I’m hoping to drum up some advice on a decent (and reasonably priced) flashlight for night woodsball play.
Essentially I’m looking for a very rugged flashlight that can throw a wide beam out for shortish area coverage (50-100ish yards) and a narrow beam to pinpoint out to around 200-300 yards. The “ref” would have this light on him at all times in case of injury call outs, missing players after a round, ground cleanup (removing any potential debris or trash), etc.
We’ve been using one of the player’s SureFire lights for the past season that’s done an excellent job for us, but he’s moving and will be taking it with him. I looked around at a few SureFires and they seem extremely expensive. The light we’ve been using has been hit against rocks, been hit with paintballs, and dropped down a ravine without breaking. I’d like to stay in the $50ish range (or under if at all possible, as I’d like to pick up two or three extras over the winter for the house, car, and a backup for the field). If they’re needed, I’m no stranger to lithium batteries - I take the boys out fairly regularly to race and bash electric RCs - but would prefer something that can reliably take a serious beating without risk of fire/leakage.
After quite a bit of googling (and a trip to Dick’s, where they tried to sell me a $150 2lb monstrosity), I’m slowly realizing that I know almost nothing about flashlights and with all of the hyper cheap lights out there ($18 for a 1600 lumen WITH a charger and battery?) figured I’d better ask people that know better than I do.
Sorry if this is a question that pops up often, but I couldn’t find anyone in quite the same situation as I’m in asking for advice.
I’m not realy qualified to answer this question and I don’t even own the following light. That said, when I read your post the first light that came to mind was the Convoy M1. The new version looks sturdy and has an integrated shelf with no pill and no extra “delicate” electronics.
At $20 you could use some money to have it customized. You could have the driver potted to keep the wires from giggling around and I can imagine this light taking a little beating and lasting a long time. But others will have to let you know if any of this is true or not:) anyway…
Honestly XinTD C8 with the XP-G2 sounds like the perfect candidate, but a Convoy C8 would be almost as good and half the cost. Both are very durable and brighter than any older Surefire. I would recommend buying from mtnelectronics.com , but they are sold out of both at the moment.
And you’re set!
(those are my suggestions for you as a new user, but you’ll get a lot of good answers here. Welcome to BLF!)
Yeah, don’t get those. I can guarantee it’s not actually 1600 lumens, and the charger is dangerous, and the batteries have a tiny percentage of the capacity they claim.
My D80 has not yet been delivered, but it sounds like it would be suitable for your purposes. 1300+ lumens max output and 20kcd beam intensity. Small, compact form. $20.59. For discount code and further discussion: GB BLF LuckySun D80-SE Need long tubes? -3/3/16
I’m quite sure that it would more than match the output of whatever you’ve been using.
For your purpose, I’d recommend choosing the 1A tint version because (1) it’s the tint that you’re probably most familar with and (2) it offers the highest target contrast. However, if you’re going to be cleaning up a lot of red paintballs, then choose the 3C tint version.
If you’re interested, buy it now. It’s a limited run. Unknown when it will sell out.
For your house and car, I’d recommend a much floodier (shorter range) flashlight.
I’m afraid I don’t recall exactly which SureFire he had. I want to say it was a Fury… if it’s any help, it was in the 6-8 inch range in length, and he’s had it for 2-3 years (reimbursed purchase by his dept for his job as a rapid responder).
I’ll start browsing through the recommendations and doing a bit more research, but the Brinyte B158, Convoy C8, and D80 all sound reasonably priced. The B158 looks like it’s brighter in the flood mode than what we’ve been using, which would be a huge positive. I’ve purchased the batteries and charger recommended by MountainDog - now it’s just a matter of deciding what to put them in
If it is a SureFire Fury, that would put the output at 500-600 lumens and lux of about 10kcd. Those are reasonably good numbers. Nice build quality and great beam profile. (But you pay a premium for the SureFire brand name. )
On paper, any of these choices will outperform the Fury.
My personal opinions regarding them:
Brinyte B158. It’s a flood-to-throw. You are probably aware of the flexibility that comes from being able to zoom wide to narrow focus, so I’ll comment on the negatives:
Loss of lumens. Because of the way zoomies are constructed, they will inherently incur a lot of loss. Zoomed wide, they lose the outside edge (say 10% to 20). Zoomed in to a tight focus, they lose anywhere from 20 to 40% of the total LED output.
Unnatural beam profile. Zoomed wide, the beam is a relatively flat sheet of light that abruptly cuts off at the edges. (Fully zoomed out, my perception of the beam is an area “washed out by nothingness”.) To compensate for this effect, I tend to narrow the beam down to my focus area - in effect, compensating for the evenly distributed spread of light by concentrating it into a smaller area. Alternatively, I choose a much higher output level to flood the area with more light. Personally, I would rather have a beam that is more intense in the target area and smoothly feathers to the periphery.
Much of the enthusiastic praise generated for this flashlight comes from its potential for modding. If you plan on using it in its stock form, you won’t be getting as much value out of it.
Convoy C8, Thorfire C8, or XinTD C8. These are mini-throwers. They excel at mid-range activities (say 10M to 100M), with diminishing utility up to 300M. For closer work, the spill is usable - but the bright center spot tends to overpower the view. The flashlight can be used for tasks such as picking up rubbish, it’s just not the best choice for such tasks.
D80. I don’t have one yet (it’s being shipped) nor do I have a Fury, but based on the few beamshots that I’ve seen of the D80 and what I know of SureFires, I would guess that (a) the D80’s beam profile is the one that most closely approximates the Surefire’s and (b) the Surefire’s beam profile is much smoother. SureFire prides itself on producing a nice beam, so I’m sure that its beam feathers evenly from bright center spot to spill and is free of any noticeable rings or artifacts. There are a couple of downsides that I would like to point out about the D80.
First, it has no low voltage cutoff or warning function. So, you need to make sure that you don’t run your battery too low. While this may not be an issue for you to remember, it might be a problem if others are going to use the flashlight. (Or you’ll need to rely on the battery’s protection circuit, which is another problem.)
The battery tube length is limited. Not all protected cells fit. An effort is underway at the present time to figure out which batteries do and do not fit.GB BLF LuckySun D80-SE Need long tubes? -3/3/16
There are two things that the OP mentioned, and I wanted to ask about vis-a-vis suggestions:
- “risk of fire/leakage” - The leakage part probably means no Nimh, so probably Lithium CR123 primaries (vs. Li-Ion rechargeables)? Do CR123s have issues similar to Li-ions?
- “dropped down a ravine without breaking” - Which lights could survive something like this?
So I don’t leave the thread hanging - I picked up a XinTD C8 U2 3C link: http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=110 and 2x LG 18650 protected 3500mah batteries, and the XTAR MC2 charger. I was planning on waiting a bit longer for the Convoy or the recommended XinTD light was available, but the 10 year old wants to start work on an RC track in a place I can’t get my car. Figured a slightly warmer beam won’t make a huge difference for what it will be immediately used for. In another month or two, I’ll check back in @ Mtn to pick up another XinTD or Convoy C8 for the field, and
If I end up catching the bug I may opt in for a B158, otherwise I’ll likely grab two or three Convoy S2s for the car, home, and to keep in my travel bag.
Huge thank you to everyone that assisted. I went a bit over the $50 ($64 and change, shipped with insurance) I was hoping to spend, but the extra battery and the peace of mind that I’m getting high quality gear more than makes up for the extra $15ish.
