I’m wondering if anyone here could give me some directions of what to look for and where. I’m searching for a cheap flashlight with basically the most lumen for the buck, prefferably for the price of under 30 dollars, as I do not want to care if I lose or break it. I want to carry it in my toolbelt, in which I’ve got an 50 mm diameter ring (for some old style batoon-like maglites), so the head needs to be at least 50+ mm diameter, and the body smaller, and prefferably long enough to not easily fall out of the ring.
My work have provided a mini maglite LED flashlight (77 LM according to the box?), and basically I want something to outshine my coworkers, so that’s my minimum light requirement
Wrapping the carry-ring with rope or paracord will allow a smaller diameter light. For general purpose lights the Convoy C8 does very well. OP reflector gives more flood and SMO reflector more throw. Several options from Simon (who makes them) and dozens more options from FastTech nearing 1K lumens with cooler tints. If you like big I’m sure someone will sell you a modded 2D or 3D Maglite, too many variations to list here.
Describe what you’re using the light for ( room illumination, close-up work, checking machines 30 meters away etc) to help narrow down the choices, there’s a huge number of lights out there!
Haha yeah, I noticed. That’s why i turned to this forum, seemed like a jungle with all the hundreds of different lights. There seems to be plenty of good reviews on this forum, but as I do not know what I’m looking for I do not know what kind of reviews to view.
But well, the mini maglite are sufficient 95 percent of the time for what I do. I use it to illuminite dark rooms and factories, pretty much to look at a door or lock or to see where I put me feets. What I need is a light to illuminate outside when it’s dusk, or when I’m looking for something or someone, most likely in the woods. So I would guess a light with throw and a tad of flood as well is what I need?
You might like a C8 light then. Convoy makes very good ones and you know you’ll get the real thing by buying direct from the manufacturer Simon at: Convoy More throw than flood but with good spill up close, Tints in the 3500-5000 range are a good place start, and an ‘orange peel’ (OP) reflector will help add a bit more flood. Don’t just jump for the highest lumens, your eyes won’t be able to tell the difference between 750 an 850 unless they’re side-by-side and the high lumens ones have colder tints which can make colors look funky. The C8 is great for a general-purpose flashlight and is also easy to mod should you get that deep into the hobby. If I were stuck with just one stock light it would be a Convoy C8.
The C8 definitly looks interesting, thank you! Any idea if it’s possible to extend it? I’m worried it might fall out of the ring, but I might be able to use a holster instead.
Good call! I’ve read about some li ions exploding, so I’m always worried when it comes to using them. A 101 will come in handy, thank you!
Hi, JoniX. Welcome to the Best Light Forum! SawMaster & The Miller are already giving you the best advice I could only parrot.
I will say that I carry a “roll of coins” “S5 Clone” in which I’ve installed a 15° TIR for some “throw”. OTOH, I just built a C8 like this one which blows it away. They have them in black as well.
I see it this way: The “throw-enhanced” S5 puts light ON the woods, the C8 puts light IN the woods. If you’re looking for people or critters in the woods at night, a C8 will be a good start, IMNERHO, of course! My S5 and C8 both use the same LED and driver (as the C8’s I linked), so “apples-to-apples”… It’s “NearlyWhite” but that’s close enough for me.
BTW, since I’m a “knot guy” I must share this with you: The ring covering SawMaster mentioned is called Ringbolt Hitching. It’s an ancient art and well worth the effort to learn (IMNERHO again, as usual). There are many other ways to cover a ring, but this one is an excellent start.
I like the Miller ML102 charger because it only takes USB input, meaning it can’t see mains voltage plus I can use it outside with a car cigarette-lighter charger. Opinions about it are mixed-to-fairly-good; all I can say is, it works fine for me.
However, when I get another charger, it will likely be an Xtar MC1. Just sayin…
I read the guide, it had some good information! I’d love to translate the guide, and I might do it one day when I’ve got some time left over. However it might take a while since it feels like I’m working all months along, and currently have to use pretty much all my few free time hours for other projects.
I currently have two 18650 batteries and a USB-charger that came with a cheap ebay china flashlight. The batteries says Ultrafire, but I doubt they are. Any tips about where to find good batteries and chargers are welcome. I’d preffer a 2-battery charger (or more) to speed charging up, and USB input seems like a good idea for safety, but the MC1 looks solid for the price.
Well, I translated it into Icelandic! And I don’t speak a word of it! If you use Google Translate, plus your own knowledge of Swedish, yours would be much better than mine!
I can tell you that the Ultrafire 18650s I was “given” with a torch, were not worth the effort required to drop them in the recycling bin. I, too, got the ‘torch+18650s+2-bay charger’ deal on eBay, and the charger works perfectly well, even though I don’t trust it & only use it for charging newly-harvested cells the first time. Outdoors. In a metal can. And I also use it whenever I need to charge 2 18650s at once, which is almost never. YMMV, of course.
Whoa! Three batteries in series using (unknown quality) batteries and (unknown quality) charger? That’s a big red flag!
Since you’re already familiar with li-ion batteries and safety precautions, I’d suggest you consider the $31 Shadow JM35, 2x26650 version, MT-G2 emitter (neutral white) using the discount code from M4D M4X:
It can operate on either 2 x 18650 batteries for your convenience, if that’s all that you have. Or you can use 2 x 26550 batteries for much longer run times.
I have one. It has the heft and feel of one of the old-fashioned Maglite 2D flashlights. It’ll fit your utility belt ring perfectly and won’t fall out.
It’s got a nice general purpose beam pattern. Not too wide and not too focused. And the hot spot feathers (blends) smoothly to the spill areas. It’s plenty bright at 1900 lumens. Neutral white tint. Just a great beam!
And it has a dual switch. Tail switch turns it on and off. Side switch to change modes (and it remembers the last mode used). I think that this is the best UI for a general purpose light. Turn it on by clicking the tail button. Turn it off by clicking the tail button. For me, I always use the same mode (medium - because that is more than bright enough for 99% of my uses). Consistent. No doubt in my mind what I’ll get when I click it on. And for the rare occasions when I need lower or higher beams, the side switch affords easy access.
I’ve got a lot of brighter flashlights in my collection, but this is the one that sees the most use, day-in and day-out. It just works.
Haha I was looking at the battery review section of the forum for some clues of which to get and from where, but I actually did not think if searching the forum. I’ll take a closer look at it later on (I’m off to 12h work again soon… :cry: ).
Looting laptop batteries looks fairly interesting! Seems to be some good deals to be found.
What could possibly go wrong? China’s famous for quality parts
The JM35 looks interesting as well, a tad high in price but might be worth it! Thank you for the tip.
Finally got one of the flashlights, the JM35. And it feels really sturdy and bright, and I can’t wait to test in in the dark! The batteries I ordered fits as well.
But one thing, the one I got had a tail switch as well as a sideswitch, but the ad states that the new version only has a sideswitch. So it seems like have gotten an old version, maybe it has something to do that I used a coupon from this forum. I side-clicky-only would be nice, but I can live with the rear click as well. I might contact the seller and ask about it.
But does anyone have any clue of how to operate it? The side-clicky-only are click to switch mode and long press to activate turbo mode, but I have no idea about this old one as long press does not work. Maybe it only has 3 modes + strobe?
Found this and it seems like only the 1x tube one has the turbo mode, which seems weird as 2x batterys would equal more power available.
Edit: found some more info on the internet, it’s most likely an error in the ad as the two tube version seems to only come with side+rear clicky. The “high” mode on the 2-tube version are also appernatly equal to the “turbo” on the 1-tube one.
