Need budget flashlight for camping, hiking at night?

Hi Tiburon smoker, have a look for Panasonic 3400mah cells on fasttech, their pretty quick to the UK with good prices. :bigsmile:

Thanks, Gords. Those are the good ’uns, aren’t they? I’ve heard good things about the Panasonics. I’ll check them out.

Their among the best you can get I believe. All Panasonic’s are well respected, so you should be fine. :slight_smile:

Yeah. I was afraid of the price. : )

I guess I’d better stump up the cash. I need a team of 4 for my SkyRay King as reserves.

Thanks, mate.

The 3100mah Panasonics are much more wallet friendly I think? Depends if you absolutely have to have the best of the best of the best of the best or if you can tolerate 300 mah/cell capacity drop. It’s not so much you’d likely notice tbh, without both side by side.

I have some Samsung 2800mah cells from fasttech, their no good for the king - flat top, but they certainly don’t seem to be fake cells, from both the current they can supply and how long my lights seem to last, but they were cheap enough so I’m happy to recommend fasttech. :bigsmile:

Well for a start, its not a p60 host…. :wink:

I ordered 4 ea. 3100 mAh Panasonic batteries from Ali Express, shipping date was Dec. 5, 2012 at a cost of $35.60 US and haven’t gotten them as of yet (Jan. 9, 2013). Wrote the company, here is the response:
these days,the shipping is very slow,because the airport check the battery very strictly,and it will be delay for some days
I would HIGHLY not recommend this company but I think the batteries are fantastic, IMHO

LOL!

Can somebody please give me the lowdown on fake batteries? I bought a cheap Cree Zoomable X-ML T6 flashlight on eBay recently, and it came with charger, two batteries, etc. I really only needed the flashlight, but I was amused at the batteries. They were fakes. “Uitra Flrc” it said on the side. They were lighter and shorter than my bog standard Ultrafires. I charged them up on my XTAR, just to see.

Initially, they were pretty bright, but that soon dropped off. I reckon I got about 1/2 hour of useable light out of them.

I’m tempted to dissect one. I have a feeling it will be mostly packed with flour (seen the video on youtube?)

I don’t mind slightly lower capacity batteries, so long as they’re genuine and in the reasonable-to-good category. I was thinking maybe a fiver each?

Any suggestions are welcome.

As I say, fasttech were good for me, and many other members have had good experience’s, I would say that your pretty safe with them.
I shall certainly be ordering more cells off them. If your really worried though…

http://www.intl-outdoor.com/battery-charger-batteries-c-56_78.html

I will pay for your cells if these guys supply fakes Tiburonsmoke.

Edit, don’t forget to go to the top of the page and change the currency to GBP. :wink:

LOL!

Thanks, Gords. I trust you. I’ll check them out.

Hi gords1001,
That shows the level of my knowledge. Thanks.
Jerry

Yup, I have to say that when I look at all my lights the XinTD C8 is the best no BS all rounder. Small enough to pack easily, lots of throw and good flood, simple single cell light with decent heat management, good modes and great build quality.

The SRK is heavy and not so practical for hiking and camping, same with my Catapult V3, if I need to pack light it’s a bit bulky.

Hi jerry, I didn’t mean to belittle you sorry.

I’m not a fan of p60 lights, infanct, I just plain will not own one at all as I think they are a terrible design. On the flip side, I like c8 sized lights a lot, I find them a very good, usable size, able to handle the heat of an xm-l at 3a whilst still being pocketable, offering a good combination of flood and throw.

I hope this better explains my thoughts and sorry for being so cpf like :frowning: :bigsmile:

Hi gords1001,

No apology needed. I did not interpret your reply as belittling me, and I appreciated the reply. I know very little about the technical aspects of flashlights. I am finding that my 18650 lights do not handle heat very well, and in a few minutes are too hot in high and even in medium modes. The ones I have are Ultrafire 501b, 502b, and 2100. I conclude that the real value in the 18650 is run times. There is enough brightness in low mode for most tasks, and if a high mode is needed it will only be for a short time.

From your comments the C8 handles heat better than the p 60 configuration. I did not know what the p60 was. I had looked at the c8, but thought that it was too large compared to the others I have. Maybe it is no larger than the 501b.

I have a Black XIAOZHI CREE XM-L T6 LED 1x18650 on order, and am looking forward to getting it. I am sure the heat problem will be about like the 2100. I do not camp or hike any more so I am just having fun with these budget lights.

As to batteries, I notice my NITECORE i4 V2 Intelligent Charger charges the batteries to 4.20 - 4.22 V. I assume that the 4.22V is not too high.

Thanks, again for the help.

Regards,
Jerry

You’ll like the new light, I’ve got one, just needs the threads lubing and its right. 4.22v off the charger, I wouldn’t worry about, it could easily be multimeter variances to be honest.

The c8 has a head about 1/2” bigger diameter than your p60 hosts, its suprising how small they are when you get one.

for edc trustfire mini (get more rechargables as 2 of these battery makes up 18650) 9-15$ price range to help u with budget search.
for small thrower get a M10 or HD2010. 20-30$
for the monster that will keep you warm all night get SRK best lumens per doller :slight_smile: other alternative is the TRJ12 25-50$ ? depends on discounts.

as for batteries get the good ones panasonic sanyos etc.

Thanks, again.
I lube the threads of all lights that I get. I have a jar of teflon trailer hitch lube, and it does well.

atttitude, I think that the mini 01 might be as close to a good outdoor EDC as I can get. I tested it on low and it ran for 18 hours on one battery. A couple of extra batteries would take care of any camping trip I ever went on. I use a plastic match container that is waterproof and cheap to carry two cr123a batteries.
The little mini has a good bright throw on high. Not as far as a larger light, but all I would have needed. The cr123 batteries have a lot going for them, and they are not expensive when ordered.
I have thought that a light that uses 1 18650 or 2 cr123 batteries is a very versatile light. I have a Hugsby P2 that uses one cr123 or 1 AA.

Thanks for the replies.
Jerry

Hi,

I’m the original poster. Some of you might know that I went for the SkyRay King. I ordered it from DX. There was a thread in a related DX Club forum that indicated that the specs might have a typo or two. I thought, what the hell, it’s a SRK in black. They actually say on the ad that it’s a SkyRay, and the photo clearly shows a SkyRay King logo on the torch itself.

It was only after I’d placed the order that I looked closely at the voltage rating. It seemed to indicate batteries in series (!) and the lumens ‘typo’ hasn’t been corrected. I also realised that the torch is supplied with batteries, at a cost of just over a tenner more than the original SRK. I’ve sent three or four messages to DX, asking if this is a SkyRay King or equivalent clone. I’ve had a number of messages back saying, “Just wait for the flashlight and see. You haven’t tested it yet.”

Uh?

Can anybody please tell me what this torch is likely to be?

Thanks!

Black SRK from DX = fake.

Only "real SRK" from DX is "golden" FandyFire.

Thanks for getting back to me, M3TAL_LORD.

Does this mean that the light I’ve ordered will be vastly inferior to the FandyFire SRK? I’m looking for the most bang for my buck. I’m on a budget and I went for the black purely on aesthetics. I’m not a big fan of anodized ‘gold’.