wheres the Japanese Led lights

considering all the best electronics comes from japan , how is there not a major flashlight company from there on here making stuff for us

I'm sure someone will chime in with details. I know several months ago I ran across a site with a Japanese flashlight that was very impressive, just can't remember what it was called.

1. Flashlights are a relatively low-volume, niche market.
2. There is really very little electronics involved.

I wonder if they have moved beyond flashlights... They seem to be a fairly advanced culture, maybe they've done away with the need/desire to see in the dark using primitive electric torches Any CPF users from there?

My frend is in Tokyo right now, maybe he can shed some light on the subject.

Well, there's Japanese batteries inside many flashlights; that ought to count for something.

And Korean stuff is actually pretty good these days; I don't think it's accurate to say Japan makes the best electronics across the board.

electromage said:

I wonder if they have moved beyond flashlights... They seem to be a fairly advanced culture, maybe they've done away with the need/desire to see in the dark using primitive electric torches

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What, they have bionic infravision?

they do have earthquakes there which would cause blackouts..they do need flashlights

even though a flashlight is simple and has only a few parts, the driver/circuit is a pretty big factor, also they probably have precision machining skills to make excellent quality bodies and butter smooth thread cuts ?

They could make the flashlight bodies from Seki City ... made from VG10.

That is interesting though ... I would expect Japan to be a player in the flashlight industry. :thinking:

I believe Nichia is Japanese. Not a big name, but I've heard of it a few times. SKU 972 on DX shows a small, AA light made by them.

some years ago when i was more active, i do remember coming across some japanese and korean language websites featuring quite a few high end and niche lights (some had links to my old beamshots). perhaps (and understandably) there wasn't much overlap in users due to language differences, so maybe that's one reason why both groups may not have that much awareness of each other.

I know Pro light japan site http://www.pro-light.jp/
And I think that ARC mania custom lights are from Japan.

I seem to remember there being at least one high quality Japanese flashlight company. I try to find the name of it.

jirik_cz said:

I know Pro light japan site http://www.pro-light.jp/
And I think that ARC mania custom lights are from Japan.

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i was browsing that site in english translation,they sell lots of cpf stuff :huh: mcgizmo,gatlight ...and a fenix LD01 with warm emitter didnt know that was available.....still no japanese original light though, some custom stuff it seems

Japanese sure are able to make quality flashlights. But it looks to me, they almost abandoned flashlight market and decided to move on to the markets they can make better profits.

Panasonic, Matsushita, Sony, etc make household/utility flashlights, but I haven't seen anything for the high-end market.

Being from Japan I always thought the same thing, they can easily make something that could compete with SureFire. Korea is catching up very quickly with Japan in the electronics field, but IMO Japan still has an upper hand in many respects.

electromage said:

I wonder if they have moved beyond flashlights... They seem to be a fairly advanced culture, maybe they've done away with the need/desire to see in the dark using primitive electric torches Any CPF users from there?

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Yeah I think they have Cree MC-E embedded into their eyeballs.

how is there not a major flashlight company from there on here making stuff for us

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For the same reason there aren't a whole lot of flashlights produced in the U.S.:

(1) They aren't very complicated
(2) The majority of people buying them want them cheap
(3) Might as well build them in China, or at least their components

The Japanese are mostly working with TDMA-based 2G virtual light technologies, these work great but don't interface at all with the typical GSM and W-CDMA actual-physical photon products we use in The States. Maybe if you check back ten years from now...

As far as I know alot of the magazines from japan advertise the typical lights from china and of course surefire. I've heard surefires are considered a luxury item and commands quite a premium there. The surefire prices are pretty bad although probably not as bad as some other places. I read a post somewhere on here that had a link to a japanese website that had some very interesting lights. But that was years ago. Would love to hear about and maybe buy some truely japanese made lights.

1. No flashlights are needed in japan, almost every square feet of land is city.
2. To produce flashlight they need an instalation and manufacturing plant, which is very expensive.
3. They have cellphones which doubles as flashlights.
4. There is almost none technology involved in flashlights, so a japanese made flashlight won't be adge cutting.
5. The same reason japan doesn't mass produce clothes, furnitures, low tech devices. The production cost in japan is super expensive, so they only produce things such as vehicles, some computer parts, electronics, batteries which envolves complex and high tech procedures in their making process.