Some of the old $15-$30 lights I still considered budget, but had quality parts, built like a tank - these lights are harder to find now, but I've been getting spoiled with anodized threads, superior anodizing all around, more compact designs.
I still like the $3-$4 AA zoomies (i.e.slim zoomie) many of us modded every possible way, and a slew of other <$10 lights, like the ZeusRay.
I got a new UltraFire U-F10 coming (http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_423439.html?wid=21), which I'm hoping will be a decent buy and good for modding, so I'm still alive and well in the budget world, but I do feel there's been a lot of pressure hear as of late to buy $50+ hosts, and spend more than that in LED's and drivers, otherwise you are made to feel you are somewhat stuck in the past.
Why is cpf associated with these light manufactures? Seems like the beef is against the people posting there, I sense there is dislike for these lights just because people on another forum likes them. Its a good observation from the op, in my line of work I cant trust a cheap flashlight. My daily goes through Rasputin like punishment, its a Nitecore MT20A (seems like a unicorn light, no reviews and not selling them anymore I don’t think) and its my only Nitecore and only “higher end” light I have. I think DB Custom was trying to make a similar point, if I brought my blf A6 to work and dropped in a pan of coolant or oil then accidentally dropped it of a top of a lift 3m of the concrete and then accidentally left it on high under the hood of a engine while taking a lunch break is no good. I think there is price to pay for better quality products for intended uses.
I used to buy things that were cheap
And they ended up in a trash heap
Though the choices are vast
I want something to last
’Cause the true cost of junk can be steep
I’m too poor to buy anything twice
So bad quality will not suffice
I want stuff that endures
( If I can’t borrow yours )
Buying cheap is a roll of the dice
This forum has helped me save a tremdous amount of money. The blf lights are budget. When I first started it was the sk68, then ea41, 2x tn4a nw/cw then I read on here and finally got the we x6 and was blown away. Without this forum I would have probably kept saving up to pay premium nitecore and thrunight prices I couldn’t spend 200 on a light not in my budget. But I could have 5-6 fully modded c8/x6 with different emitters. And now with the l6 with 3500 lumens for $50 and the q8 with 5k coming soon for $40 the budget is still here for us. You think if blf wasn’t involved in things like the q8 build that any manufacturer would release it for $40 blf builds in my opinion help keep budget lights. I would rather get a cheap host and let dale or djozz or someone custom build it for me then spend 80+ on a comparable name brand. The most I’ve spent on a light was the s70 for $70 and it gets used the least honestly use the l6 more and a hd2010 prototype. My cheaper well built c8/x6s get daily use. Searching for raccoons/night lights for daughters etc. To me a budget light is 20-40$ to get something that’s quality.
I think all the group buys are great. If a normally 50-60 dollar light can be brought down to 35-50 then it might have just made it available to more people’s budgets. Same with batteries or host. Every savings we can get by sticking together helps everyone out.
I see reviews for all kind of lights still cheap and expensive. But budget comes in multiple forms. Take me for example I make $10/hr at work my budget it a lot less then the guy making $25/hr. What’s budget to me and the next man will be different. Just like with the new vtc 6 batteries at $10 some people have no problem buying a pack of 10. But for me I’d rather have 32 NCR b or 24 ga or 24 30q if I had a $100 to spend on new batteries instead of 10 batteries. But that $10/battery could be in their flashlight budget money.
I still get those cheap sk68 clowns for gifts and people usually love them and talk about how bright they are. Now for $20 you can get someone a basic light. Battery and charger. A non flashlight junkie is blown away at the brightness of a $9 ultrafire c8
Actually, the most I’ve ever spent on a single light was ~$35, not counting the parts for my XP-L HI triple/FET light. The nicest (i.e., most expensive) light I even own is the NiteCore EC4 I won from YOU in a giveaway!
I came to BLF by following a post from the DX forum
I don’t get to post here about new lights as often because of the lack of the cheap/quality lights in favor of the cheap/junk lights. I actually ordered my first new lights a couple of days ago; I ordered a pair of the aluminum AAA-COB lights that have been discussed in the other thread.
To me, budget lighting is about getting something cheap, and then improving it to make it better than what is commercially available, for a much lower price.
jtc says it best up above
for the ultra cheap light there’s no love
once you add up the cost
of the features you’ve lost
the low end of the budget gets a shove
That’s being frugal. Lots of folks think frugal means cheap or being a tightwad, and maybe it is. But I’m frugal and I see it as getting the most bang for the buck. I have NEVER found merely cheap to be at all frugal. It either doesn’t last and another needs to be purchased again or is frustrating to use. Phooey on that! Life is too short to buy things that are merely inexpensive. I don’t mind spending money, but when I do I want the item to last and I want something of value for what I spend.
Case in point… 8 years ago we bought a new Frigidaire built in oven. It was frustrating to use almost immediately after it was installed. The door wasn’t right and even after getting it fixed once it soon reverted back to being a PITA. Then finally one night when we had guests over for dinner the door froze in place neither open nor closed and the food ready and the oven at 450°F. We were ready to eat, the food was ready but I couldn’t remove the food. That was the end of that oven. I destroyed the door because I just kept putting more and more pressure on it until I destroyed it. So I went online to find it’s replacement and found only one that would fit in the space and be of suitable quality to last. I was NOT going to buy another piece of junk that would only last for 7 years. The wife wanted to go to the same dealer and we did. But he showed me oven after oven that he could get, and all of them were built EXACTLY the same way as the hated Frigidaire. We finally wound up asking if he could get the Bluestar and service it for us if/when it required it. They could. It was 2x the price of the piece of garbage, but it works and it’s built like a tank; and it will last much longer than I will live. Which was the better buy?
My most expensive light was the TM16GT
Closely followed by a 18six50 modified SP03
But my favourite torch is my BLF A6 5a I love the rosy tint even more than my S41 nichia
The BLF 348 in my opinion looks great and works great for the cost.
However my most used light ( daily at work) is a beaten up Zuesray with BLF A6 driver and
XPL-Hi 3c. The first batch of Zuesray were great for $8
That’s the spirit!
When you get older you suddenly realize, Lifetime warranty only really means my lifetime, not the product and That is a great feeling!
Eff them kids today, all my junk is their problem, serves them right:)
LOL
I ordered 20-30 cheap sub $10 lights from around the web last Christmas, they were supposed to be gifts.
After they came in though I realized that I simply could not give them as gifts to those I was hoping, the quality was just that bad. Sure they turned on and made light but the beams were purple, the lumens were laughable and the quality was dismal.
I ended up giving most of those to kids and for people to use as “throw away lights” because well, thats all they were good for.
I even tried modding a few and frankly even if I took the time to do it right it would still have ended up at half the quality and performance of a basic Convoy and cost the same or more all said and done.
THAT is why I now only buy lights that are quality.
that said the most expensive lights I have ever purchased are the S70 / L6 and I love them both, WELL worth the price but it would take something truly amazing to make me spend that much again on a single light that was not a mod gone crazy setup.
Sometimes spending a little more truly is worth the extra money, sometimes it is a waste of money. The $15-$40 range is the magic point for flashlights IMHO. Below that and it is a rare find that is actually good enough to be worth the purchase.
Although I did grab a few of the ultrafire MT-12 recently on sale and have to say, I am very impressed with the quality and overall design. I look forward to modding them once I get my 22mm Drivers in.
i think most of the review are TPA third party advertising smae as on youtube most lights are provided for free and therefore they write a review. the guy who write review for a 3usd lights are rare and only a handfull guys here i read reviews of them buy then themselves.
for me if i read a USER review that means for me someone bought the light with their own money and put this light in to USE for more then a few days and after that report about his real life experience with that light. i guess thats how it really all started and then companies offered free lights for reviews so they guys started to make more reviews then using lights in real life as they got lights for free plus affiliate links plus point and other benefits and goodies from the companies but of corse this is nto what th user should know of because its still should look and feel like a real world real user review.
but still still can think for our-self and make our own pic of the situation.
Whenever there are two or more men, they start comparing. In the (very) old days when people owned next to nothing, it became a pissing contest. Later on it was the best spear, the biggest gun, the fastest horse, et cetera. And #2 wanted to achieve at least the same as what #1 had, so you get a horse-race, or an arms race. Lets translate this to flashlights. When A claims he can get 300 lumens out of an SK68, B will try to outdo him, and so on. Boys grow up, as do their toys. Except for the purists, who want to keep on modding SK68’s, there will be a tendency to migrate to bigger platforms. And bigger platforms, and/or more capable platforms, are more expensive.
There was a time when everybody wanted to mod an SK68, now we are talking quadruplets in a pure copper light about the size of an SK68. When the power of the S41 is the new standard, so is the price. Let’s face it. The good old SK68 was made in a third world country, under abysmal working conditions. Much has changed. It is unreasonable to expect that you can still buy the same light with the same quality for the same price.
So the lights have become more powerful, and more expensive. But what has happened with what you get for your money, the bang-for-the-buck. I would not be surprised if it turned out that the bang-for-the-buck is about the same, or even lower, as it used to be. And if the bang-for-the-buck for lights, common in the BLF community is significantly lower than that of the lights, common in “the other” community, we could still call it a budget-light? Final remark: the words bang-for-the-buck, value for money, are a little out of place in the peaceful BLF community. It would be more appropriate to call it the Old-Lumens-Index, or OLI (X). To remember us that the B in BLF is there for a reason.
