Color: Cyan – yes, despite being a traditionalist and (almost) all my lights so far being black in color, now I’m considering cyan because it would pair really well with my wife’s red HD15R. Are there any issues with cyan, like worse heat dissipation or more fragile anodizing?
Switch backlight: Amber (for the softer glow when kept on low for light-in-darkness localization purposes). Any known issues with amber, and/or is there a better switch aux color and if yes, why?
LED&Tint: SBT90.2 (this LED being my main point for getting this flashlight).
Pocket clip: worth the $2.50, or is there a better option?
Add magnet in the tailcap : yes, of course; and see next line.
Extra tailcap without magnet: sure, buying it too for the eventual use case when a magnet becomes a hindrance.
Dual bay Li-ion charger: nope, not for $15 nor any price as I already have my effing great SkyRC MC3000
Other, secret extras: besides the above, I wonder whether there are other options not being shown? I remember reading Hank had “secret menus” for some lights that could only be asked for in emails, IIRC – I would be specially interested in an extra lens (in case I manage to break mine sometime), a better/more resistant bezel, a more recessed (or with more pronounced rim) switch to avoid accidental activation, and a better, regulated driver if one’s available. What can you folks tell me about that?
Other related stuff on Hank’s site: I can see the flashing kit (which I plan to buy under protest, as it’s USBASP but that crappy protocol is the only way to flash any current Hanklight), unfortunatelly I can see no batteries as I would otherwise buy at least one to come in the light. Any other interesting stuff I could be missing? Perhaps a different LED board I can later replace myself if/when I get tired of the SBT90.2? What do you folks suggest? The idea is to make one big purchase and get everything at once and save on the shipping cost and aggravation (it’s not simple to get stuff from China here to Chile).
Thanks in advance for all suggestions, corrections and tips!
EDIT: This would also be my first Hanklight and my first purchase at Hank’s ever, so any and all tips about dealing with him and/or his website, shipping etc and also alternate sources (I know about jlhawaii808.com, are there any others?) would be much appreciated.
Basically all anodizing that’s not natural is not as good, darker ano is usually more durable. Blue is supposedly one of the weaker ones. If you don’t go hard on your lights it will be fine.
Regarding the switch I would always go for the RGB backlight because of the added functionality (voltage display).
A note about that…in my experience, the RGB buttons feel much worse to press than the single-color buttons. I can’t explain why that is, but it seems to be the case.
Every Hank switch feels different. I think it is mostly caused by how the adhesive foil under the rubber switch cover is positioned. If you remove that foil even super nasty, hard-to-press switches are instantly converted to crisp clicks.
I haven’t had that experience, and making every button feel different also wouldn’t make much sense from a manufacturing standpoint. Every single-color button Hank feels identical to me. The RGB button has something different going on underneath it, probably to make the extra colors work. It feels like crap relative to the other buttons.
If you don’t desperately need the added waterproofness try unscrewing the switch ring drop out the rubber cover and remove that clear adhesive plastic foil that is glued over the metal dome switch. I did this on 2 of my hanklights that were very hard to press and almost not clicky at all and it changed them both to the opposite: a light and very crisp click.
I can almost promise you the switch will be exactly the same as your other (good) switches after this.
Thanks @Valynor and @nicodimus22 for the tips so far. On the run now but will respond fully to you both when I’m back home.
Just added this to my OP, copying it here I case you folks don’t see it there:
EDIT: This would also be my first Hanklight and my first purchase at Hank’s ever, so any and all tips about dealing with him and/or his website, shipping etc and also alternate sources (I know about jlhawaii808.com, are there any others?) would be much appreciated.
My green D4 and cyan KR1 anodization color became dull by 3-5% on its own after a 3-4 years. Cyan matte surface tends to attract dirt. Not sure if anyone has mentioned before about this issue before.
Thanks @Valynor for pointing out that black is the most resistant/enduring anodizing, and @freeme for confirming it.
Well, I don’t plan to drop my light into a rock grinder everyday, but it’s not going to be a shelf queen either – for me, flashlights are meant to be used and I plan on having it in my belt purse and/or backpack all the time, along with tools, keys, coins, etc – I try and keep my lights inside a cloth/plastic bag to give them some protection, but no guarantees, so good anodizing is important.
Black it is, then. Thank you both again for helping me avoid a mistake in that regard.
Thanks for pointing out the RGB option, I missed it when I firstchecked the list of available switch backlight colors. And yes, I agree: controlled RGB is much better than any single color, I will definitely choose it instead.
Thanks for the info on the possibility of a hard-to-press switch and the solution for it, will keep that in mind even if I’m not really looking forwards to compromising the light’s watertightness to fix it’s switch feel.
You can ask Hank via email after ordering to make sure you get a “crispy click” switch. I did and the clickyness was always good.
I don’t know what he does differently - maybe he just leaves out the adhesive foil. As long as the rubber switch cover has no holes and the ring is screwed down tightly it should still be reasonably waterproof.
The extra glass can be bought separately, its somewhere in the parts section.
You can request a 13A regulated driver, it’ll have the same FET output but the linear ramp will go higher.
Also, you can request the protruding switch ring from the M44 and D4K if you want, but IMO it is fine with the stock ring.
I wouldn’t recommend it, as the SBT90 in hanklights is de-lensed and has the bond wires exposed, and also the driver would be too high current for most emitters. At that point you’re better off buying another D1K with a 5A driver (519a, w1, xp-l hi, etc) for testing 3v emitters
I’m with valynor here. I can’t find any correlation between switch color and switch feel. Some of my hanklights have buttons that feel better than others and some of them have buttons that feel worse than others but it’s independent of RBG or single color, they’re evenly distributed.
In my experience it scratches the easiest out of all the colors. Just more proof that every hanklight is a little different.
