First opportunity to get back to the thread and really appreciate all that has been offered. Good stuff for me to consider. I appreciate the recommendations and the links and I’m having a most excellent time looking at them and expanding my ‘flashlight horizons’.
For quite a while I carried the Sipik SK68 on-duty. This was as a back up to my issued Streamlight. (I’m a big believer in the ‘2 is 1 and 1 is none’ mantra). It worked well for all I needed it for and did well even after getting knocked around. I’ve since switched the back up over to this Ultrafire SK98 clone that I got a couple of weeks ago to see how it does. So far it’s gone through one use-of-force okay. Like anything, time will tell.
Thanks to this thread I’ve got some more goodies to consider. I guess it was a good thing I was warned in my introduction thread to hide my wallet after joining here.
:bigsmile:
Some reason I didn’t see your post before I made mine? So following are a few more random thoughts that I will type as they flow through my thick skull to the muscles in my hands.
As for Professional use and possible life or death. …I wanted to comment… I also agree on the Surefire. (Elzetta is coming along well too) Expensive batteries are also something I prefer. After rereading all the posts there was scant mention of batteries. I would be very cautious in using Expensive rechargeable cells in a “Professional Use” light. I would never use inexpensive cells of any brand, style or configuration.
I do have several lights mounting on high velocity projectile dispensing devices. They are all Surefire and all have fresh Primary cells. I have had a few of the budget lights fail “under load” when I was just playing around. I will leave budget weapon lights for the airsoft crowd.
What do you get for all that money “spunt” (slang: Past tense for spent) on a high end light???
Well warranty & customer service come to mind. I have only had to use them once and I have owned well over 30 Surefire lights. They also have a very impressive replacement parts page. Not sure if any of you folks have used it. But, I had a switch that was worn out from abuse. With in 7 days, they shipped me a brand new one 100% free of charge no questions asked. I guess if you live in China some of those manufactures may have a attractive warranty. I guess one way of looking at it, when I order a Budget light, to me its a dice roll. I am going to accept it for its flaws & do all the repairs my self. Not a chance I am actually going to take the time to mail it back to China & wait.
Why do expensive lights still sell?
I guess for the average non flashaholic in the US they could say, “rather I spend $50 for a budget light that who knows what I am gonna get, or spend $150 and know I am getting a quality product with a proven track record & good warranty & customer service.”
Not everyone has the time, patients, skills, or internet savy needed to navigate the budget light sea of choices. For them, expensive is probably safer, on many levels and just plain easier. Heck, I know plenty of people who don’t even know what Paypal is!
Also, some people only own one light. If I were only going to own one, it would be the best quality & very likely expensive by any budget! One reason I love budget lights is I can buy many many lights for the price of one Surefire. LOL Helps feed the addiction.
So I digress: Inexpensive v.s. Expensive once again, is all relative. What a conundrum!
To slightly change the topic, while I like the 18650 SK98 clone…I’m not sure that I like it better than the SK68 I was using. As you’ll see in my sig line link, I belong to a forum on survival and emergency preparedness and I’m a big believer in that mindset (practical prepping rather than waiting for space aliens to attack). So with that mindset I like to have practical options available. At the moment, I have three 18650 lights. I have three more on the way. In total, half of them use only an 18650 battery while the other half also have a 3XAAA adapter. The SK68’s that I have, of course, either uses a 14500 or an AA battery. I like the lights that have the dual option on what will power them from an SEP mindset. While I always EDC carry spare batteries, I like the option and availability of using common batteries if/when needed.
While my 18650 lights are brighter, I’m not sure they’re so much brighter as to be ‘better’ than the smaller 14500/AA lights. I’m referring more to EDC carry in this regard. When camping in the deep woods I have several light sources (glow sticks, hand held lights and head lights). The main light being a larger 18650/AAA light. But I don’t necessarily ‘carry’ that when not needed whereas the EDC lights are on me or in my EDC bag (usually a small sling bag or at the least a Maxpedition pocket organizer). In these cases, small but useful is the ticket.
It needs to be pointed out, that “Current Control = Color Control”. One more “feature” LEDs share with incandescents, in addition to high heat and short runtimes, is the fact that as Current changes, so does Color. PWM is a way to achieve Dimming while maintaining Color, at the expense of Continuity of output. So again, the cogent point (to all Engineers) is this:
… and we’re all busy pulling a Needs Assessment out of the OP, so …
In case our “actions” (of replying thoughtfully and respectfully to your post) don’t speak this loudly enough, and since I love to overstate the obvious:
WELCOME to the funny farm! You ARE among Friends here, and we’re glad you stopped by!
But understand that it isn’t the only light that I have on my person/available. As an example, I would normally have the 186500/AAA light I mentioned above, a Sipik or clone, a headlamp, the small Ray O Vac LED on my keychain was well as spare batteries. This is in addition to the CREE LED lights on my bike (we normally mountain bike to a remote location. So that is another two lights). Also, I’m with my son who has a similar set up and additionally, there are several other members of the SEP forum with us with similar set ups. So if there are five of us, we probably have 20+ lights between us.
… attached to a good USB-powered LiIon charger, modded if need be to touch both ends of all your LiIon batteries, your high-power current sources can VASTLY outlast those wimpy store-bought alkies.
I bought mine on the cheap, so I had to fix some stuff (welcome to my Dim world), but the concept works great. Even with the expensive Solar Chargers, the Net Cost of Ownership approaches $0.00, just a little later.
PS: JK about the space aliens. I refrained from using the “p-word” just to show I was kidding.
(To the tune of a famous commercial jingle from my misspent youth)
”
I’m a prepper you’re a prepper, he’s a prepper she’s a prepper.
Wouldn’t you like to be a prepper too?
Be a prepper, THINK like a prepper…
Be a prepper, THINK like a prepper…
Be a prepper, THINK like a prepper…
(repeat and fade into the deep forest)
”
Let’s see Raccoon City top THAT!
I have one of those Duracell solar power generators for the house which should work well for the various chargers I have. I also have an Anker Astro E5 15,000mah charger that I use for my phone while out in the woods. This has worked very well ‘in the field’ and I can fully charge a Galaxy S3 over five times with it. I did a review here:
7th post down. I would think that this would work well to charge batteries of flashlights as well?
I’ve really been making the effort to expand my base of rechargeable batteries, though I also have a large supply of the regular alkies from CVS and Walgreens. Can’t resist it when they have BOGO.
In regards to the aliens… :bigsmile:
I belong to three different forums on the topic of prepping. Surprising to see the range of folks, though the vast majority are very practical. Occasionally we’ll get the odd duck that has 10 million rounds of ammo…but no food or water. My wife and I got into the prepper mindset several years ago because let’s face it, I’m in Florida and we get a whole season of storms every year. And hey, if the zombies come calling I guess we’re set for that as well.
GEEEZ!!! You roll like a water buffalo! I’m more of a “leave no trace” kind of guy, but whatever works when the flag goes up is The Right Thing.
That’s not even your worst threat.
SWMBO & I are both Natives of Florida, “but that was just an accident of birth” (so sayith Jethro Tull); so we’re well familiar with BOTH seasons, “Storm” and “Tourist”. We were run off by the damnyankees uh… “persistent tourists” long ago. Zombies seem almost endearing, by comparison!
Nah, don’t get me wrong, the Duracell is just for the house. The Anker Astro however is not to much larger/thicker than a cell phone so it slips right into the backpack. Trust me, I’m into going as light as possible while still having the needs met.
I’ll have to test it out to see how well it charges batteries when I get the Nitecore charger.
Really? I thought the point was, in fact, to talk about it. Post nine in this thread has pretty persuasive proof that I’m not a Surefire fanboy and I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a member at “the other place”.
My personal bump in the night light is a Solarforce L2T with a Solarforce tactical tail cap (momentary on only button, twist for constant) with a single mode Nailbender/Customlites drop in. But again, my job isn’t to purposefully go into harms way, so…
As they say, I have no dog in the fight. I was merely trying to provide some grist for the mill.
Hmm? I like reverse clickies. It lets me half-press like a camera shutter when I want to change modes, instead of having to do two full clicks.
I generally like electronic switches or twisties better though.
The only light I’ve used where I like a forward clicky is my 1-mode UV light. It’s nice to be able to flash quickly to avoid eye strain and overheating, and to extend battery life.
Current control can be nice though, since it tends to be a lot more efficient than PWM. More lumen-hours per cell, and no annoying strobe effect. Also, human eyes don’t see color very well at moonlight levels anyway.
I may be a little biased though, since I see PWM as fast as 4.5 kHz even when I’m not looking for it — it’s distracting. The fast qlite PWM (18kHz?) is okay though; finally fast enough that it doesn’t distract me.
In any case, I really like the 4-mode L3 L10-219. Good modes, great tint, small size, twisty, waterproof, inexpensive. The only thing about it I dislike is that it there isn’t a good clip available for it.
True, but that implies you already have the light on. I was thinking in terms of the OP’s likely context, that of a LEO on the job (prejudiced by a family full of them). A light is just an attractive target (nevermind the clicking noise) when armed-and-ready bad guys might be around the next corner…
Exactly. And adding the one feature of No Mode Memory, you can have modes in a light you can EDC for a long time w/o worrying about battery changes. In a truly desperate situation, I wouldn’t really want to have a light ‘clicked on’, since most of the time you don’t actually need it fully ON other than to make someone in the group feel safe. That’s what I’m there for.
Yes, I do know how strange I am… J)
I concur and agree, although I never measured Frequency. To me, “blinkies” are just Very Slow PWM; and just as annoying. Likewise, the “persistence of vision” effect doesn’t work when you’re illuminating a moving object. And TBH, LED colors don’t change colors nearly as much as incans when the current drops.
