I got a coupla Nextorch nylon-body lights that take drop-ins, and I wouldn’t want to stress them out, so I kept them to a single 7135 (350mA) driver for about 1W. They last forever with even ancient panny-Bs, but by today’s standards they’re basically keychain lights… only huge.
Would be interesting to run a site-wide poll about zoomies. How many people have at least one? Who has one but only as a curiosity, never really carried? And how many detest zoomies?
They’re never really done right, IMHO. Too many compromises. I know, you wouldn’t consider a MAG Lite a “zoomie” but it does have a focus/spill adjustment that can be useful. Still, if I have a thrower and want it to behave more like a near-field spill flashlight, a diffuser is the easier way to achieve that.
My first “EDC” was a Quark 2AA-X for a short time, but soon wanted more firepower so went with a SK98, which I carried for quite a while. No complaints, as I usually kept it full-flood.
That was my first’n’only edc-carry of a zommie.
At home, though, I had my Cometa as a tabletop light for quite some time. It’s around here somewhere, but semi-retired.
Also had my S11C in-rotation on the table for a while.
Got that… WDT(??)… around here for somewhere, but that’s for moddin’ once I get arsed enough to do it, as I hate CW and hate the UI even more.
Ah, this guy… “Wdtpro”.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0819CNQJJ/
Hardware’s pretty decent, but shiite driver and just as bad emitter.
Bah, forgot to mention that they can be “done right”, but will never ever be waterproof as any halfway-decent reflector/TIR light.
They can still get decent-enough thermals if not pushed too hard, the beam can be pretty clean except maybe for the slight rainbow around the periphery but even that cut out if the bezel can shade it when wide-open), and can get a decent UI like any other light.
[quote] I got a coupla Nextorch nylon-body lights that take drop-ins, and I wouldn’t [ quote]
After all material like bamboo or light plastic can have more sense with drop in or 5mm multi Leds, that doesn’t require heavier junk metal body for heat dissipation.
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Look like flashlights get obsolete fast (as every thing of this consumerism era).
First bulky, rudimental also expensive, then smaller, innovative and convenient.
They know how do buisness…
Courious know what people do with their old lights
Most average to better quality lights made in the last 10 years are still perfectly functional, assuming non-proprietry/fixed battery.
Drivers have (sometimes) got better and LEDs are more efficient, but for the average person, a convoy S2+ with an 6000K XM-L is still pretty good…
I think lots of people on this forum swap the emitter of old lights, it’s a fairly straightforward way to refresh your collection.
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Emitter and driver swaps are a common way to go for old flashlights. I like buying from Convoy due to affordability and lots of CCT options usually.
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Certainly many can be improved with new hardware but then cost are close to the new ones with a vast choice of options and smaller innovative hosts.
It’s easy to accumulate them over time as I’m realizing
I own three I think were done completely right: Weltool M8, Loop SK01S, and Acebeam Terminator M1. Maxtoch also make some zoomies that are done right. The Convoy Z1 and Jaxman Z1 are probably the best current cheap ones.
What doing one right entails: Good water resistance, reasonable durability (will never be as much as a fixed focus light, but just things like a mechanism that won’t easily jam and having flat glass over the aspheric optic), and as little output loss as possible (which is better with some types of zoomie than others, e.g. twist-type ones are generally much better than sliding-type there).
Well, the fact that you kept your zoomies on full flood pretty much means you’d have been fine with a fixed wide spill flashlight. Most of the zoomies I’d come across were always producing undesirable artifacts in the beam, not even addressing all sorts of other nits like construction, lack of water resistance, etc.
From all I see in the community on flashlights that are popular, they never seem to be zoomies. And there’s probably many good reasons why that’s so. And that probably explains why a vast majority made are ultra cheap flashlights aimed for the bargain hunters that don’t have much LED flashlight experience or knowledge.
Not to say they definitively can’t be done right at all. Apparently some have reasonably high marks and of course command much higher prices.
I didn’t mean to imply that they can’t be done right at all. I’ve never been driven to explore them in depth and I trust your judgement – good to know you’ve found some that are up to your standards. But I have to ask, when you say they’re “done right,” are you saying that they can fully mimic a flooder and a thrower with no noticeable flaws, like ringy or artifact laden beams?
Incidentally I noticed with the Acebeam that the zoom feature is with the LEP half the flashlight only. I’d never heard of a LEP zoomie before. Just watched a video demonstrating it and yeah, the zoom feature seems to work quite well with LEP.
I think LEPs are usually collimated by aspherical lenses anyway, at that point making it a zoomie is not that big of a deal and won’t suffer the beam issues most LED zoomies have. Although even those can be mitigated with enough effort.
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With the LEP ones, yes, as long as you don’t mind a bit of yellow on the edge of the flood beam. LED ones, really varies on the LED, but round dies work well there.
Tell me, is the ring that holds the lens plastic or aluminum, is it screwed or pressed in. I want to remove the lens for the diode dedom
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I hope you have fun here, aiden7332!
