Small Floody LED Light: LD22 - EYE12 - PD12

Most of my lights are mixed (some flood and throw) or are dedicated throwers. The only two lights that I have that are more flood than throw is my Mini-ML and my PD32UE.

When I went into a cave in a State Park several months back I learned how useful a flood light could be under certain circumstances. The PD32UE was awesome for this.

So I've been thinking of getting another light that leans towards the floody end of the spectrum. Since I have several 1x18650 lights, I also thought I'd look at what was available in the "AA" style lights. Also, since you don't want to be swapping batteries every 30 minutes in a cave (or similar environment), a 2xAA light seemed more practical than a 1xAA.

After looking and looking and looking I have it reduced to a couple choices:

1 – Fenix LD22 – It has good run times, even on high, and also has good output (215 lumen). My main concern is that it is a Cree XP-G2 (R5) so it may not be that floody. The CD rating is 3,200 which isn't that far away from my JetBeam BA20 (4,400 CD) or my ITP C8T (3,320 CD). The run time is superior to either of my current 2xAA lights. Also on Fonarik.com the beam shots for the LD22 seemed pretty floody.

2 – Niteye EYE12 – It has the Cree XM-L U2 LED which should mean that it is very floody, and the CD of 1,500 seem to back this up. I don't know a lot about Niteye products or the reliability of the magnetic ring. This light also has good run times. The ability to go from 1 to 260 lumens using the ring is attractive. There aren't very many reviews or owner feedback for this light anywhere on the internet. The best I found was a GoingGear video review. GoingGear seems to really like this light in the review I watched, but they they also want you to buy lights from them!

Finally:

3 – Fenix PD12 - Not a 2xAA but rather is a 1xCR123 light. Not a problem since I probably have 50 CR123s sitting in a drawer at home. This light has the Cree XM-L2 (T6) NW so it also should be floody, and as a bonus, is a NW light. At first I was turned off because the listed CD was 3,600 indicating a not very floody light for its size, until I realized that this was likely in Burst Mode (360 lumen). In high mode (200 lumen) it's probably closer to 2,000 CD (give or take a bit).

Opinions?

Suggestions?

My new Eagtac D25C Ti Clicky in Neutral White has a really good spill, great lumen, etc. I run mine on a 123's or a 16340. Puts out about 400 lumens on burst and steps down to around 300 on high. The NW tint really catches detail in the spill/flood.

Not so good with AA lights ...the PD22 looks interesting but any reason you won't go 18650 if you already have a bunch of these?
I recently got a Nitecore SRT5 750 lumen, 2hr 20 min at full power and nice floody beam up to 150metres throw ANSI...so dropped to the 200-300 lumen mark will run for much longer which I would think handy in a cave as a backup - easily controlled with a smart ring and waterproof....just to throw it in the mix ?

You may have already tried one and decided it wasn't for you, but I would suggest a Quark 2AA XML (QP2A-X) for a few reasons:

- it has a very nice mix of flood and throw
- you can run it on a 1xAA tube with 3V CRAAs or 14500s for full power in a pocket light
- it has great little momentary maximum pseudo-function which works just like car high beam flashers - eg, you walk around through tight tunnels on a 3 lm low and when you hit a big "room" you can single-handedly and momentarily active its 350 lm max to take in the view, then just release and it reverts back to the previously set low mode (good for morse code signaling too)
- in an caving emergency (eg, landslide traps you in) you have weeks of runtime from its efficient yet "bright" moonlight mode, and you can use any of your partners batteries to power your light (with a piece of MacGyver tinfoil)

Ended up with two lights:

A Nitecore SENS AA2
Has a CD of only 1,200 at 170 lumens so it's a nice beam with a wide hotspot, good for for hiking, camping and such
Available lumens in manual mode are: 20, 50, 170
In auto sensing mode it adds 2-3 more levels as it auto dims the light based on the angle that the light is being held at.


A Spark SG5
The CD rating is not even available as it is basically a mule with an all flood beam (zero hotspot) which makes it great for reading
Available lumens are: 1, 8, 40, 110, 280
Also picked up the spare reflector for it in case I want to use it as a "normal" flashlight
It comes with a headband as it is technically a headlamp, but the light is removable.

The Nitecore EA8 Caveman was advertised showing it used in a cave. You might look at the EA8 , newer EAX, and the 4 AA lights Nitecore EA41 and Sunwayman D40A. fenix has recently upgraded their 4AA light to match the D40A and EA41.