Power on board HID flashlight

[LIGHTSMAD]

Does anyone still use these…..I bought this on here about 10 years ago and never used it….I put a new battery in last week and it works fine the beam is nice and it's like brand new not a single mark on the lens…I cannot find the charging cable but I just charge the battery out of the light….should I keep this or are they gone out of fashion…maybe led will be a better option nowadays….I seen on on eBay for $495 few years ago what the hell 😳 how much are they worth now?
Can put up real pics of it if anyone wants a look

 

[idleprocess]

There were a number of variants of this design. I purchased a similar unit a something like 15 years ago - Tiger Direct if I recall. Didn't throw quite like the "Costco HID" I also had at the time, but was significantly handier. Probably still sitting in storage in fact...

No idea on the market value. Appears that in the US Costco had them on firesale for US $20 each near the end of their production. Likely not a collectible item at this point in time.

 

[LIGHTSMAD]

$20 wow amazing Idd buy a load for that price 😂

 

[PoliceScannerMan]

Awesome lights, had a few throw like hell. What a time that was when LED's were pushing 80 lumens lol.

 

[LIGHTSMAD]

Awesome lights, had a few throw like hell. What a time that was when LED's were pushing 80 lumens lol.

😂

 

[XeRay]

I still had one from Sam's Club but I gave it away a few months ago (still working & with charger).
I think I paid maybe $50 for it on "clearance" about 16 years ago.
35 watt HID worked pretty well for the price.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Got mine from Sam's Club's auction site. About $15-20 each plus about that much for shipping. They are great lights. They will throw a beam a good 10 miles. Don't know any l.e.d. light that will do that. They also stay at full brightness for 70 minutes. L.e.d.s that bright dim down in seconds. I wouldn't say they are outdated. Bulky and heavy, yes. But they are great for offroading adventures and search and rescue.

 

[Magio]

Got mine from Sam's Club's auction site. About $15-20 each plus about that much for shipping. They are great lights. They will throw a beam a good 10 miles. Don't know any l.e.d. light that will do that. They also stay at full brightness for 70 minutes. L.e.d.s that bright dim down in seconds. I wouldn't say they are outdated. Bulky and heavy, yes. But they are great for offroading adventures and search and rescue.

Yeah there arent any handheld flashlights that are capable of throwing 10miles. Even the Maxabeam doesn't come close to reaching that range. And there are quite a few LED flashlights that can maintain 3500 lumens for 70min or the full runtime offered by their batteries, but probably would cost significantly more than those HID's at like $50 or so dollars. LED technology has come a long ways nowadays.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Handheld l.e.d. lights do not maintain 3000+ lumens for any duration. They all dim down to a degree unless they have massive heat sinking (then they are no longer handheld). You can spread out the heat with more l.e.d.s and lose throw to get a floodlight in exchange for a spotlight (get the lumens but not the throw), or you can put a brick sized heat sink on a good l.e.d. and get 4,000+ lumens that may get you a mile of throw. Few, if any lights do this so they all dim down to save weight, bulk, and cost. H.I.D. spotlights are still basically in a league of their own. My Milwaukee 3000 lumen 18 volt floodlight will maintain 3000 lumens with a brick sized heat sink, but will burn through 10 18650s in 2.5 hours. That's a realistic size and power source for current l.e.d. technology, but has no throw.

Nitecore E4K 4400 lumen light dims down after 20-25 seconds. That is about standard for what you'll see of l.e.d. lights over 3000 lumens. Turbo that lasts seconds. A setting around 1,000-1,300 lumens that lasts maybe a few minutes, then a 300-500 lumen setting that the light has the heat sinking to maintain for the duration of the battery life. Don't be fooled into thinking any compact l.e.d. flashlight running on a single 21700 cell is going to hold brightness over 3,000 lumens for more than a minute, if that.

 

[Terrywhite]

Imalent made a version of the DT70 that had and extra level of 3000 lumen.
You could easily run it on 3000 for until it was drained without any step down.
Steps were 80, 1000, 3000, 8000 and turbo of 16 thousand.
These are much harder to locate as they are no longer in production.

 

[LIGHTSMAD]

Imalent made a version of the DT70 that had and extra level of 3000 lumen.
You could easily run it on 3000 for until it was drained without any step down.
Steps were 80, 1000, 3000, 8000 and turbo of 16 thousand.
These are much harder to locate as they are no longer in production.

Does it step down sooner than the LR50R ?

 

[Magio]

Handheld l.e.d. lights do not maintain 3000+ lumens for any duration. They all dim down to a degree unless they have massive heat sinking (then they are no longer handheld). You can spread out the heat with more l.e.d.s and lose throw to get a floodlight in exchange for a spotlight (get the lumens but not the throw), or you can put a brick sized heat sink on a good l.e.d. and get 4,000+ lumens that may get you a mile of throw. Few, if any lights do this so they all dim down to save weight, bulk, and cost. H.I.D. spotlights are still basically in a league of their own. My Milwaukee 3000 lumen 18 volt floodlight will maintain 3000 lumens with a brick sized heat sink, but will burn through 10 18650s in 2.5 hours. That's a realistic size and power source for current l.e.d. technology, but has no throw.

Nitecore E4K 4400 lumen light dims down after 20-25 seconds. That is about standard for what you'll see of l.e.d. lights over 3000 lumens. Turbo that lasts seconds. A setting around 1,000-1,300 lumens that lasts maybe a few minutes, then a 300-500 lumen setting that the light has the heat sinking to maintain for the duration of the battery life. Don't be fooled into thinking any compact l.e.d. flashlight running on a single 21700 cell is going to hold brightness over 3,000 lumens for more than a minute, if that.

You're are way behind the times man. There are plenty of LED lights than can maintain far more than 3-500 lumens for the duration of the battery and can throw just as far as HID and are handheld.

 

[LIGHTSMAD]

You're are way behind the times man. There are plenty of LED lights than can maintain far more than 3-500 lumens for the duration of the battery and can throw just as far as HID and are handheld.

Are they batter than the LR50R as in the step down I don't like or should I even wait a few year until they get better developed…I have a MH23 which does the job and a V6 but wanted a bit of a monster output for now but can wait

 

[LIGHTSMAD]

Are they batter than the LR50R as in the step down I don't like or should I even wait a few year until they get better developed…I have a MH23 which does the job and a V6 but wanted a bit of a monster output for now but can wait

I want flood n throw and don't mind the step down but not after few seconds no budget here so what ever is the best I'll buy

 

[XeRay]

Yeah there arent any handheld flashlights that are capable of throwing 10miles. Even the Maxabeam doesn't come close to reaching that range. And there are quite a few LED flashlights that can maintain 3500 lumens for 70min or the full runtime offered by their batteries, but probably would cost significantly more than those HID's at like $50 or so dollars. LED technology has come a long ways nowadays.

He probably means it can be seen by others pointed towards them from about 10 miles, this is more than possible.

 

[idleprocess]

Found mine. Mercifully pulled the battery before storing it. Cleaned it up and moved it inside. Forget if I still have the bespoke charger.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

He probably means it can be seen by others pointed towards them from about 10 miles, this is more than possible.

No, the beam makes it ten miles under the right weather conditions. I tried it out once at a campground in Independence, CA (high desert area) once. I shined the light up at the peak of the nearest high Sierra Nevadas mountaintop in November. The beam lit up the peak about ten miles away. The only person up there hiking in the cold that night signaled back with their headlight. I recognized it as a Petzl Myo XP.

By the way, I'm not behind the times. I said for l.e.d.s you had to spread out the heat with more l.e.d.s (sacrificing throw) like the Imalent or use one l.e.d. with a large heat sink and you'd get maybe a mile with the best throwing l.e.d. (Luminus SBT-90 GEN 2 l.e.d.). With l.e.d.s there is going to be a compromise for size and weight vs. how long the light will hold at a high setting. Some of the Imalents use cooling fans as well as some heat sinking to cool the lights at higher settings, but turbo settings are still limited to seconds. That Imalent appears to be a pop can sized light (4 18650). Not what I would consider handheld. It's a compromise of bulk for heatsinking and good brightness. A one cell 18650 or 21700 handheld light is going to be limited to maintaining 300-800 lumens due to the amount of metal it has as a heat sink (larger turbo head lights may do better). You might get okay runtime at 3000 lumens with it. I only trust my 4000 lumen Nitecore Tiny Monster to run about 5 minutes before risking damage to the batteries. At 16000 lumens, you will only get seconds, and it still won't throw as good as an H.I.D. spotlight.

 

[idleprocess]

No, the beam makes it ten miles under the right weather conditions. I tried it out once at a campground in Independence, CA (high desert area) once. I shined the light up at the peak of the nearest high Sierra Nevadas mountaintop in November. The beam lit up the peak about ten miles away. The only person up there hiking in the cold that night signaled back with their headlight. I recognized it as a Petzl Myo XP.

By the way, I'm not behind the times. I said for l.e.d.s you had to spread out the heat with more l.e.d.s (sacrificing throw) like the Imalent or use one l.e.d. with a large heat sink and you'd get maybe a mile with the best throwing l.e.d. (Luminus SBT-90 GEN 2 l.e.d.). With l.e.d.s there is going to be a compromise for size and weight vs. how long the light will hold at a high setting. Some of the Imalents use cooling fans as well as some heat sinking to cool the lights at higher settings, but turbo settings are still limited to seconds. At 3000 lumens, let's say with that amount of heat the light is operating at around 100 lumens/watt. That's 30 watts. A 5 amp 21700 battery, if it can maintain full power for the duration would last maybe 40 minutes, probably less. I'm guessing the Imalent light isn't a small handheld like a Nitecore E4K (probably heavier with larger heat sink).

It's hypothetically possible to realize HID-like output + throw with a single LED, however the size, mass, complexity, and power consumption (for active cooling) would likely be off-putting for a market accustomed to small lights with good runtime at lower levels and tens of seconds of "wow" levels of output before thermal throttling kicks in.

Imalent DT70 looks to be a "beer can" form factor (4x 18650) setup for flood work (4x XHP70 LEDs with merged/interrupted reflectors). Not sure what output level it can sustain, but I expect it to manage considerably more than say an Emisar D4.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

I just edited my post after looking up the specs of the Imalent DT70 light. I realized it is not a handheld light as I would consider it (21700, 18650, maybe even 26650 and smaller) but a pop can light. These lights are a bit bigger than handheld, but have more metal for heatsinking and more power 4 vs. 1 cell. I realize you can reach over 3,000 lumens with l.e.d. You still can't outthrow an H.I.D. spotlight with one. You can outpower one with a flood of lumens for short durations, but it's hard to match a single light source that isn't affected by heat focused by a huge reflector.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

If you guys want a thrower light to replace H.I.D., l.e.d. isn't going to cut it. We need flashlight companies to make L.E.P. (light emitting plasma) spotlights. This technology has been around for a decade. It takes a lot of power and puts it in a bulb the size of a grain of rice. I think now with advances in lithium ion technology we can take more advantage of this in our lights if companies would just make them. Here is a video of a company that made the bulbs and tested it in a light from 2011.