Intro and question....

smithd1 · 2018-11-09T00:47:29.000Z

Hi guys, David here. I’ve been reading here for a long time and finally decided to sign up and post.

About me, infantry marine (back when we used muskets), career LE and lifetime outdoorsman/hunter/fisher.

Enough about me…let’s talk about why I finally decided to post.

My question is simple…why so many features on flashlights?

Morse code….don’t know anyone that knows it. Strobe…only used in building clearing (and you have to know how!) and the lumens these days blind the operator thus making them useless.

In my opinion….The simple ramping of lights like haikelite sc26 and the emisars is hard to beat. I have the d4 and d4s…Both fun….turbo is useless unless it’s cold out and I want to warm my fingers.

Know I totally understand a custom one off special. But it seems like that is everything these days. Is no one interested in a 1000 or less lumen, ramping or minimal step, long life, user friendly light that was made for real life use?

Too many lights seem to be made for keyboard warriors and not real gun toters. Just my opinion.

Thoughts?

raccoon · 2018-11-09T01:03:16.000Z

Thanks for signing up, smithd1!

toddcshoe · 2018-11-09T01:13:25.000Z

Welcome smithd1. Hope you enjoy. Lots of great info around here.

I am not sure why the strobe and SOS on lights. Though I do know morse code and use it daily. I guess some folks think the strobe will confuse someone or draw attention to themselves when needed. I guess it’s a legitimate reason though I doubt how many times it has actually been used for such conditions. Flashlight manufactures like to use that word, you know the one. The one almost every gear company uses. Tactical. Yep that’s it. They think if they put tactical on the name it has to have blinky modes. Or if it has blinky modes it has to say tactical. Overused and aggravating as hell. Even civilian weapon manufactures and accy’s companies have to throw tactical into whatever name they came up with when they borrowed money from someones grandma to jump on the bandwagon of mediocre self defense companies.

I agree. I love great UI’s like ramping. Or something like a zebralight where there are multiple brightnesses for each mode. I have a little over 50 lights as of right now and about only 9 or 10 of them are over 1000 lumens. I have a light mounted on my nightstand/bump in the night pistol but it’s a single mode 200 lumen job I got off Ebay. I potted it and swapped emitters. Has well over 5000 rounds through it and has never failed yet. When I leave the house a smaller pistol goes with me and I have either a Zebralight or Emisar in my pocket.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for the evening. Hope you find everything you are looking for here. Lots of great ideas and information for just about any interest here. I am sure you will have a good time and learn a thing or to.

Take care.

chadvone · 2018-11-09T01:30:58.000Z

Welcome. I used turbo on my D4 umm, about 30 times tonight walking the dogs off leash. level 5 to light up the path for me and my wife. Short jumps to turbo to locate the dogs. It takes the fun out of turbo if you leave it there all the time

about %99 of my light use is below 200 lumens. I have a light with sub lumen beacon that I leave on. I use strobe on Halloween beggars night, one light in each window if I can. I used bike flasher back when I had a bike.

Pete7874 · 2018-11-09T02:59:42.000Z

My question is simple…why so many features on flashlights?

That’s like asking “Why does BLF exist?”

Joshk · 2018-11-09T03:17:15.000Z

Welcome. It sounds like you are motivated to customize your flashlight’s firmware

smithd1 · 2018-11-09T04:27:20.000Z

I know that I’m looking for the same thing as everyone else on here…The perfect light.

I’ll be honest….If the sc26 wasn’t so ugly…it would be close.

smithd1 · 2018-11-09T08:09:33.000Z

you are absolutely correct. I have to remind myself that we all have different tastes.

Henk4U2 · 2018-11-09T09:00:05.000Z

Hello smithd1, welcome to BLF. You are asking a very legitimate question.

But, as thousand ( ? ) of other products show. It does not work like that.
Yes, we can say the same for almost every other object. Cars, bikes, knives, watches.
Even our companions on this planet. Horses, cows, dogs, cats, and last but no least: women.
If we were really searching for the perfect woman, and we all would have the same inner compass,
the real ultimate perfect woman would be known by now, rendering all others into vague memories.
Almost instantanious wiping out the human race. Instead it is prospering (in numbers) like never before!

If there was any common goal oriented vision at work, the perfect light would exist by now.
But there are still dozens of brands on the market, new brands emerge, old brands disappear (fade away).
And some of these brands sell a few dozen models.
Though I own 50+ lights, I still regret not having bought xxxx, and am still waiting for the yyyy to come.
And to be frankly. If it were not because of a lack of skills: I would be building (not lego-ing) my own.

djozz · 2018-11-09T10:24:53.000Z

Hi David, keyboard warrier here

Welcome to BLF!

There is also discussion here about flashlights that are for practical use and nothing else, like the one you just started

But I agree that many flashlights that are made and that we talk about here are aimed at hobbyists and have features way beyond what most people will want or use in real life. You can regard that part of BLF and the manufacturers that cater the hobby with feature-rich flashlights as a playground for innovation. We have been doing some really new things with portable lighting over the 8 years that BLF exists, and as with all innovation many developments are just interesting for hobbyists like me (who really needs a 98 CRI flashlight for anything real life?), but a few developments that were started here prove very practical in the real world. For example, the throwers that are currently used by hunters and search and rescue workers would not be so good without what started over here at BLF by a bunch of flashoholics. And I hear of a lot of daily use of the here developed BLF Q8 as a cost-friendly, great performing and durable tool. Same goes for the BLF-A6. Who knows if the very big reflector lights that are popping up by many manufacturers now, a development that started with the BLF-GT, finds its way into the big world?

So although as a city guy who hardly ever needs a flashlight I ’m perfectly happy if flashlights are exclusively made for us flashlight freaks, it is hard to avoid that some things that happen over here escape to the real world and prove very useful.

Macka17 · 2018-11-09T10:07:49.000Z

The “perfect” light DOES exist.

It’s the latest one you have. UNTILLLLlllllllll….
The next one comes along.
Same as everything humankind had/does.
Never satisfied. always wants more. For nothing mostly….

Astrolux AO1/Jetbeam Jet-1. MK or equiv size.
Convoy C8+ish. size/output.
Convoy L2 size/output.
Convoy L6 size/output.
and a heavy output Can light (4 to 10LEDs).

Budget. Quality. Proven value torches. What this forum is all about.
Basically under $50ish per. Preferably $5 to 20.

Then the BLf Syndrome comes in.

—— I want DIFFERENT.——————-(Buggar the cost.)
Bigger output smaller size. Varying tints. Better quality etc etc.
Some great improvements on some great (And not so) torches.
Keeps us all, Mainly. Happy and in the s-it with the missus.

Mine saw my bank statement this/last month to Paypal. WHoops.
In the Sh-t,has nothing on it. I’m dead meat for a while.

As far as variations go. With what I’ve ended up with (those above.)
I can’t really warrant anything more.
Till a new pill/LED comes on market.
14450/18650/26650 cells suit me fine. Cover all I need.
XPL-Hi does 90% of output with differing drivers and multiples of.
ON/OFF/Ramp. Turbo. Maybe on top ones.
Screw base for battery isolation. Side sw on longer ones. twisties fine on baby ones.

I’m not into all the fancy multiple versions of led/controls. BUT through these brilliant blokes on here actually mad enough to spend all their time on this .
WE. The unwashed. semi brain ded.
are getting some brilliant torches. and car lights. decades b4 we should. at a fraction of the true prices.

Thank you all. This old fart is waaaaaay grateful to you all
Keep it up.
ANd find some better led,s soon hey.
It’s starting to stagnate.

djozz · 2018-11-09T10:24:16.000Z

^

Mike_C · 2018-11-09T10:27:19.000Z

Hmm, another “it’s useless to me so it’s useless to everyone” post.

Blinky modes and “crazy” bright lights can be useful to people who actually use their lights for other things than being displayed on a shelf. Instead of answering again I’ll just post to previous answers:

(Serious) Why do so many cheap lights have unavoidable strobe modes? LED Flashlights – General Info

I think it was included to give the sense that there actually is some kind of control element of whats going on in the light. It’s not just a simple on/off, but they can actually make the light do something beside just shine. Gives the feel that there is some advanced stuff going on. Not SOS specifically, but a blinking mode. Two Swedish climbers where caught in an avalanche while making the approach to a climb in darkness. One got injured. The one who didn’t took of his headlight, set it in b…

Why need higher lumens while it can last only a few seconds before stepping down or getting too hot? LED Flashlights – General Info

I have seen lots of lights especially the small ones getting thousand lumens but can produce Max output for a very short period eg. Emisar D4. Don’t get me wrong, I’m deciding whether to get the D4 or not, but just wondering if I should go for the one with reasonable output. A few seconds of burst just doesn’t seem useful at all.

Macka17 · 2018-11-09T14:46:30.000Z

No Mate.
Just a comment that ’some” of us enjoy what’s here a lot.
but would like a little expansion more on the led side. Not the flashing.
drivers are getting along fine in the furthering scale.
The bodies are getting in each others way a bit.
there are around 6 basics with everybody doing their own thing to try and change them, just like the “world car” that came out a decade or 2 ago.
ALL the same and all different too hey…
Tubes. no matter how you trim them. ARE tubes.
C8. hmm again. no matter what. you know where they come from.

Forget the bodies… the drivers and led’s need the work nowadays.
there are some good ones starting to appear.
Let the true experts work their magic here,
and we’ll be into the next generation of lights.

smithd1 · 2018-11-09T15:30:39.000Z

I think what has impressed me the most with this site is the ingenuity of home builders. I believe the market starts here.

Djozz and macka, I totally agree with you guys. The technology is pushed by this group and eventually makes main stream.

Mike c, this isn’t another it’s useless to me thread. The question posed was why so many.

I use multiple lights daily for multiple purposes. I look at lights the same as every other tool that I carry. Each has a simple function to make my life easier. With too many options, the lights become less useful for me. That is why I posed the question.

Why does almost every cop carry a streamlight stinger or surefire? Not cause I like paying $150 for a flashlight. It’s cause they work.

My emisars are my current happy play time lights. I’m now looking for my first 21700 since that seems to be the future. Recommendations?

ImA4Wheelr · 2018-11-09T16:00:16.000Z

Welcome aboard smithd1. Hope you enjoy your time here. I hear you and some folks here do flash basic FW on their lights because they too don't want all those features.

I think most folks here agree with you about Strobe. The owner of this site and myself are among the few that do use it. I effectively live in the woods and Strobe does actually work to drive away some unwanted critters.

SOS, I was one time stranded on a large reservoir with diabetic children once. We couldn't find the blood sugar testers/insulin on the boat. It was a very long, cold, and worry filled night. There were homes within range of the lights I carry now in days. Back than, Maglite's had very limited output and run time. I don't know for sure that having one of those lights back then would have elicited help, but I strongly suspect it would have. So I view SOS kind of like insurance. Hopefully, don't need it and it may not help, but would rather have it than not.

Mike_C · 2018-11-09T16:06:15.000Z

smithd1:

The question posed was why so many.

Well, it appeared that it was not only total amount of features you where questioning. It did appear that you questioned the use of strobe and high lumens, regardless of feature count.

Besides that I can see usage of a single light that can have multiple uses. Cheaper that way too. But I admit to being biased, I develop this stuff as a hobby in my spare time so my drivers and firmware are as easy to configure as I want them to be

smithd1 · 2018-11-10T00:10:57.000Z

Well mike…If your one of the folks with the mental magic to make firmware…I tip my hat to you. I am amazed with what you guys can do with these tiny lights.

I’m sure that most of the lights I look at have the ability to be programmed into something that I like. I just don’t know how…but I’m learning.