Worst Light You've Ever Owned

[High_Noon]

Just that. I've had a few over the years, but I don't recall the brands. What are the absolute worst lights you ever had the displeasure to own?

I see there's see there's several threads on the subject, so let's limit this to the worst LED light you've ever owned.

 

[bykfixer]

Ya know, I mulled it around my noggin for a while and cannot think of a single one……
Oh wait, there was that 2 for $10 PT something or other from an auto parts store that had the fried egg beam. After scraping the lens some it looked a lot better.

Other than that, push button, light comes out, it's ok with me.

 

[Bicycleflyer]

I bought a light at one of those big box home improvement centers with a lot of orange colors. It was a single D-cell. I don't remember if it was one of their house brands or Ray-O-Vac. But that was the worst attempt at impersonating a flashlight I have ever seen. It did nothing well. No throw at all and the worst flood pattern I have ever seen. Terrible reliability, I would say more than 50% of the time it would not come on unless you banged on it. The other 50% it would not come on at all. Just a terrible light.

 

[Burgess]

Black & Decker Snake Light !

Completely UN-protected against dust, dirt, moisture, etc !
Heavy-Duty, my A$$ !

 

[bustedrudder]

Any light with a strobe I can't disable

 

[ledbetter]

Maglites(the only one I have left is with a Malkoff drop in), anything made in the PRC with an electronic switch, and anything with a bulb.

 

[vicv]

Maglites(the only one I have left is with a Malkoff drop in), anything made in the PRC with an electronic switch, and anything with a bulb.

That covers a lot of ground

 

[WarriorOfLight]

In my case it was the Nitecore SR3 years ago. Great light but the Magnet ring bug was annoying. I paid a lot of Money and got a light that was not worth this.

 

[knucklegary]

I'm enjoying my ML revival. Never really had any switch issues except for rubber boots cracking.. The twisty head on/off of ML25lt is the bees knees. 2C compact size fits right into my back pocket.. Also, they offer an assorted ano colors, and make excellent presents. For around 20 bucks what's not to like?

 

[Monocrom]

This is going to be a two-way tie, going all the way back in the day....

1) Night-Ops Gladius.

This was a light about 15 years ahead of its time. Mine was stock. So, 80 lumens at the emitter. The concept for the design though was excellent.... except for that utterly garbage after-thought of a tailcap switch. It's like they spared no expense to make a SureFire Killer. But then ran out of money once they got to the tailcap switch. So, cheap plastic junk tossed onto the light. One, you can't even simply unscrew the tailcap to swap out the cells. There's a whole procedure involved. Get it wrong, you risk breaking the tailcap. Also, parasitic drain from the tailcap! The Gladius would ultimately represent a dead-end in flashlight evolution. When Night-Ops dropped it from their catalog, it would be replaced with a very conventional and very cheap re-branded, generic Made in China flashlight.

So, one night, I head out in the security patrol vehicle to get food at a nearby deli. (And yes, made sure to get permission first before heading out in the Security SUV.) Get my food, get in, turn the key, everything shorts out. So, I call for assistance. Another security officer comes out. We pop the hood to see what could be wrong. His light is tiny and weak. Out comes my Gladius. Took it to work for the first and last time that night. Output horribly dim. Cells should have been good. Then the light dies on me. Out comes my back-up light. Fenix L0D Rebel 80. (Thankfully, my emitter was good. That whole Rebel 80 thing is a separate scandal.) One of the absolute best single-AAA LED lights you could get when the L0D first hit the scene. Where the Gladius failed, my Fenix got the job done when it counted. Still have both lights. I'll give up my L0D when hell freezes over and Satan starts handing out free snowcones!

2) Pelican PM6 3330 LED.

"Garbage" is not even remotely good enough to describe this light. I owned it for about 10 or 15 minutes until the warped plastic body made it clear that inserting cells was going to be literally impossible! Outside of the body was fine. Inside was a completely different story. Plus, since I took it out of the packaging, I couldn't return it to the store I bought it from literally around the corner from where I dumped the pieces into a public garbage can! Pelican does make good lights. But this model is not one of them.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

I think it's a toss up between the 7 l.e.d. 4AA Streamlight PolyPro flashlight and the Lumapower Encore flashlight.

Going through the first set of batteries, the Streamlight PolyPro worked fine. Shortly after that, the l.e.d.s rapidly burned out one by one until the light didn't work anymore. I think it was completely dead after three or four battery sets. L.e.d.s are supposed to last way longer than bulbs. This light couldn't even do that.

The Lumapower Encore arrived d.o.a. Had to spend money out of my pocket to send it back. When I got the new one, it worked at first. I wanted to remove the clip and change the switch which involved taking the light apart. It came with instructions to do this. I saw that the switch contacts were made from a lousy bent staple. No wonder the last one was d.o.a. I tried to be careful with the light after finding out how lousy and delicate it was built, but I accidentally dropped it about a foot while going up stairs. The light died. I sent it back asking that they replace it with an Olight model instead. The light never made it back to the company. The postal service shipped it to the wrong address. I had insured the package, but they said that only covers damage or loss during delivery. Since it was delivered, the insurance was useless. I never bought another Lumapower light again. I prefer not to use the Postal Service for sending back damaged things or things under warrantee as well.

 

[High_Noon]

I purchased one of the early LED lights (also from the orange home center) - I believe it was a Coast or Coastal brand that had the plastic insert for 3 AA batteries. Dismal performance, and had a throw you could easily outrun and a flood you could barely see. My 3 D-cell MagLight with Xenon bulb was leagues better.

I believe this was around 20 years ago and it was one of a handful of readily available LED lights at the time.

This was my first foray into LED lights and I was so disappointed that I did not purchase another LED light until about 2016 or so. At that time I conducted some research and ended up with a Sunwayman Tomahawk C20C (18650) which I used aboard a Navy research vessel in the S. Pacific for a couple of months. I reasoned it would be good to have if I got pitched overboard in the middle of the night, although I used it for other tasks as well. I still have it and use it daily. Great light.

 

[thermal guy]

The right angle Fulton military light I got in basic training/airborne. Way to much to go into what was wrong with it but it was junk! I got a few others after I left the service but they were also very disappointing.

 

[Bicycleflyer]

Black & Decker Snake Light !

Completely UN-protected against dust, dirt, moisture, etc !
Heavy-Duty, my A$$ !

It's funny you say that. My late father in law truly believed that the pinnacle of flashlight evolution stopped at the snake light. He swore by it. So much so that he couldn't even appreciate a good quality light when given one. But that's another story for another time.

 

[Megalamuffin]

It's funny you say that. My late father in law truly believed that the pinnacle of flashlight evolution stopped at the snake light. He swore by it. So much so that he couldn't even appreciate a good quality light when given one. But that's another story for another time.

The 18v dewalt snake light was quite good. My dad was still using an old one at work until 2015 or so. I believe he still has it and it still works.

 

[bristle]

Worst light by far was the Manker E11!

I have several of these and all of them failed to work with very little use!!

Problem seems to be switch related which is a fairly common issue with this light apparently (based on reviews/comments elsewhere).

 

[Kitchen Panda]

Worst light that I ever purchased was a Titanium Innovations AL3 keychain light - powered by a single disposable triple A. It was bright and reasonably reliable for a while, till it wasn't. I was particularly annoyed that I had bought one for my wife's use and it, too, failed early. Two lights, no more than a year or two old, dead. And only a 90 day warranty.

But the worst light ever, in the sense of failing to meet even modest objectives of reliability and illumination, was a give-away three triple-A fly-eye light given by the auto dealership as part of a promotion for an oil change. I had a couple of better lights in the car, but I though I'd throw it in the glove box in case some poor soul needed to borrow a light some day. Plus, cool, it has the same logo as the car. On one of my regular "waiting in the car so might as well keep busy" inspections, I found this light had completely dismantled itself - tailcap had come off, battery clip fell out, and the head had also unscrewed. Pieces everywhere. This was not after a month of off-roading in a 4x4 but after only a few weeks on (what our city calls) paved roads. Gathered up all the pieces I could find (there may still be parts rolling around in that car) and tossed them all, except for the fly-eye LED array that I saved in the junk box.

 

[bykfixer]

I've never had a "worst" light.
In my view (wait for it)







even bad lights aint bad these days.

 

[RayMiller]

I had two maglight solitaires. A white one in 2017 and a red one in 2021. Both would work for about 45 seconds then they would turn off. You could turn it off for a couple of seconds and turn it back on for like 5 seconds... Repeat cycling on and off until you find your good flashlight. I assume it was a heat regulation problem.

 

[Rossymeister]

Photon freedom micro. Ive had 2 where the switch was erratic after changing the batteries. Total junk. Ended up tossing them.