Wow, that green and purple and orange look good together! 
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Got a new lantern, Klarus CL3, it’s nice but i thought you could just unscrew the top and throw an 18650 but no it’s a built-in 18650 
Warm 1300K
Neutral 2700K
Cold white 4000K
OFF
I didn’t exactly recieve them (literally), but in the past couple of days.
The first one is a nice addition to headlight/headlamp collection; I managed to get (a black) Wurkkos HD15 (with included battery) for € 22,77, which was a good price in my opinion. (Remember: you now have to pay tax for items from Aliexpress, so they tend to be slightly more expensive than people buying from the US.
So far I’m really happy with it: is has a bit of a floody beam/wide hotspot, which makes it also way more practical for close up work (for example: within arms length). It also has a lovely cleam (5000K) beam, without any tint shift or artefacts and no noticeable green (on lower settings) even though it uses an LH351D led!
My other purchase was a Mateminco FT01, which was/is(?) currently a flashdeal on Banggood, but with a coupon from FIN17, it was even a few euros cheaper. (I believe it came down to just under € 20,-, including shipping and EU taxes.)
I’m mainly planning to use it als a small decorative light, with the included stand and diffuser.
There is only one big downside: the used SFQ43 led in 3000k LOOKS HORRIBLE! Instead of it being a warm white, it is really yellow, but above all: It has an incredible (uniform) ugly green tint/hue over it, regardless if you run in with little power or a lot.
This is the most ugly led that I’ve come across within my collection so far and I’m definitely going to swap it out for another led, probably a 3000k or 4000k 519A. (Fortunately the bezel isn’t glued, so you can easily twist it of and an emitter swap and a reflow on the original MCPCB should be quite an easy job!
Yesterday I also recieved a cheap “Chinese” no-name flashlight, which on paper looked potentially very interesting (no zoomy, TIR lens, no blink/strobe/SOS in the UI, built in USB-C charging and it came with a 16340 650mAh battery (which according to my first discharge test came up to 791mAh!).
I expected way worse (which is generally the case with cheap chinese lights), but I was pleasently surprised about the quality/features for this pricepoint!
I’m thinking of doing a (small) review about it, including some photos and extra information about it, which I haven’t mentioned yet in the things I mentioned above. It might not be the perfect (cheap) host, mainly because of the driver being press-fit (and maybe glued), so a driver swap might be a bit difficult, but a LED swap should be fairly straight forward.
I paid € 6,65 for it, with an included 16340 (650mAh) battery (and simple UI: High-Med-Low), so it could be a nice and cheap flashlight to throw in your car/glove box and maybe some others scatered around the house!
Since the colors will soon be gone I just had to go for them. That brings me up to four total. I just love these little lights.
I’ve had the MAO for quite sometime and always wanted a red one. Not a fan of the green anno, so got black and silver to round things out.
Some Baton clips to bring it all together and I now have a happy little TS10 family.
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Today I recieved two impulse buys from a few weeks ago: A Sofirn SC33 (XHP-70 HI) and an SC31 Pro.
Both were on sale on Aliexpress The SC33 without battery for something like € 26,65 (including EU taxes) and roughly € 30,35 with the included 21700 mAh battery. The SC31 Pro was about € 16,64 (again, with the included EU tax). Both were deals I haven’t seen for a (EU) price this cheaply.
Since I couldn’t decide which of teh SC31 more, the green or the blue variant, I also (impulsively) bought a blue SC31 Pro in blue… I will decide which I like more when I recieved both!
Not true. You can even own a TV without paying the tv tax, just have to state that you don’t use it for watching live TV (as a monitor, DVD/bluray/HDMI input, etc, even just “own it but don’t use it at all”)
The licensing people have very few rights (they can apply for a warrant but need actual proof, to a way higher standard than in e.g. the US) and mostly work on intimidation. Tell them where to shove it and they’ll leave you alone unless you’re being blatant. Most people who ended up in a highly publicised case were watching live TV that was visible/audible from outside - one thing they are allowed to do is observe from outside, including with optics, but also as “sneak and peek” around windows etc., so just be sensible. There’s a reason a lot of fearmongering hinges on things like “detector vans”, which, if you’ve ever seen one, is just a minibus that drops off a squad of their goons to go around knocking on doors to intimidate students and pensioners. Zero equipment inside whatsoever, plus their purported function isn’t even possible other than maybe “using a laser mic to listen to what someone’s watching”, but given the average intellect of all TVL employees, I seriously doubt they would be capable of even understanding how one works.
Not quite. Don’t know Europe, but in the UK, only the BBC is taxpayer funded via the tv tax (other companies get other subsidies for some stuff but the TV Tax goes straight to the BBC, and the BBC is the only one without adverts).
BBC America is a different company entirely (although I think there’s some ownership stake somewhere), and just licenses BBC content from the BBC. In fact, the BBC makes loads of money from licensing, merchandise, and DVD sales globally. Top Gear was raking in record profits for them before it became a revolving door of mediocre to terrible presenters.
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Novatac 120P
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Is Novatac still around? Nice looking lignt.
Crap just about 15 years old. Timeless design.
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Kerpu spot welder.
I tested it and it does work. The higher power setting is very different from the lowest and the mid range settings. Next will be to weld some tabs to a cell and later some more. But I am waiting until some other tab material arrives. Some of the reviews mention the included tab material may just be nickel plated steel and not pure nickel. The 99.something % pure should be here later today.
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Olight Baton 4 Damascus
My new favourite light, just can’t put it down, looking at it from all different angles - delighted with it and a great 50th birthday present to myself!.
My only gripe was the pre fitted clip which damaged it when putting it on (I didn’t do it) was extremely careful taking it off…why do they fit the damn things in the factory!!! Grrrr
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very nice
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Yeah, I hate that too.
Of course, I don’t buy premium metal flashlights, so it could be worse (for me.)
Almost all of my flashlights are aluminum because aluminum dissipates heat nicely, and it’s relatively cheap. 
I don’t normally spend this much money either, but it was a treat! 
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Congratulations on your beautiful birthday gift… You earned it! 
thanks for the great photos
imo Olight is misusing the term Damascus, which normally applies to ferrous metal blends… but no matter, the mixed metals look lovely.
my guess is the Mokume in the Olight is a blend of Copper, Brass, and Alpacca
I feel your pain regarding the preinstalled clip scratch…
Maybe a jeweler or someone with a buffing wheel could polish out the scratch.
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Bought used 3000k
