The one kind of light that I don’t have, and that I meant to buy FIRST, is a nice thrower. I’ve got a couple of the ZOOM lights that use 18650 cells and they work pretty well, surprisingly, but I want something better. I got started buying a decent light or 4 because one night my nephew came and woke me at 3AM cause he heard the back door being jiggled. I grabbed my pistol and the best light I had at the time, a Brinkmann CR123 incandescent, and headed for the door. Good thing no one was out there in my back yard hiding from me cause I’d be dead as a mackerel today. That’s when I decided to get a nice light…I just got sidetracked a bit by buying all kinds of these other lights to play around with.
I have several 18650 cells, one protected and probably 8 or 9 unprotected. I don’t know much about the cells but a trusted member here got them for me, so I believe they are good. I would think I might need to get a new, protected cell for my new light just to make sure I have all the bases covered.
What thrower would you recommend? What do you have that you really like and has worked well for you? I would like to stay in the $30 area too.
If you like the side button I guess the L4 is a good choice. I don’t, so the Convoy C8 is my thrower of choice.
Wouldn’t say you’d need to get new cells if you are happy with the capacity of the ones you have. The L4 in your link and C8 have low voltage protection so I don’t see the need for protected cells in this case. You might know this but the charger is more important. You don’t want one of them cheapo chargers that doesn’t stop when the cell is fully charged.
The L4 is a decent thrower, its a C8-class light, but its still going to spill a good, bit, if you want a thrower you need to be looking at something that’s about 60mm diameter at the bezel. If you still want the side switch the small-sun T13 from T-mart is $25, ships from a US warehouse, and has a decently low low. The downside is that I’ve tried modding the driver for more current and its resisting my attempts.
Yep, it all comes down to what you mean by “thrower”.
The L4 with an XM-L/2 is a perfectly good light, that will light things up at a fair distance. But it still has a relatively small reflector in relation to the LED size. This means it isn’t a pure thrower.
You either need a much larger reflector with the XM-L/2 or a smaller LED in the L4 sized reflector.
The XP-G2 C8 would make a good compromise if you don’t fancy modding yourself.
That said, the L4 is a good light in it’s own right. Just depends what you are after exactly.
Food for thought, a Jacob A60 uses an out dated XR-E emitter and makes way less lumens than something like the L4. But the A60 will throw much further. The XR-E is tiny and has a very high surface brightness, the reflector on the A60 is also slightly larger, this makes for very good throw.
The downside, well the beam is very narrow, because the XR-E is a small LED. And the spill beam is not very bright.
Nalajr - From what you describe in the OP, a dark house and a dark back yard, you would not want a thrower. A thrower is a small concentrated spot for long distances, (as in hundreds of yards away or farther). For a house or even for a back yard, I would want to illuminate at least a 120 degree cone of light in front of me, so that I did not miss someone trying to hide in dark areas. I would look for a multiple emitter light that would produce 2,000+ lumens and would light up a large area in front of me and to the sides of me at the same time.
Just my thoughts, and the links below are for lights that will arrive in a couple of days instead of three weeks.
Since you are in TX, you will probably get the good version of this light from Amazon
I really like my L4, prefer it over my various C8s and for all around usage, its going to be a long enough thrower and I really don’t notice visually a C8 throwing any further. If you just mean to use this for checking your back yard, a high lumen flooder is probably what you really want, but you mention taking your gun and for gun use people generally default to throwers. You can probably get it for less than $30 too if you look for various sales etc. Or a floody M6 from Mountainelectronics or a J18 for 20 more if you go the “light up the whole backyard” way.
I like how it’s made. Integrated pill, LED on copper, everything high quality.
BUT:
I don’t like the UI.
Tail-Switch to switch it on and then you have to turn the light around to switch the modes… I don’t like that on the L4.
The Yezl is the same - but I don’t mind it on that one. I don’t know why… maybe because it’s much bigger and fatter, thanks to the extension tube…
Also I don’t like this anti-roll-thing at the end. Makes it uncomfortable to hold. But most people like them.
That’s a cigar grip, not anti-roll thing on the end of the L4, you can hold it with two fingers and switch with your thumb: comes in handy sometimes when I’m doing other things with my hand especially. Maybe you’ll like it better thinking of it that way. If you get the extension for the L4 though, it’ll solve your grip beef with the L4, but then I’m not sure what the cigar grip is useful for, an artifact for self defense?
LuckySun D80 I forgot, it might be a good one. From what was said about it so far I get the picture the center beam is wider than L4, but it wont throw as far as L4, is that about right?
Yezl is nice but it feels like a waste of size, I feel like I may as well pick up my J18 and get some “real” light for the same size. Unless I put an MTG2 in it maybe…
Great stuff. I really like the lights you guys have posted for me to check out. Of course now I am totally confused on what to get now.
Those BIG, Pop can looking lights are really interesting lights. I bet they have some kind of power too.
I would also be using the light in hunting and fishing situations, especially hunting as well as home defense type situations where I have to check around the house and so forth. My back yard is 50 yards x 30 yards and my side yard that is up to my neighbors door is probably 90 yards long by 50 yards wide. That’s what I would like to be able to check when my nephew comes and wakes me at 3AM telling me he heard the back door being rattled.
convoy l4 was a decent thrower light.(It is better than nitecore SRT7 in throw)
but the side button is not durable if you clicks it often.
my l4 is like a single mode torch now.
If thats the size you want to light up most of the area at once, you want a flooder, not a thrower. If you mount it on a gun for “home defense” you want a thrower…
