When does it end???

sawlight

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
Messages
617
I am but a novice, I always carried minimags and was happy. I started converting them to LED, they where great, but could not stand up to the punishment of a two year old (and my wife letting him) beating them on a hardwood floor! Nite eze and two versions of luxeons, all failed. I have a Streamlight TT 3 aa, nice light, but hard to carry in a pocket, great in my truck!! More D Mags than I care to count seldom used anymore BTW. I purchased a SF E2W on close out, loved it, but wanted a clickie, thats done, I love this light, and my two year old has yet to hurt it, impressive!!! I just bought a SF L1 and have it comming, love the durability of LED, and think an ARC AAA would just be the cats meow, hand size, easy cheap batteries. And would make a great backup if I forgot batteries for one of the SF's.
Then I keep finding myself dran to the HDS lights listed for sale!! I dont understand my fascination with these lights, they are entirely to expensive to be practical for my use. EDC as a contractor, lost/misplaced and beaten hard!!! I am already wearing the anodizing off of my E2W only after two months. But yet I feel the NEED for one.
Then I look in the mod section and see all the things that are being done to the Mags, so I think "Gee, here sit all these lights, what could I have done to them?"
Does this ever end, or do I need to finish my transaction, and loose the link to this site? Am I doomed to be a flashaholic? I rember when I first started reading this forum and laughing at some of you when you counted out carrying 10-12 lights on you all the time! I am afraid I am becoming that way now!!!
HELP!!!!!!!
 

redledz

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Feb 10, 2007
Messages
85
Location
NE
It's scary too when you buy a light on impulse and it surprises you. You think, this light is not like people said it was! So now your resistance to buying a light has just become weaker! Even if you don't need it, like the styling, the runtime, or the twisty/clickie...it will call your name like a screaming child!!
 

MacTech

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Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
927
Location
Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, Earth, USA, New England
Heh, it was proposed elswhere here that flashlights should be torture tested by letting young children play with them, if a light can handle being bashed around by a 2 year old, it should be able to take anything....

that said, I wouldn't let a child play with *any* of my expensive SureFires, especially not a rare Winelight series, i have some cheapo plastic lights with MJLED's in them that i let my niece and nephew borrow, however, Logan (my 4 yr old nephew) always manages to find my Minimags with the Nite Ize 3 LED upgrades and plays with them, he likes them better than the plastic lights, Sage, (my 2 yr old niece), happily plays with the plastic lights, she hasn't discovered "better" lights yet....

that said, there's no way in Hades that *either* of them will touch any of my SureFires, not until they're older and can appreciate nice lights, besides, given the uncontrollable urge one has to look into a illuminated flashlight, to "see how bright it is", my SureFires are too bright for their young eyes

why not get your kid his own plastic light, maybe a shakelight, something that can make use of all that kinetic energy, it'd save wear-and-tear on your precious SureFires.....

as far as leaving CPF, and escaping the "Curse of the Flashaholic"?, i'm afraid it's already too late, you came in, you posted a thread, you're infected now, resistance is futile..... ;)
 

Alteran

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 19, 2007
Messages
345
Location
Where the grass is blue, up is down, and hamburger
Quick! You must leave this website, and never return! Block it from your computer, and go to a hypnotist to try and forget! Throw away all of your good lights, keep only the Mags! No LED upgrades too, just the basic incandescents! You're just in the early stages of flashaholism, you can still make it! Leave! We are doomed, but you can live a normal life, if you get out now! Good luck, brave seoul. Oh no! Look at that! I'm getting worse... I see a light at the end of a tunnel... What's that? Buy out old L1s? But I can't afford it...gah, can't resist! Helppp... Meeee...
 

sawlight

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
Messages
617
My kid has his own light my wife this it's funny to give him mine and laughs when it gets boken!! (they are stored out of his reach) Not happy about that at all!! As far as the rareity of the winelight, I got mine on a close out through LA Police gear and I saw it as an oportunity to buy into a good light for cheap. I bought it for use, not the pretty factor!! (Sorry to all of you purists out there!) I see lights as tools, to be used, they may not look pretty at the end of the day, but thye function fine, and that matters most to me! That is probably the main reason I don't have an HDS yet actually!
 

big beam

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 14, 2006
Messages
521
Location
upstate ny
fnmag said:
When does it end, he querries? When they're tossing dirt onto your coffin! :devil:


Yeah but it's dark in there.I have it in my will that I need me and a hotwire in my coffin!(it's cold in there to)
DON
 

Tightgroup

Newly Enlightened
Joined
May 31, 2006
Messages
78
Location
DFW,Tx
big beam said:
Yeah but it's dark in there.I have it in my will that I need me and a hotwire in my coffin!(it's cold in there to)
DON
Good point, I need to let my Wife know that which lights to include in the coffin! :ohgeez:


Todd
 

xobloof

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
20
Location
Oregon
Re: When does it end???

Eventually you spend $399 on an M6 and your wife kills you.
 

customh

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 25, 2007
Messages
192
I hope I never see the day when I spend more than 150 in one plunk on a single light.
There. That doesn't limit the amount of modding I do. :D
 

Oddjob

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 24, 2006
Messages
2,175
Location
London, Ontario, Canada
I think it will at least slow down when you find the light that meets your needs and makes other lights not as appealing. I have to say that when I started last year I was buying new lights quite frequently. After I got my HDS U60 XRGT and McLux III PD, I have not bought any other lights for myself. I do admit that I bought and tried a couple of new ones here and there but I sold them pretty quick. Hopefully you will find the one or two lights that will slow you down (I say slow down because it can never really stop).
 

kelmo

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 27, 2004
Messages
3,092
Location
Sacramento
TORCH is right...

I just got another light that I really didn't need, an E2e. Never mind that I aready have 3 (E2D, E2O, and E2). After I ordered it I had buyers remorse. But when I checked online and found out it was delivered I came to work on my day off just to pick it up. What buyer's remorse?! It replaces the 6P in my backpack. Now the 6P and full SC1 is now in my vacation luggage. I will be spending 22 days in Turkey traveling with my lovely wife next month and I needed a bright "just in case" light. If the 6P is lost, stolen, confiscated or gifted, it will not kill me, although it would suck royally (unless of course I gave it away, sometimes you have to be a good ambassador).

Now I "needed" the E2e because I fly alot in California for work and I am always worried my beloved E2D will be taken away by the TSA. I've been flying with it since I got it in 2004.

The E2O is needed as an emergancy light in my at work earthquake kit. Its a backup to the L2 I have enhanced my kit with. You know how un-reliable they can be (tongue firmly planted in cheek)!

The E2 now sports a E2e bezel and is just to pretty to get beat to hell like the other E2x's in my collection.

Don't get me started on what I did to my 9P...
 

hank

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 12, 2001
Messages
1,561
Location
Berkeley CA
It doesn't end. You start looking at everything you have .... I'm now eyeballing my several old Diamond Industries flashlights -- not sure if they're still available; flat -- less than an inch deep square case, use a 6v bi-pin filament lamp in a fairly deep socket, with a 4" square side filled with a huge Fresnel-like lens.

Can't just drop a bi-pin LED in easily, socket's too deep; I did rewire one as 2x2AA (3v), and it works OK with a SMJLED -- nice spotlight, long life, but not, erm, thrilling.

But the huge lens even on the 4xAA size is sooooo tempting for a side-emitter LED and there's room for a big, big heatsink, like 4" square, behind the lens.

(Don't want to heat up the batteries, hmmmmm).

"Diamond Industries Light .... said to be designed by Physics people. The flashlight is square ... no reflector.... front surface looks like a type of Fresnel lens, but actually is not ... total internal reflection from prism surfaces is used to bend the light.
Two sizes -- 4 AA cells or 4 D cells. The 4D is maybe a 6" square lens.

Somebody start a thread if you're going to do one, I wanta follow along ....

See, any flashlight you have can always be improved. And we're chasing an industry that's changing freakishly fast.
 

cratz2

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 6, 2003
Messages
3,947
Location
Central IN
To be honest, I like messing with lights and modding them and either selling them or giving them away. Not to make any money, just as something to do with my spare time at night since I'm a registered and licensed insomniac. I have an HDS Basic42 modded with an SSC. Probably ~80-100 lumens on high, ~20 lumens on primary which is bright enough for almost anything I regularly need and ~8 lumens on secondary which is what I honestly use the most. The light itself is basically bulletproof, waterproof and dead realiable. When cells get depleted, the output steps down to the next of 19-20 levels so you should pretty much never be left in the dark because of used cells and it provides dead flat regulation on all levels. You get to choose the output level on each level to customize it for your own uses if you don't feel they are adequate as stock. Other than the fact that they aren't cheap and that the 18650 bodies are so fricking expensive, I think they are the perfect light.

I don't think it really ever ends though. I see newer members complaining that the L2D CE doesn't have enough runtime. Or that the L1D CE isn't bright enough. LED lights such as either of these were literally almost unimaginable a couple years ago. When the L1P and QIII first came out, people basically went ga ga over them. Now those lights (in their stock form) seem like relics only kept for sentimental reasons, if at all. I guess when LEDs are so effecient that a single alkaline AA cell can produce 200 lumens for 24 hours, that will be about perfection. But then, more members will come along complaining that they aren't bright enough or they want even longer runtime.

On a related note, my ex wife would poop out a brick (actually, probably a cinder block!) and probably pull out half of her hair if she saw any of the kids banging a piece of aluminum against their hardwood floors.
 

Fluffster

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 9, 2006
Messages
119
Location
Reykjavik, Iceland, Arctic Ocean
I wanted a reliable, long-running small light for my keychain. That's all.

Today, I have 5 foreign orders on the way over here, all containing flashlights, I think. I'm not quite sure what's in one of them...
 

defusion

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 21, 2007
Messages
459
Until they make a light that:
- runs on it's internal nuclear reactor for 30years of continuous runtime
- produce anything between 1 and 10000000lumen
- can be set to any color temperature between 1000K and 16000K
- fits your keychain (or rather can be put in any body you like)
- can throw thousands of yards even on a low setting
- can also do floody beams
- gets stronger with every drop
- is 100% reliable (yes, the actual 100%, not 99.999999%, but 100%)

it will never end.
 
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sawlight

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 2, 2007
Messages
617
I think an A2 might be kinda handy, the new JetBeams sure are cool!! Would like to get a Fenix to see what all the fuss is about. The 6p's are fairly cheap anymore, be a good backup light. Think I need to get a Huntlight, they are cheap enough, and see how the quality compares to SF.
Oh, and the HDS keeps calling my name!!!!!!!

I am afraid I am a lost cause!!!
 
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