. Mostly use it for close up stuff within a few meters on low but the turbo would still light up a parking lot if needed.
looking for suggestions on new lights or lights that could be modded.
Welcome to BLF! Glad to hear you were all okay in the floods.
If we boil down the “Similar to the Astrolux S42” request, I think these are specifics of what you’re after?
4000K; good CRI (though, I should note depending on your preferences, you might find a nice tint (ie subtle hue of pink vs green) makes a “low CRI” LED visually more appealing than a “high CRI” LED.
Floody beam, this will likely be either a single big LED in a shallow reflector or a triple or quad TIR as per the Astrolux.
Side switch
18350 size
Onboard charging - Mostly all USB C nowadays, (would you tolerate a magnetic charging adapter?)
No idea what’s that Astrolux, but the Acebeam Pokomon 2AA is really nice.
Think it’s got a 519 under the hood, starts on low and has almost-moonlight and hella bright, beautiful even beam, and uses either 2 AAs or the included 141000 (dual length) Li cell that’s usbc chargeable.
Long but light and super slim, so disappears right into your pocket. Actually has a decent clip, and I hate most clips. Ain’t coming out, unlike even a 16340/18350 light which go bouncing around in a pocket, or be clipped so shallow that it’s at risk for falling out.
There’s also the 1AA version but it has some differences. Got that, too, but mainly use the 2AA.
As recommended above the d4v2 probably gets you everything you want with a choice of cct,
Except the charging. That would be with the short tube
Wurkkos fc11c has a short tube available for 18350. Not as many lumens. It does have a bit of a spot. So it will probably reach at least as far as what you had and probably even farther. But it does have a pretty dang wide spill that is maybe just as good as your previous flood. It is available in 4000k high cri. A very nice UI. And type C.
If you don’t want the spot then disregard the Fc11c.
USB ports and water don’t mix, so that’s no surprise.
I also suggest the D4V2 if you want 18350, though if you are not going with the shorty then I would go with a D4K as it’s barely larger yet has ~40% more battery. The only thing the D4V2 has over the D4K is the option for an 18350 tube. 5000+ mAh vs ~3000 for 18350 or ~1000 for 18350 (~1500 if you don’t care to light up a parking lot) justifies gong a little larger.
Hank offers many emitter options, a few optics options, and I suspect you might like the 4200K NTG35. You may also like the optional Lume driver that has a wide dynamic range with a moonlight of “Is this thing on?”.
That will take out about 80% of the options with most of what’s left being lights that don’t offer 4000K or 14500 lights that use a battery with it’s own USB port.
I am aware of their existence. However, it’s moot if light-makers don’t use them. To my knowledge, most don’t; Firefly is the only exception that comes to mind. A few hide the port in the threads where it actually has some semblance of true protection, but most rely on rubber plugs that are unreliable at best
