SilverFox
Flashaholic
Hello Bushman,
Rest assured that you are not alone in your experience or views.
All hobbies tend to get expensive. You start off thinking that you will only go a little ways into the hobby, then the allure of it draws you deeper than you planned.
Flashlights are kind of a fun hobby. You can play around with a wide variety of lights, but those custom mod's have a way of sucking you in. Once you bow down to the temptation to get one of them, you are then afraid to use the light for fear of breaking it or loosing it.
You then have to step back and review what you are doing.
I have a custom light that I use for work. I carry it in the hammer loop of my Carhart pants. My pants wore out and I got a new pair. I didn't realize that the hammer loop had to shrink a little to hold my light. I am walking down the road, drop my expensive custom light into the loop and after a couple of steps hear a clunk on the pavement. I look back and there sits my beautiful light, with some new "character" marks on it. Fortunately, in this case the light still worked.
Your experience with batteries has been shared by quite a few people. It also drives some flashlight manufacturers to gravitate toward building lights that are designed around primary cells only.
The other think that you have to keep in mind is that many of us started out using D cell lights. We evolved into C and AA lights, and have just recently moved into lithium and Li-Ion powered lights. In my case, I found the D cell lights a little too heavy. C cell lights were better, but still a little big. AA lights were great, but sometimes the performance was lacking. Moving to rechargeable cells made sense when I started building up a large pile of dead Alkaline cells. The move to lithium and Li-Ion powered lights gave me improved performance and smaller packages.
I get a lot of pleasure from my lights, but my progression has been a little slower. I have taken some time at each stage of my evolution to see if what I currently had was good enough, or if the latest "wiz bang" light could offer me something that I am currently lacking.
Your Pelican light is a good light. When you wear it out and go to replace it, you may take some time to consider any weaknesses you discovered using it and upgrade from there.
A lot of us get caught up in the latest and greatest light, but when everything settles down, the main purpose of a flashlight is to light something up in the dark. You can illuminate things with both expensive and inexpensive lights.
One of the things I have found very beneficial is studying the various reviews that are posted. I will often take my lights out and try to duplicate the conditions of the review to see if the light being reviewed is actually better than the one I am currently using.
Tom
Rest assured that you are not alone in your experience or views.
All hobbies tend to get expensive. You start off thinking that you will only go a little ways into the hobby, then the allure of it draws you deeper than you planned.
Flashlights are kind of a fun hobby. You can play around with a wide variety of lights, but those custom mod's have a way of sucking you in. Once you bow down to the temptation to get one of them, you are then afraid to use the light for fear of breaking it or loosing it.
You then have to step back and review what you are doing.
I have a custom light that I use for work. I carry it in the hammer loop of my Carhart pants. My pants wore out and I got a new pair. I didn't realize that the hammer loop had to shrink a little to hold my light. I am walking down the road, drop my expensive custom light into the loop and after a couple of steps hear a clunk on the pavement. I look back and there sits my beautiful light, with some new "character" marks on it. Fortunately, in this case the light still worked.
Your experience with batteries has been shared by quite a few people. It also drives some flashlight manufacturers to gravitate toward building lights that are designed around primary cells only.
The other think that you have to keep in mind is that many of us started out using D cell lights. We evolved into C and AA lights, and have just recently moved into lithium and Li-Ion powered lights. In my case, I found the D cell lights a little too heavy. C cell lights were better, but still a little big. AA lights were great, but sometimes the performance was lacking. Moving to rechargeable cells made sense when I started building up a large pile of dead Alkaline cells. The move to lithium and Li-Ion powered lights gave me improved performance and smaller packages.
I get a lot of pleasure from my lights, but my progression has been a little slower. I have taken some time at each stage of my evolution to see if what I currently had was good enough, or if the latest "wiz bang" light could offer me something that I am currently lacking.
Your Pelican light is a good light. When you wear it out and go to replace it, you may take some time to consider any weaknesses you discovered using it and upgrade from there.
A lot of us get caught up in the latest and greatest light, but when everything settles down, the main purpose of a flashlight is to light something up in the dark. You can illuminate things with both expensive and inexpensive lights.
One of the things I have found very beneficial is studying the various reviews that are posted. I will often take my lights out and try to duplicate the conditions of the review to see if the light being reviewed is actually better than the one I am currently using.
Tom
