I’ve purchased three Nite Ize D&C cell 55 lumen LED’s to upgrade my incandescent Maglite flashlights. I’ve been very impressed with them. I paid, after the Harbor Freight 20% coupon a total of $7.19 each for the LED upgrade. And they are quite a bit brighter and whiter than the incandescent bulbs they replaced. I think it is a nice, and fairly inexpensive upgrade to these flashlights. Doesn’t turn them into a lighthouse, but much better than what they were and from what I understand, the run time should be greatly increased. Be curious how much run time increase it should offer.
Okay, I was impressed enough with them to convert all four of my D/C cell ML’s over to LED. Cost slightly less than $30 to convert all four which is around the price of a single new LED ML so I feel it is a pretty good deal. And 55 lumens seems to be substantially brighter than the old incandescent bulbs.
Went to Lowes and saw the AA LED conversion kit for just under $7 so I got one to try out. This isn’t the 3xLED kit, I wasn’t impressed with that when I got one a few years ago. Actually, I kinda sucked too be honest. This one is the single LED that does 30 lumen. Put it in and it is a brighter/whiter light. Run time is suppose to be increased five-fold which I really like. I didn’t install the butt-clicky as the one I got a few years ago didn’t last. And it works without it. Not using it as a ‘tactcool’ light anyway.
Overall I think I like the 55 and 30 lumen options better from an emergency preparedness standpoint. I have several lights that produce high lumens so I feel that angle is covered sufficiently. At the moment I’m more interested in extending the run time on several of my lights. I purchases another Nite Ize 30 lumen LED upgrade for a second AA mini Maglite. 25 hours of run time is substantially better than 5 hours, and better from an emergency preparedness perspective. And it is much brighter than what it was before. For most needs I simply don’t need tons of lumens. For around the house in a black out or in the vehicle it is working out rather well. And I always carry several lights anyway in my EDC and/or GHB anyway to cover different levels and needs as well as back up.
Update: Trip to Lowes yesterday for a few things. Like to stop by the flashlights to see what they have, been looking for the Maglight Solitaire LED. They had 2D cell Maglights with baterries on clearance for $10. These are the old incandescent bulb version. Picked up a couple, one for each vehicle and did the Niteize conversion as above. Figure that was $18 for a new Maglight LED.
This has been my thinking lately. Maximize the run time while still having a functionally bright light. Makes sense from an emergency preparedness perspective.
