Great beam shots! Looks very promising. I will be in the US soon, and will be scouting for one or two of these. 
Great beamshots garrybunk thanks for the info!
Inventory checker shows 34 in stock at my local HD (one less than yesterday). I'm assuming the display must have finally 'rolled-out'. I'll see if I can pick one up today.
Garry, once again you have proven to be among the MOST VALUABLE resources of information on anything LED flashlights, on any forum, for those who seek to get an idea of what the real world performance of any particular flashlight is.
Your beam shot photos are the best. You take time to provide context in terms of distance, shutter speed, ambient light conditions, control shots, etc.
The mouse over and mouse out comparisons that you provide are as good a resource/tool as ANY I’ve found anywhere that help me educated myself about that which I could only have speculated about if not for your posting them.
Thanks.
+1 on the mouse overs, they're awesome! Someday, I'll have to learn how to do that.
Well I appreciate your compliments. My beamshots are nothing spectacular. I try the best I can with the equipment I have at hand, but there are others far better at it than I. For one thing I need a better camera!
-Garry
See this awesome tutorial JohnnyMac created. You have to use the "Advanced Post Editor" which I do at all times. Mouse overs are awesome!
-Garry
Great effort with the beam shots! Thank you, young man.
Super Awesome pics Garry!
Finally got one. I used the trick that someone suggested about looking for a store that had less than 35 lights. Went to one that had 26 this morning. Three hours later when I went to leave, they only had five left. When I got there and found the display by the front door, they only had three. I have a feeling these will fly off the shelves if this mysterious sale ever takes place. The store was in Westminster, Calif.
And I gotta say, I can’t wait to try this thing tonight. Man, this looks like a thrower, and it should be, considering its size!!! Might need to rent a trailer just to bring this thing on vacation with you. Most certainly would need a trailer if you took two. But the throw. WOW!!! Tain’t dark yet here, but it kills my venerable ke-5 and HD-2010 when doing some quick white-wall hunting tests. I’ll have to get a hand cart to take it out tonight for a test. Or hire a shirpa.
What made it worth my while was also scoring a Ryobi li-ion tool pack and a Dell pack from the HD recycled battery bin!!! Ryobi batts were red sanyos but all below 1 volt. 
BUT the dell pack had 8 blue LGs, all with an exact reading of 3.94 volts. I have seen my share of packs, but this one looked positively unused. Not a scratch on the exterior. But what’s the Mah on these blue LGs? It’s a conundrum. Seller on ebay says 3000; but others say 2200. Probably 2200. But LG also has tan 2200s? Why the color change? Different model???
Off topic, but I find some tool packs with dead batts, but rarely dead computer packs. Why do people throw em away? Got me. Especially when ALL the cells are A-OK like this Dell pack. I can see one low or dead cell shutting the pack down from charging, but why throw away a brand new pack? Dead computer?
At least they’re not the gray Samsung 2400 mah cells. Beem running into those a lot lately. By and large, they’re woofers. They’ll charge fine but won’t hold a solid 4.2 charge for more than a few days.
Thank you Garry.
I just did some testing on some blue LG’s for a surplus dealer that was looking at buying some packs that had three in them. The packs were marked 2200 mAh and the cells tested at 2000 mAh under load. Unfortunately their internal resistance was around 100 milliohms… not good for heavy flashlight loads.
>>>>>Unfortunately their internal resistance was around 100 milliohms… not good for heavy flashlight loads.
I have used about 25-30 2000 and 2200 mah LG 18650s (and 10 lime green Panasonics) for quite some time (the LG tan ones) for general LED flashlight use and they worked fine. Never had a problem. Didn’t even get slightly warm in use or while charging. Might last a bit less than a 2600 but no noticeable difference in brightness. In fact, some of them are the best charge-holders I have. I had some still show a solid 4.2 volts after sitting on a shelf for 2 months.
Is this resistance because the ones you had were old and worn out? Or is there something different about the blue LGs that make them usuitable?? …. way off topic here. Sorry.
Well as some have said, 26650s ain’t gonna go in that tube. Even some thin-wrapped Moli 26650s I have. Not gonna happen without boring out the Defiant tube.
So, I use eneloops for all my nicd uses. What can we use for rechargeables in this beast? Will 3 eneloops in c adaptors be noticeably dimmer than 3 alkaline Cs? Are there any NiCd Cs that are any good that would work in this thing? I believe the Intellicharger will do NiCds. I probably won’t be using this thing 24/7, but I really don’t want to go back to alkalines.
I could try the eneloop c adapters myself but of course I only have two. Won’t three AAs be much longer than 3 Cs, or am I asking something incredibly dumb here? (Which wouldn’t be the first time.)
I found 35 here in Boise. The manager got all the way up the ladder, found the box above the flashlight aisle and said: “nope, can’t sell you one ’till the fourth. See, it’s written right here.” There was a hand-written note on the side of the box that said hold until Feb 4th sale.
Then he said: “What’s so special about those lights?” “You are about the fifth guy today asking about these”.
His Partner said “must be one of those new Florescent’s”
They just weren’t intended for use with high loads. At a 3A load they self-heated to around 50C. The cells were at 3.5V out of the pack.
>>>>>They just weren’t intended for use with high loads.
Hmmmmm. They’re almost through cooking. I’ll proceed with caution. I’ve never had a battery even get warm except through conduction from the LCD. I’ll be keeping a close eye on these. Any sign of heating up and back into the recycle bin they go.
Didn’t go above room temp when charging. I’ll try em in a ke5 or a sipik sk98 or a fandyfire v3. I know from much use that those lights (especially the sipik) draw a fair deal and can get warmish but the cells always stay room temp or thereabouts.
Thanks for the tip.
I am getting tailcap readings of 2.87 with Tenergy NiMh C cells with both of my Defiant throwers.They are definately performing better than Alkalines in this light.The batteries that came in the lights are down to 1.67 and 1.4 amps after 1 hr. of continous use.I’ll try and do a runtime test on the NiMh at work tomorrow.-Rick
Ever notice how rapidly laptops are always being replaced by newer models every 2-3 years? The power packs could be from obsolete laptops returned by computer retail outlets as excess stock after they are deemed ‘unsellable’.
Half of our town lost power last night with 70mph winds. Crazy weather, yesterday it was 60F and today it will be the same with a strong cold front coming in quickly. I was at our local HD this morning and they decided to put the Defiant Super Throwers out early, because they expect a run on lights. The HD was without power themselves and we're running on standby power. Kind of dark in there.
What CT store did u find them??