Stanley MaxLife2 Mini Tripod Flashlight

[darkzero]

Does anyone have a Stanley Tripod light? The larger versions say they can use 3, 6, or 9 AAs. Hows that work? Battery compartment must be the legs?

I always see the 3 pack at Costco but only wanted the mini keychain version. Then I came across the MaxLife2 Mini version & want this one now. Says it's 1.25 watt now & only has a single lens so I'm assuming it's not three 5mm LEDs anymore.

[Fallingwater]

The big ones used to have six unremarkable 5mm LEDs and yes, you put three AAs in each leg. The legs were connected in parallel, so the only thing that changed if you used more batteries was runtime (and weight).

I've heard that the new versions of the big ones use Luxeons, or Luxeon knockoffs. No idea about the small one you link to, but judging on size you can fit three and just three cells in its legs, one per leg, so I don't know why they state "runs on a minimum of three cells".

[NightFlyer]

I bought mine somewhat recently, a couple of months back.

The LEDs are 5mm and yes, nothing impressive. They produce enough light for the task but I'd really like something brighter. I'm up for replacing them with brighter LEDs provided I can get the head open and pull what is most likely the circuitboard they are mounted to out of the assembly. Soldering is no problem.

The tripod "legs" are in fact also the battery holders and yes, it will run on 2, 4, or 6 batteries. The rubber caps on the ends of the legs unscrew giving access for batteries.

The head locks in several positions and will stay between them if you need to aim the light at something. Like I said before, I use this around the house, especially while working on the arcade games. This allows me to point the light at what I am working on freeing both hands.

I wouldn't use this heavily outdoors as it is somewhat bulky and gives the impression that it won't take hard use well. It is certainly not waterproof, but I would call it water resistant.

Still, I am glad I purchased it. This light serves the purpose I bought it for which is assisting with work inside arcade and pinball cabinets among other things. Battery life? Don't know. I have six Duracells in the thing and I haven't seen any change in brightness after a couple of months use, often with extended runtimes.

[LowBat]

It's been a year since this thread came out, so does anyone here on CPF have one of these Stanley Titanium Mini Tripods? Looks like a quality product, and appears priced as such as I can't find any bargains anywhere.

[darkzero]

It's been a year since this thread came out, so does anyone here on CPF have one of these Stanley Titanium Mini Tripods? Looks like a quality product, and appears priced as such as I can't find any bargains anywhere.

Yup, prices still haven't come down. I still want one, I think I'm going to finally break down & get one. I heard some of these Stanley Tripod lights have Crees in them but not sure if the Titanium mini model does which is the only one I want.

[LowBat]

Ok I placed an order and should have one by next weekend. I'm just surprised nobody else on CPF reports owning one after being available for over a year. Maybe it's the lack of places selling them, the high price, or both. Maybe it's the disappointment in the first tripod flashlights that steer away potential buyers. Guess I'll find out next week if the updated version is really worth it.

[LowBat]

Well it came in the mail faster than I thought it would. Here is my mini review of the mini tripod.

The first thing anyone says when they see it is "It's cute". I'd have to agree it definitely has a cuteness factor to it. SheDevil even went further to notice it looks like the robot WALL-E from the animated movie of the same name. She also made another connection to WALL-E by noticing it too has a name printed on it; STANLEY. Except for having a tripod instead of tracks and one eye instead of two, STANLEY could pass as a relative of WALL-E. Ok, enough of how it looks.

The build quality is what I would call acceptable. It's not great and it's not bad. The legs are spring loaded and held in place with a magnet. Pushing a button on the head moves the magnet and all three legs pop out simultaneously. Kinda cool how this works. The head has about four positions it clicks into. However the head is tight enough it easily remains in any position between a click.

The output isn't much. It has a low and high setting and they are almost the same. Might as well have just used an on-off switch. The beam is narrow and projects a spotbeam similar to the old Inova X1. One improvement in this generation of tripod flashlights is the ability to adjust the beam from spot to flood, and this makes it a lot more versatile. Testing on a white wall shows a number or rings, and the tint appears to be an uneven blue. This is probably on par with what others have reported with the 9 AA big brother version of this flashlight.

I went outside to do a little field testing. The light output is just too weak to make this a decent hand held flashlight in my opinion. It works, just not much better output than a cheap 2 D cell flashlight. I then set it up next to a car to simulate using it as a work light to change a tire. For such a purpose this works well and would be a good choice to keep in a car.

I'm tempted to mod STANLEY with a Cree XR-E LED. The head appears to have 3 allen screws that if removed should expose the LED and lens mechanism. Then again, leaving it stock isn't bad either as I suspect this little light has a very long runtime, and the output really is adequate for roadside repairs. I think I'll take STANLEY on my next camping trip and see how it performs for tasks like cooking and setting up tents and such. I can always take it to modamags garage another day if I really want more output.

[crazyglockman]

First off would like to apologize if this post is in the wrong place.

I recently purchased one of these lights mine takes the 3,6,or 9 batteries states it will run for 90 hours with all 9 batteries. It has 2 levels of light low & high (40) lumens claimed by the manufacturer. I've been using it quite a lot around the house it really comes in handy when both hands are needed to work.

BTW picked mine up @ BJ's in northesat philly for $9.90 it included 9 AA energizer batteries went back this week & picked up 3 more lights, had about a dozen left yesterday.