Your Oldest LED Flashlight?

[zespectre]

Good thread idea.


Not sure what years these are from:

L to R:
A Brinkmann Long Life my father in law gave me for fixing his (brighter) 4C Maglite, a 65 lumen Pentagon L2 that has a suprisingly good beam, an early minimag LED, an early LED Lenser V2 triple (with a whopping 12 purple lumens), and a Pelican 2390 that also has a surprisingly good beam.

Not shown are the ARC aaa LE (nip), an nip 3 watt minimag, a 65 lumen SureFire G2L and an nip Coast/LED Lenser turbo torch with an amazing 50 lumen turbo.
The bykfixer museum has set out to acquire a few early production, trend setting LED lights from the days when a light bulb was brighter, yet LED lights were starting to show up in stores.
The LED Lenser V2 triple was my bedside table lamp for years. No idea where I got it, but when I arrived here it got retired in exchange for a Malkoff MD2 set on low then an Elzetta Alpha with a hi/lo switch that stayed on low. But I use the Pentagon and Pelican often.

Oh snap. I forgot about the Gen 1 Inovas... emmisive energy owned X1, X3 and X5... I have some early Nite Ize owned versions still nip as well. But my favorite is the 85 lumen X1. That's a goody.

I have one of those Generation 2 Brinkman Longlife lights too, and an inova x3 someplace, and a Radiant (with a failed switch) somewhere as well that I totally forgot about until now.

 

[harro]

My old TK11Q5 was my first serious light, from about '07 - '08, a 2 x aa led Mag from about '06, i think, and a couple of LL's before that ( and all still going strong, albeit well outclassed now ).

 

[Rexlion]

My oldest LED light is also a fluorescent light! It's a combo flashlight from Eveready that I bought around the turn of the century. The LED is pretty weak, maybe about 2 lumens. Let me see if the photo shows up...

[/IMG]

Here is the fluorescent tube output. The 3 position switch is forward for LED, middle for off, back for the tube.

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[Timothybil]

I had a later version of that light where the LED was brighter, the side light was a CFL. It was also a little straighter since you could stand it on its front and use it as a lantern. Nice light, I wish it hadn't ran away from home.

 

[puglife]

a Fenix TK70, collecting dust for now

 

[CandleLite]

[/URL]

One of my first LED flashlights that still functions and was still in use till a few months ago is a Dorcy 4-led 2AA. I bought in 2005-6 when led lights just started becoming available. It probable pushes out all of 6-8 lumens but has been handy for its size and the fact that it always seemed to work. It has a momentary rear non-clicky that you keep pressed, or tighten the cap for continuous light. We have come a long way since then.

 

[xxo]

I had a crack at one of the prototypes of the ASP back in the summer. Pre-production sample from Don Kellers personal collection. Yup, that guy was involved in ASP as well and was one of the first to believe in the virtue of the LED in its infancy.

I should have guessed Mr. Keller had a hand in this! I don't know what the first LED flashlight was, but I think this was the first one that I saw and bought it on impulse. Not a bad keychain light in most ways for the time (nicer than a Photon I but bulkier) but I found the red colored LED to be of limited utility......it sucked for things like tracing colored wires and reading maps with red markings (newer military maps were redesigned to allow them to be used with red light). I had a amber colored Photon before white LEDs came out that seemed slightly better for color rendition and when white Photons finally came out I got a bunch of them.
I can't remember exactly when I got the ASP, early to mid 90's maybe? I think it was before ASP came out with the blue colored LED (if I remember right all of the early LED lights were red, followed by blue and than others like green and finally the first "white" LEDs).

 

[bykfixer]

Maglite drop-ins circa 2006

Kel-Lite drop-in prototype
As far as I know these never went into production.

The one shown is #13 of 14 circa 2003.

 

[Lurveleven]

My first was an Elektrolumens Tri Star Phazer bought in 2004:
http://elektrolumens.com/Tri_Star_Phazer/Tri-Star-Phazer.html

216 lumens but I believe that was lumens at the emitters and not out the front. Still have it and it still works, but I think the tint has shifted a bit, noticed it already after a couple of years, it had a quite purple tint when I got, now it pretty tintless. You still can go to the store and buy LED lights that perform worse than this 13 years later!

But I had headlamps using LEDs before this, my first was Petzl Duobelt. The Duo design is from 1996 (originally with 2 halogen bulbs), I don't know when they introduced the LED modules, but it must have been before 2003. And guess what, Petzl is still making this light and still with those 5mm leds :sick2:

 

[LGT]

Fenix PD30. Bought it about eleven years ago. I was just blown away by the amount of light (265 lumens) the light put out. Just took it outside, still has a decent throw for what it is.

 

[StarHalo]

Stop making me feel old..

 

[Burgess]

Interesting thread here !


lovecpf



My very first "power LED" flashlight
was purchased from Bright Guy in Ohio,
via mail order, and arrived 3/31/2006.

It was a Streamlight ProPolymer Luxeon
4AA in yellow and black.

It had been very highly rated in
"The Flashlight Review" website,
so I decided to give it a chance.
Wanted to see if it would be bright enough
to replace a REAL flashlight,
such as a 2-D cell model, with PR-2 bulb.


Well, I inserted the 4 alkaline batteries,
and turned on the switch . . . .

* W O W * ! ! !

What an Amazingly Bright White Beam ! ! !
:wow:


Rated at 40 Lumens,
this nice, tight beam was almost
TOO BRIGHT for use inside my house !

Gave incredible performance outdoors !

Certainly passed my test for being
able to hold its own against a
2-D cell / PR-2 bulb flashlight !



I will never forget that day !

For YEARS afterwards, I kept wishing
(and even posting here on CPF)
that Streamlight would bring out a new model
with a Low Mode setting.
(perhaps 25% of maximum)

But, sadly -- they never did . . . .
:-(

Other manufacturers, however,
have certainly answered that call.

What an exciting time
to be a Flashaholic !

:twothumbs
_

 

[Boris74]

CMG Infinity Ultra. It was my walk out to the hunting spot light for 2 solid decades year after year up until this year. Olight H1R dethroned it. Much more flood, neutral white, same 2 lumens on low. Oh and it runs 6 days straight instead of the lowly 100 hours at them lumens.

 

[joelbnyc]

From ~2006-2012, pre-finding CPF, I usually had a tiny coast/led lenser like this on my keychain:

 

[SG1]

Hi folks,

my oldest LED Light is a photon light. It does still see use by the wife. After that it is my klarus xt11 and she uses that as well:huh:

 

[Bicycleflyer]

My oldest LED is a Princeton Tec impact and a impact 2. I also have an " Everled " installed in one of my D cell lights.

 

[richbuff]

1. Your Oldest LED Flashlight?

2. What was your first LED light?

3. What was the LED light that started your light addiction?

4. What was your first real high performance LED light?

1. Brinkmann LED light. I still have it. Rear clicky that was easily actuated with tongue tip in mouth hold. I bought it in 2001 and used it to do 15 minute beadchecks when on overnite shift when I was night staff supervisor at the local secure facility for extreme at risk teenage girls. Topics such as this topic bring back memories fairly regularly when such topics come up.

2. Same as above.

3. Four-sevens MMU-X3. Ultra classic, but I had to have moar power.

4. Niwalker MM15. Another ultra classic, it gave me more power, but I had to have moar and moar power.

 

[TinderBox (UK)]

I bought this many years ago, It has 4 5mm led`s and runs on 3AA, It has "longlite.com" written on the side and the website is still open.

Does anybody know when this flashlight came out??

EDIT: I found it, see link below, It`s came out in 2005, So it`s 12 years old.

http://www.flashlightmuseum.com/Lig...ssic2000-with-4-LED-Head-and-Lanyard-3AA-2005

John.

 

[degarb]

My oldest LED flashlight is a red LED keychain light. I forget the manufacturer. Maybe it was Tekna. It has a cylindrical plastic body with a titanium sleeve. The keychain mount comes out the back center of the light. Twisting the keychain mount turns the light on. It's powered by 3 button-cell batteries. Light source is a single 10mm red LED. When turned on, the light produces a very dim red beam. Beam pattern is pretty ugly. It consists of a square surrounded by a circle with no spill.

The illumination is so weak its best use is illuminating a keyhole in a door, though the beam pattern is narrow enough to project maybe 15'. Not sure of the total output, but my guess is a few lumens.

I got this light in 1989 or 1990. Back then white LED lights didn't exist. Even this red LED light was unique. This light also predates all the tiny plastic keychain LED lights with 5mm LEDs.

I still have this light and it still works.

Now, this post was done correctly. For an interesting thread, old means before 2005. So, <2005, post year came out, lumens, and year purchased.

The CC Craine Company was advertising white led flashlights on the Art Bell C2C show in 1998 or 1999. Callers claimed 60 hour runtime. At the time I was using $4 keychain incan squeeze lights from cvs, to get tools out of vehicle during night work. (So, for $20-$40, I could buy enough hands free-using teeth-squeeze lights for every glovebox, house drawer, and pocket. I never saw incan bright enough or with enough runtime to use over a 12 hour night shift,though by 2003 i realize the headlamp need.... Then, in 2004 or early 2005, a npr article claimed 10x efficiency for led over incan. A lie, but not for long. So, I laid down a few hundred for a few Brinkman lux 1 headlamps, batteries, chargers, and aa mods, in October 2005. The 1200 to 600 candela lights were a huge boost in productivity. Probably 29 lumens on fresh 3aa at 340 ma. So, 2 year old 2003 technology, typical for a brick store.

I didn't realize that led tech was exponentially moving forward, until the Brinkman lux 1 was discontinued in my area stores, roughly Octoberish of 2007, with nothing on shelf to replace it. Then, I started researching led emitters, realizing how far behind the 29 lpw lux 1's were, even back in 2005. Still, it took years to ween myself away from the impulse purchase of the latest $20 b&m store light. I have built up enough disdain that my defenses are high enough to avoid most of these, nowadays.

 

[Hoodzy98]

Im Only 19, but this was the first high output light i bought with a rechargeable 18650 battery i think when i was 13/14 just getting into Flashlights
The light is a Heider CFX rated at 700 meters throw, but its obviously not true haha, still works but i never use it now because of the better lights i now have lol.