How lights have changed.

Kai Winters

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 27, 2013
Messages
14
Hi all,
While not a collector, I have 3 lights...two Olight i3s EOS, one older version, the other the Going Gear edition...my EDC, and one Fenix LD 09...I also have a ten year old MagLight that uses 3 "D" batteries.

Wow what a difference between the lights over the years...and my "new" lights are budget models.

I compared the beam of the Mag to the i3s and LD09...holy smoke what a difference.

The LD in the 55 lumen mode outshone the Mag significantly...aimed both at a wall approx 12 feet away...all lights in the house were off...the 130 lumen mode blew the Mag out of the water...one D battery was significantly heavier than the light and its' battery lol.
I did the same "test" with the i3s with the same basic results...even the 20 lumen mid mode was even or a bit better than the Mag.

Also the "color" of the light was much better...the Mag was the usual orangeish while the new lights were much "whiter"?

I knew the new lights would be much better but was a bit shocked by the improvement in "brightness", color and carry weight. No way would I carry the Mag unless I planned on using it as a club while the i3s is my EDC and I forget it is in my pocket. Even the larger LD09...my work EDC...goes virtually unnoticed in my pocket.

I'd love to try some of the more costly, higher lumens, etc. I read about here and at Going Gear...I imagine a night and day difference hehehe.

By the way the LD09 is a recent purchase and is my work light...I needed more lumens than the i3s provided...It works great, especially for the cost.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

kuna

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
67
Location
NJ
LEDs have certainly come a long way and are responsible for the changes that you are talking about. That little Incan bulb in the Maglite is maybe 20 lumens/W max, while LEDs today are pushing around 100 lumens/W. My daily-use light is a small 3W Cree mini emitting around 150 lumens, and it can probably out throw that Maglite :p
 

Kai Winters

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Nov 27, 2013
Messages
14
Yes, LED's are amazing items and certainly seem to have revolutionized all things light and then some.
The light cast is also so different. The bulb casts such an uneven light compared to the LED...The containment of the beam is also much better over distances. And they are far easier on the batteries.
 

ven

Flashaholic
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
22,533
Location
Manchester UK
To add ,so have batteries (cells),now with lithium and other chemistries IMR/INR allows a lot of energy in a small battery(compared to many alki cells c/d). 4.2v,now some 4.35v ,mah up to 3600= compact high performing lights.What may have used 4 or 5 AA cells,now 1x18650 does the job. Multi cell lights using the mentioned chemistry are amazing,even in the last few years.

When i shine the dim maglite,it really shows how fugly the beam is from bulbs/focusing and how much more perfect the beam is with leds imo. Not to mention choice of leds for throw/flood/tint...........just many more options all round..........
 

MidnightDistortions

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 7, 2014
Messages
1,229
Location
Illinois, United States
Despite Mag falling behind today, they were amazing back then. They were easily user serviceable and can take a beating compared to the cheap plastic lights. I won't buy the cheap plastic lights unless they feel and look durable. Dorcy is pretty good, though i just have one of their lights.

I like how more manufactures are using aluminum for better reliability when dropped or knocked around. Some cheap lights can break easy if you drop them off the counter.
 

wjv

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
Messages
962
When I was a kid (born in the late 50's) there were a few basic types of flashlights that almost everyone owned.

The Boyscout style with the 90 degree angle head. (dim yellowish beam with rings and defects)
The Chrome Everyready or RayOVac with a magnet on the side. (dim slightly whiter beam with rings and defects)
And if you wanted WHOPPING power, a can light that ran off a 6V box type battery. (moderate whiter beam with rings and defects)

The first two were dim as heck. Any of my current lights on a 8-10 lumen setting coud easily out-throw and out-illuminate them.
As for the 6V flashlight, any of my current lights on a 15-25 lumen setting could easily out-throw and out-illuminate it.

And of course, the batteries would be dead in a hour or two!

And if you were to drop one even 6 inches, the bulb would be kaput!!!
 
Last edited:

more_vampires

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 20, 2014
Messages
3,475
I was walking through the woods with someone. It was getting dark, so we stopped off at his woodland shack and he picked up his trusty old 3d Maglite. It was big, so he didn't carry it all day, every day.

I asked him if he wanted to borrow one of my spare 3 watt led lights that I had in my pocket.

He said, "Nah, give me a good old Maglite any day." Turning on his Maglite, he shined the dim yellowy beam (from fading cells) at a tree and fiddled with the focus.

"There's no way that little thing is brighter than this."

I couldn't help myself. You know what happened. A month later he worked up the courage to admit he'd bought a couple of lights in the 3 watt range.

Flash forward over a decade. I was checking out what Vinh has been working on lately, an XHP70 emitter based light. He thinks it might perhaps crack 10k lumens in a triple. Mindblowing.

Once upon a time, I thought 60 "Surefire lumens" were the cat's meow. New lights based on XHP70/50 led are going to be just monstrous. A Luxeon Rebel triple is a firefly by comparison. It's like how 100 years ago, a flashlight was only a substitute for striking a match. I can't help but wonder what it's going to be like on the high end 100 years from now. At the moment, Eagletac is getting ready to ship an XHP led light, perhaps 2400 lumens per emitter and that's not even driving it super-hard like Vinh is trying right now.
 

ven

Flashaholic
Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
22,533
Location
Manchester UK
One place i think old or at least low output lights(be it new light set on lower modes) will always be in films. The effects,maybe horror style,with the weak beam,wondering what is around the corner................

Some how the effect may be ruined with 7000 lumens of flood from an mm15 :laughing:
 

D6859

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 29, 2013
Messages
652
Location
Finland
LEDs have certainly come a long way and are responsible for the changes that you are talking about. That little Incan bulb in the Maglite is maybe 20 lumens/W max, while LEDs today are pushing around 100 lumens/W. My daily-use light is a small 3W Cree mini emitting around 150 lumens, and it can probably out throw that Maglite :p

Actually it's much more :) "Cree reports that the LED efficacy was measured at 303 lumens per watt, at a correlated color temperature of 5150 K and 350 mA. Standard room temperature was used to achieve the results." That's cool! (pun unintended)

We were skiing with my girlfriend recently and slept in a cabin that had no electricity. It was really handy that I could light the whole room by pointing my EDC to the roof and use it that way for 7 or 8 hours altogether. 18650 and Cree XM-L2 is a pretty powerful and efficient combination :)
 

G. Scott H.

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
202
Location
Arizona
When I was a kid (born in the late 50's) there were a few basic types of flashlights that almost everyone owned.

The Boyscout style with the 90 degree angle head. (dim yellowish beam with rings and defects)
The Chrome Everyready or RayOVac with a magnet on the side. (dim slightly whiter beam with rings and defects)
And if you wanted WHOPPING power, a can light that ran off a 6V box type battery. (moderate whiter beam with rings and defects)

The first two were dim as heck. Any of my current lights on a 8-10 lumen setting can easily out-throw and out-illuminate them.
As for the 6V flashlight, and any of my current lights on a 15-25 lumen setting can easily out-throw and out-illuminate it.

And of course, the batteries would be dead in a hour or two!

And if you were to drop one even 6 inches, the bulb would be kaput!!!

Hahaha! I remember them all too well (born in '70). I also remember when my dad bought his first Maglite (3D). The fact that it would put a beam on a palm tree on the next street was mind blowing at the time. :eek: All my buddies came over and oohed and aahed over it. Good times! :twothumbs
 

wjv

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
Messages
962
Hahaha! I remember them all too well (born in '70).

Some of those old lights were not much better than the "AAA" 5mm single mode lights that are sold today (like a Sunwayman R01A) except the beams were a bit yellow instead of purple!

Adam12_d_zpsb098dd9f.jpg
 
Last edited:

Billy Ram

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
Messages
427
Location
SC
When I was in the Boy Scouts the light everyone envied was the 2-D Rayovac Sportsman. The Eveready 6 v Big Jim was the power house search light. Then came the 5 cell Kel lights. When the 60 lumen SureFires came out they were amazingly bright for such a small light. If you wanted a really bright hand light you had to build it. I used to build m@g 85s back when the brightest light you could buy was less than 200 lumens. I now have a single 18650 P25LC2 that puts out over 1000 lumens.
Billy
 

Timothybil

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
3,662
Location
The great state of Misery (Missouri)
I'm a couple of years older than wjv, and have been fascinated by flashlights most of my life. I am not an apologist for Maglite, but they had one thing going for them - they were reliable. The sturdy aluminum housing took a lot of knocks, it was easy to change the batteries and/or the lamp, and there was always a spare lamp in the tail cap (assuming one replaced it from the last time). One could buy batteries anywhere - about the only people who didn't sell batteries were the barber, the doctor, and the undertaker.
 

wjv

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
Messages
962
I'm a couple of years older than wjv, and have been fascinated by flashlights most of my life. I am not an apologist for Maglite, but they had one thing going for them - they were reliable. The sturdy aluminum housing took a lot of knocks, it was easy to change the batteries and/or the lamp,

I'm thinking that almost everyone on this site who is 40-45 year old, or older has at least 1 large maglite or brinkman in a drawer. I probably had 4 or 5, but gave a couple away over time. Plus in places like Chicago, where I grew up, they were one of the few items at the time that you could legally carry in your car, that could provide, shall we say, alternative defensive capabilities. . . (and we will just leave it at that)
 

NoNotAgain

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
2,364
Location
Blue Ridge Mountains, VA
When I was in the Boy Scouts the light everyone envied was the 2-D Rayovac Sportsman. The Eveready 6 v Big Jim was the power house search light. Then came the 5 cell Kel lights. When the 60 lumen SureFires came out they were amazingly bright for such a small light. If you wanted a really bright hand light you had to build it. I used to build m@g 85s back when the brightest light you could buy was less than 200 lumens. I now have a single 18650 P25LC2 that puts out over 1000 lumens.
Billy

I still have my Dads old Kel-lite, though the switch is somewhat problematic. There was a posting last year about the old Kel-lites.

I remember when Mag came out with the Xeon bulb which blew away the other incan lights on the market.

The old rubber Rayovac lights as well as the chrome plated lights, and a couple of 6 volt spot lights. Never knew when you'd need a light.
 

G. Scott H.

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
202
Location
Arizona
Remember old movies where someone would shine a light on something and it would have an almost perfectly round, clean beam? :D Current LED lights look pretty much that way, but no flashlight looked that way back in the day. You could tell they were using a spotlight of some sort.

Like around the 40 second mark here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzZ0XO4ly1g
 

MidnightDistortions

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 7, 2014
Messages
1,229
Location
Illinois, United States
Remember old movies where someone would shine a light on something and it would have an almost perfectly round, clean beam? :D Current LED lights look pretty much that way, but no flashlight looked that way back in the day. You could tell they were using a spotlight of some sort.

Like around the 40 second mark here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzZ0XO4ly1g

Who would have thought Hollywood would have gotten that prediction right? :twothumbs
 

Grijon

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 14, 2014
Messages
1,358
Location
Midwest, USA
I ***LOVE*** the old stories being told in this thread! I was born in '85 and have always been interested in flashlights, though I didn't really do anything with that interest until finding CPF.

Thank you to those who are sharing their memories, and please keep them coming!
 

KiwiMark

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 19, 2008
Messages
1,731
Location
Waikato, New Zealand
I remember buying a Maglite Solitaire 1xAAA light (ever crawled under a clients desk, removed the side from their computer and tried to see if the CPU fan was spinning or if the M/B capacitors were bulging?) which I kept on my keyring. It was great except for the weak light and the horridly short battery life.
Now I have an LED light that can produce low output for many hours but can also provide a nice bright light when needed.
I love the options we have now in lights, so much more versatility than 2 or 3 decades ago.
 
Top