Experiences with LED light impact resistance?

DQD

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I bought my first LED flashlight, a Fenix LD22, in December 2013, so I'm a relative newbie. When I bought the Fenix I also got a cheap 4-LED Dorcy light for my son (3 years old at the time). The Dorcy was rubberized, so I figured he could drop it without hurting the light or our hardwood floor.

Since then I've drifted toward flashaholism, purchasing a Thrunite T10 (aluminum version), Fenix LD01, Eagletac D25A clicky, a L3 Illumination L10C with the Nichia 219, and a Preon 1.

Since my experience is limited, I'm wondering what kinds of experiences you all have had with dropping flashlights, and if there are any design features to look for that make a flashlight resistant to damage from dropping or other impact.

My own experience hasn't been great. My son dropped the Dorcy just once on the road, from a height of about 2.5 feet, and as a result only one of the LEDs works now. The Thrunite was DOA and never worked. I dropped the L10C just one time on the hardwood floor this evening, from a height of about 4 ft, and it is dead now. It won't turn on at all. The LD22 hasn't been dropped, but I can hear something rattling in the head.

I haven't dropped the Eagletac yet. The only one of my lights that has survived even one drop is the LD01. I dropped it on the hardwood floor from a height of about 4 ft, and my son dropped it on the street from a height of about three feet. Other than a few scratches on the outside, it still works fine.

To me, resistance to damage from impact is an important feature. Hard anodizing, beam profiles, lumens, CRI, etc. don't matter much if the light won't turn on when you twist the head or click the switch.

Please share here your stories of lights surviving (or not surviving) drops and other impacts. Also, let me know if there are any design features that help a light stand up to impacts. (By the way, I'm not a modder, so if anyone wants my dead L10C for parts or to try to fix it, I will be happy to send it to you for free. I'll edit this post once it has been claimed.)
 
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Bronco

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Light emitting diodes, in and of themselves, are extremely robust little devices. The amount of abuse they can withstand is truly remarkable. Nevertheless, I think this incredible resilience sometimes lends itself to creating a false sense of invulnerability that we optimistically seek to extend to components beyond just the emitter. If you've been a member here for any appreciable period of time, you've probably learned first hand that the diode is but one component of many that goes into producing the overall flashlight.

Soldered wire connections and clicky switch mechanisms are two particularly notorious areas where I've experienced failures first hand. In one instance, a 24 inch fall from the footwell of my truck was all that was required to permanently disable the clicky switch on a very well known tactical light that was marketed as being weapon mountable. It was an unfortunate and statistically unlikely occurrence. But it was also a learning experience. And so it goes with the passage of time that you start to figure out what to look for in those relatively rare circumstances where utmost reliability is a top priority. Using twisty switches instead of clickies, minimizing feature rich electronic circuitry in favor of more robust, simplistic electronics scheme, potting what electronic circuitry is deemed necessary, beefing up heat sinks and lead wire gauges and putting springs on both ends of the battery compartment are all measures that, generally speaking, will enhance reliability. More often than not, these reliability mods come with an enhanced price tag. But the end result can be something like an HDS Systems single cell light that people have literally thrown against walls and knocked around with baseball bats.
 
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stokaboka

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Try the Rayovac Indestructable 2AA for your son. Not the brightest out there but it can be dropped from the top of a three story building onto concrete without a scratch. $14 at Home Depot or online. If you need fancier try Elzetta, but be prepared to spend a couple hundred bucks for the quality.
 

WalkIntoTheLight

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You have a better chance of surviving a drop with one of those cheap plastic rubber-coated lights you find in hardware stores than you do with most expensive aluminum-body lights. You're bound to get at least some dents and scratches on the aluminum, and it has almost no cushioning so damage to the internal electronics is more likely too.

However, I have dropped plenty of lights, both cheap and expensive, without any real damage. Mostly indoors, where the floor is softer than outdoor concrete. Years ago, I did break a LED Maglite outdoors by dropping it (or more accurately throwing it), but that was an exception.

When I'm outdoors, I try to protect my lights. 4sevens Quarks come with a rubber hand strap that besides giving a better grip, also serves a secondary purpose IMO. The rubber ends slip over the head and tail, and provide some protection in case I do drop the light. I think that feature adds significantly to its survivability, even if it is an unintended feature.
 

DQD

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... Using twisty switches instead of clickies, minimizing feature rich electronic circuitry in favor of more robust, simplistic electronics scheme, potting what electronic circuitry is deemed necessary, beefing up heat sinks and lead wire gauges and putting springs on both ends of the battery compartment are all measures that, generally speaking, will enhance reliability. More often than not, these reliability mods come with an enhanced price tag. But the end result can be something like an HDS Systems single cell light that people have literally thrown against walls and knocked around with baseball bats.

Thanks, Bronco. This list of features should help me educate myself more on flashlight reliability. I'm thinking that instead of piling up the more affordable lights I would rather have just a few really good lights.

Try the Rayovac Indestructable 2AA for your son. Not the brightest out there but it can be dropped from the top of a three story building onto concrete without a scratch. $14 at Home Depot or online. If you need fancier try Elzetta, but be prepared to spend a couple hundred bucks for the quality.

He's using one of those $1.50 Rayovacs from Walmart now, but he prefers to use my LD01 (hence the drop onto the road). I was actually thinking about one of those Rayovac Indestructables. I saw a camouflage one on Amazon that was cheaper than the others, and thought the camo might entice him to use it intead of the LD01. I may just let him use the LD01 but encourage him to use the wrist strap.

...However, I have dropped plenty of lights, both cheap and expensive, without any real damage. Mostly indoors, where the floor is softer than outdoor concrete. Years ago, I did break a LED Maglite outdoors by dropping it (or more accurately throwing it), but that was an exception.

That's what I was hoping to hear, as I hope my experiences have just been bad luck.
 

reppans

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Sounds like pretty bad luck, we've dropped a bunch of lights a bunch of times and haven't had any flashlight failures yet - good lights and cheap hardware store junk. Well, the PCB on an AW 17670 battery broke while taking a tumble in my Quark Turbo X.

In my experience, the bigger they are, the harder they fall - I use a lanyard on my biggest light, a D40A, so I've never dropped it, but it has tipped over from tail-standing a bunch with crash loud enough to make me cringe, but it's fine. The Quark Turbo X, my next biggest, has been dropped ~4x on asphalt. Worked fine but developed a rattle without battery/spring pressure against it - the glue holding the pill in the housing must have broke free and I guess unscrewed slightly. A year or two later I casually asked 47s about it and to my amazement, they replaced the head in less than a week and it didn't cost me a dime. My Malkoff MDC AA wins the most drops per hour of usage award, ~3x on asphalt, weight and perfectly smooth body conspiring, but it's Malkoff and was designed for the abuse (maybe that's why?). Wife has dropped her D25A Ti a bunch indoors, mostly wood floors, no issues. And I've dropped various 1AAs Quarks a bunch, no issues. I have a bunch more lights that have taken an occasional drop, but they're mostly shelf Queens.

If your a klutz like me, then I would suggest getting a solid US-made light that can take it, or get a 47s Asian-manufactured light that can take a reasonable amount of abuse, with a painless insurance policy backing it, if can't.
 

AnAppleSnail

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He's using one of those $1.50 Rayovacs from Walmart now, but he prefers to use my LD01 (hence the drop onto the road). I was actually thinking about one of those Rayovac Indestructables. I saw a camouflage one on Amazon that was cheaper than the others, and thought the camo might entice him to use it intead of the LD01. I may just let him use the LD01 but encourage him to use the wrist strap.

The Rayovac is a nice little light. I gifted one to the neighbors before they moved away. The dad in that family works way up in Pennsylvania, and we get power outages and bumps in the night around here. You might not believe me, but your dropped light broke from 100-500G of impact, depending on how you estimate it.

Wrist straps are a great help for light durability. The main way flashlights will fail is (har har) not the drop, but the very sudden stop at the end. Anything that makes this stop less sudden is good for the light. At work I dropped my Mini Mag Pro+ from one of our ovens onto the ground. It landed THUNK on the concrete floor. I picked it up and measured a 2mm deep dent in the bezel.That gives us ALMOST 1/10", or 2mm of travel to absorb a fall of about 6 feet (2m). If you're curious, the speed of a falling object (Ignoring air resistance and fumbling tries to catch it) is (Square Root of 2*Gravity*Distance). So in my case, I get sqrt(2*32 ft/s^2 *6 ft) = 19 feet per second. Now the light will travel its 1/10" 'cushion' in about 1/1000th of a second.

This gives an acceleration of 19 feet per second, in 0.001 second. That works out to over 500 "G", so that it is like hitting my six ounce Mag Light with half a small car. In this case, the large dent saved the light. A big cushy stopper on the end would help more. A wrist strap (With breakaway lanyard, because I work around machinery that snatches lanyards) would help MOST.
 

DQD

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Sounds like pretty bad luck, we've dropped a bunch of lights a bunch of times and haven't had any flashlight failures yet - good lights and cheap hardware store junk. Well, the PCB on an AW 17670 battery broke while taking a tumble in my Quark Turbo X.

In my experience, the bigger they are, the harder they fall - I use a lanyard on my biggest light, a D40A, so I've never dropped it, but it has tipped over from tail-standing a bunch with crash loud enough to make me cringe, but it's fine. The Quark Turbo X, my next biggest, has been dropped ~4x on asphalt. Worked fine but developed a rattle without battery/spring pressure against it - the glue holding the pill in the housing must have broke free and I guess unscrewed slightly. A year or two later I casually asked 47s about it and to my amazement, they replaced the head in less than a week and it didn't cost me a dime. My Malkoff MDC AA wins the most drops per hour of usage award, ~3x on asphalt, weight and perfectly smooth body conspiring, but it's Malkoff and was designed for the abuse (maybe that's why?). Wife has dropped her D25A Ti a bunch indoors, mostly wood floors, no issues. And I've dropped various 1AAs Quarks a bunch, no issues. I have a bunch more lights that have taken an occasional drop, but they're mostly shelf Queens.

If your a klutz like me, then I would suggest getting a solid US-made light that can take it, or get a 47s Asian-manufactured light that can take a reasonable amount of abuse, with a painless insurance policy backing it, if can't.

I am definitely a klutz, so will probably drop more lights in the future, but I'm glad to hear that my experiences seem to have been bad luck. You mentioned the Malkoff MDC AA in your post... One of the only good things about a light breaking is that you get to order a replacement light :grin2: Coincidentally, I just ordered a Malkoff MDC HA this morning (before I saw your post). It looks like the new version won't work with a 14500, but I like that it now has a moonlight mode.

I ordered my Preon 1 because of the good things I've heard on these forums about Foursevens' quality and customer service.

The Rayovac is a nice little light. I gifted one to the neighbors before they moved away. The dad in that family works way up in Pennsylvania, and we get power outages and bumps in the night around here. You might not believe me, but your dropped light broke from 100-500G of impact, depending on how you estimate it.

Wrist straps are a great help for light durability. The main way flashlights will fail is (har har) not the drop, but the very sudden stop at the end. Anything that makes this stop less sudden is good for the light. At work I dropped my Mini Mag Pro+ from one of our ovens onto the ground. It landed THUNK on the concrete floor. I picked it up and measured a 2mm deep dent in the bezel.That gives us ALMOST 1/10", or 2mm of travel to absorb a fall of about 6 feet (2m). If you're curious, the speed of a falling object (Ignoring air resistance and fumbling tries to catch it) is (Square Root of 2*Gravity*Distance). So in my case, I get sqrt(2*32 ft/s^2 *6 ft) = 19 feet per second. Now the light will travel its 1/10" 'cushion' in about 1/1000th of a second.

This gives an acceleration of 19 feet per second, in 0.001 second. That works out to over 500 "G", so that it is like hitting my six ounce Mag Light with half a small car. In this case, the large dent saved the light. A big cushy stopper on the end would help more. A wrist strap (With breakaway lanyard, because I work around machinery that snatches lanyards) would help MOST.

My LD10C put a dent about 2mm deep in the hardwood floor, so the forces must have been similar. I'm going to try to use my lanyards more consistently in the future.
 

reppans

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.. Coincidentally, I just ordered a Malkoff MDC HA this morning (before I saw your post). It looks like the new version won't work with a 14500, but I like that it now has a moonlight mode..

Good luck with the MDC... Just a heads up that his ML mode is a little volatile... Had three in my paws (kept 2) and they were all different :).
 

gravelmonkey

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Sounds like you've had a little more than your fair share of bad luck.

If you're after reliable lights, PeakLED lights are also supposed to be pretty good, not that I've subjected mine to any nasty falls though (yet).

As mentioned, Malkoff stuff is very highly regarded. I believe Nailbender offers a potting service on his P60 Drop-ins to increase reliability.

Lanyards go some way to preventing falls in the first place but I'm yet to find anything that I really like; after believing all the hype on this and other forums, I bought a tonne of paracord to use and now realise I hate the damn stuff. Might try making a coil tether next.
 

SimulatedZero

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Good heavens you have some awful luck. The DOA is enough in and of itself. As far as some of the things I look for in an impact resistant light go; I look for thick bodies, T6061 or similar 6000 series aluminum (softer 6000 series deforms under less stress and can help with everything that anapplesnail mentioned above), crenelations (again, useful for absorbing impact), dual springs to protect the battery, and, naturally, being advertised as a tougher series of light (I generally take this to mean they at least tried to make it more impact resistant).

All of that being said, two of my most beat up lights are my Fenix TK15 and Eageltac GX25L2. Both have served as excellent duty lights for me. My TK15 has survived a two story fall into a very shallowly filled flower bed (I heard the "click" as it impacted the concrete beneath the dirt, it also smushed one of the crenelations), being kicked quite a few times from being dropped while walking/ running (what, I just had popcorn ;) ), falling down a flight of concrete stairs, and falling out of my lap when I got out of my car a few times :crazy:. Plus other wear and tear (who knows what my coworkers have done to it when they borrowed it). One of these days I'm going to photograph it for the beat up lights section.

My Eagletac has fallen a few times to concrete, flown off of my belt to a tile floor while I was in a pursuit, and been used once to break out a car window.

Both are still going strong. And in the case of the TK15, it's been going strong for a couple of years now. (As a side note, I think I'm going to have vinh try to mod my TK15 to a neutral XPL for hiking and officially retire the poor thing from duty use) Though, batteries do tend to die from the impacts in my TK15. Hence why I suggest springs. That being said, I don't like the touchy UI of Eagletac and Fenix has lately been moving towards plastic clicky switches. That's no bueno to me. Surefire had a rash of switch failures a while back because the plastic switches couldn't handle the impacts.

I have had my TK41 go stupid twitchy on me after a month or so of duty use. It didn't like all the abuse. But, that's the only light I have had fail from impact related damage.

The toughest lights I have had to date have been my customs. A nailbender in a Solarforce P1 was damned indestructible. The stupid thing bounced like a rubber ball on impact. I actually had that one fall out of my pocket when I was trying to set a new speed record on a bicycle. The light just kept on truckin. And then a vinh custom in a Surefire Z2. Custom makers can simply fill the circuit modules with epoxy and glue everydamnedthing in place.

I like older Fenix lights and custom drop-ins for reliability. But, your mileage may vary.

Seriously though, your mileage may really, really vary. You and lights don't seem to be the best of friends so far.
 
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