Just got a Surge, have to say, . . now impressed.

I just got a PT Surge, because everyone seemed to talk about how great and bright it is, but I have to say that I just don't see it (no pun intended). I don't find it all that bright.

I guess it's a good light. It does put out a lot of light. I suppose my million candlepower spot light will have to be my 'big bright'.

Someone who has a Surge and some surefires, which surefire does it compare to the best? What about Surge Vs. Stinger, or Surve vs. Ultrastinger?

In terms of size, the Surge compares to the M6.
In terms of output, the Surge compares to the 6P, perhaps P61 output to start with, or P90 after about 30 minutes...

I only had two Surges to compare to about a dozen SureFires of similar outputs though.

Al

Your Surge should be brighter than a 6P with P60, E2, Streamlight Scorpion, or Brinkmann Legend Lx and be able to outthrow them all. If this isn't the case you might have to try new batteries.

Even with the new cheap Surefire 123's, the Surge is cheaper to feed and gives a much longer run time for each feeding. This is a big part of its popularity (and remember Surefire 123's just came down a lot in price, before it was much cheaper to feed the Surge).

Pat

I find the Surge as bright as my SF 9P, with a larger hot spot, a very useable flood (SF does not), and that wonderful run time on cheap batteries.

Also, I USE my Surge. How many of you (like me) hesitate to pop the go button on your 6P, 9P or Scorpion because doing so starts that SWOOSH of the CR123's rapid demise. I start wanting to replace the batteries in the 6P after a few minutes of use, they go so durn fast.

I just had a thought; it is very easy to put in the batteries in that eight cell contraption where one or more has not been pressed in tightly. If so, you can have a poor battery contact resulting in iffy performance.

My PT Surge is brighter than any 2 cell lithium light I have owned and brighter than 3 cell Surefire's w/ LOLA (P90). When you consider that combined with a 3 hour run time & $25 cost I'd say the PT Surge makes a great utility light.

Don't you find that the Surge's output drops in quality faster than a P60 or P90 for example?

Still, I do think the Surge is one of the better non-SF123A flashlights. It doesn't get a lot of use by myself for obvious reasons, but also not by others who have access to my torches "because it is big, heavy and slippery even with dry hands"

Al

I have to agree with everyone else. Try a fresh set of the BLUE Rayovac Maximum Plus batteries at Wal-Mart or Target.

If it still doesn't knock your socks off, send it back to Princeton Tec for another one. This is one bright light with a LARGE center beam.

If you run the Surge with Rechargable batteries, you are not going to be impressed at all, the output is yellow. Somewhat sickly yellow, you need fresh rechargables out of the charger. It will give a very nice and rather white (for incandescent) output. About 1 hour into use, it starts going yellow. In fact, in my recent hike, I discovered that the BB500 I have light things up better than the surge and they appear to be brighter. One of the reasons is colour, surge made everything look so yellow, second of the reasons (my own theory) is that maybe the Surge is bright enuff to cause a loss of nite vision at medium to long range such that things don't appear as bright as they should be. With the BB500 and the mcflood ,everything lite up with a soft flood, not glaring, not too strong, details are seen clearly.

Surge has a very very good bang for buck ratio. Try and find a light that beats it.

surge itself cheap & run cheap
Or u can think that it is a great non-123A's incan light having long run time.
surge is brighter than P90,P60. also it throw further than P61. With this brightness in surefire & US, u are required to change battery after 1+ hr.

All the above posts I concur, plus one more thing - try taking any 2 or 3 cell Surefire diving down to say 200ft.

Remember this was primarily designed as a dive light. It's just that the flashaholic community as embraced it with open arms because of what "else" is there at that price or brightness level. If you compare it to its dive light peers, you'll probably agree that the Surge is 2nd only to the UKE SL6 (in the class of secondary or backup light).

As to being slippery, you are right.

I immediately added a piece of bicycle inner tube cut to fit. Great !

Originally posted by JohnK:
As to being slippery, you are right.

I immediately added a piece of bicycle inner tube cut to fit. Great !

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">hey, you are so creative! gd job

johnk: that's exactly what bill rogers did to a surefire 6P, which prompted the designing of the 6Z/Z2

Just wait till it self destructs. then you really will love it- tip: get an SL6 UKE

I guess it's not that it isn't a bright light (because it IS a little brighter than my Legend LX), it's just that I thought it would be significantly more brighter. A comparison test of the Surge and the Legend LX did slightly favor the Surge in close and longer ranges.

Is the Surge still running on 6 volts? I realize that with all the batteries loaded up, all together that is a total of 12 volts, but still only 6 volts goes to the bulb. . . . .right?

8 cells x 1.2 volts = 7.2 volts

Surge lamp is listed at 7.5 volts.



edit: lamp is 7.5 watts, not volts, as pointed out by Nerd ... sorry.
editedit: 8 cells x 1.2 volts = 9.6 volts, and batteries are run in parallel, as stated by CM ... sorry again. In my defense, I had been posting on 2 hours of sleep ...

Curiously enough, none of my original information was correct.

When I bought my Brinkmann LX, it brought a real smile to me. Really bright, smooth and with long throw. But...shortly after, I realized how expensive it would be to operate and it got relegated to "emergency only" duty. The smile faded away.

Now, with my Surge, that smile is back.

It is brighter with a longer throw and I can run it routinely on NiMH (I only use 4) for almost no cost for batteries. Now I want to know why no one has made a light just as bright, designed to use only 4 batteries that is optimized for NiMH?...and can be just as compact as my UK 4AA AS2.

There's just no perfect world...

Surge lamp is really a 5.5 volts bulb I believe. They over-rated the bulb wattage on the cover @ 7.5 watts, not volts.