REVIEW - Eveready 1D (Economy) LED Flashlight

been a while...

The season is drawing in, and Halloween is just over a week away -
both are time to look at our flashlights -
ones that are useful to have around the house or car for those blackout and emergency situations,
as well as being able to hand to kids...

Enter:


Cost all of $4.47 for the pack of 2, with batteries, from local Walmart - model # EVEL152S, UPN 138514 -
uses a single D battery.

Specs on package:

25 lumens, 60 hours, 1m drop - ANSI/NEMA FL 1 standard -
For FL 1 standard the brightness and battery life have to be with the supplied batteries - which are cheapo "Super Heavy Duty" zinc-carbon.

Size:

compared to cheapo 2D cell flashlights which I bought to host the now legendary MJLED PR2 replacement bulbs
and a real classic 2D Eveready Krypton - a "best Buy" of sorts back in the early 90's I replaced the bulb with a Dorcy 41-1643 30 Lumen 3 Volt LED Replacement.

Heads -




There was also this Ozark Trail 2xAA flashlight (rated 200lumens) I noticed its LED chip was of similar shape...


May have noticed from the pics of the heads - the Eveready 1D has a nice touch of anti-roll tabs -


Comparison beamshots: (Eveready 1D uses the supplied Zinc Carbon, other 2Ds are using alkaline D of varying ages, but were tested to be good)
vs. 2D Eveready with MJLED PR2


vs. 2D Eveready "Krypton" with Dorcy 41-1643 30 Lumen 3 Volt LED Replacement


vs. RayOVac 2D with MJLED PR2


Lastly perhaps a little silly
vs. Ozark Trail 2xAA flashlight (rated 200lumens using freshly charged Kodak LSD AAs)


Perhaps it wasn't that silly after all - this shows the economy Eveready 1D puts more of its light into the side-spill while keeping a "respectable" hotspot.
This results in a much more useful light (for me).

Overall I am pretty impressed with such a cheap flashlight, using a single D cell - cheap enough to giveaway or even be "disposable" -
I just regard it as a bargain.

(note: despite the looks they are NOT water-resistant - as the hole at the back-end of the light actually has a hole/crack into the main body

- pity as it would have been so simple to make the light water resistant...)

One probably could fill that hole with "Plasticine" or similar to make it more water resistant?

This looks great. 1D cell each? Even better.

UnknownVT said:

been a while...

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Good to see you back, UnknownVT!

Cool little lights thanks, quick blob of bathroom sealant will fix that hole !

I have one of the 1D Eveready LED lights that looks like your Eveready 2D light it has a PR base dropin. It looks like they just took the 2 cell light body mold and modified it with ridges so a spring would fit on them for a 1D cell battery. I'm guessing the SMD emitter is more efficient than the 5mm LED drop in. I've looked at the Eveready/Energizer lights and they seem to be going to all SMD LEDs on their low end flashlights. I'm glad to see a review as I was curious as to how "nice" the beam was and it looks. You could look to auto type rubber plug for the bottom.

gunga said:

This looks great. 1D cell each? Even better.

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parnass said:

Good to see you back, UnknownVT!

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zs&tas said:

Cool little lights thanks, quick blob of bathroom sealant will fix that hole !

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Lynx_Arc said:

I have one of the 1D Eveready LED lights that looks like your Eveready 2D light it has a PR base dropin. It looks like they just took the 2 cell light body mold and modified it with ridges so a spring would fit on them for a 1D cell battery. I'm guessing the SMD emitter is more efficient than the 5mm LED drop in. I've looked at the Eveready/Energizer lights and they seem to be going to all SMD LEDs on their low end flashlights. I'm glad to see a review as I was curious as to how "nice" the beam was and it looks. You could look to auto type rubber plug for the bottom.

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Thanks for the responses, and welcome back

Yes, indeed they are cool little lights - especially since they run on a single D cell (to me the most watts/cell or price for common/low price batteries)
25 lumens spread out like the way these are, is pretty good and very usable,
and running for 60 hours (both ANSI/NEMA FL 1 rated) on the supplied zinc carbon battery
is actually really good performance.

Thank you for the suggestions for plugging the hole -
I am not too certain how water resistant the switch and surroundings are -
but they do not show obvious gaps.

However simply plugging the hole would allow use in the rain if not downpours
(perhaps not of Biblical proportions - then we might not survive that...)

I also thought of just dripping some epoxy glue in the hole.

Thanks,

Halloween tomorrow - and these are useful to hand out to kids and friends...
and after - they'd just be handy to have around the house for those blackout situations,
and generally for the longer dark nights.

They could have been made more compact, perhaps about 1-1.5" shorter



but I find the size handy and just about right for my hands -

smaller/shorter would probably feel awkward and maybe even unbalanced.

Follow up on water-resistance, it would be easy to plug the end -
but on more careful examination there are gaps between the switch assembly and the body -
again one probably could seal those too...

One of the main attractions for me was these run on a single D-cell -
with a runtime (ANSI FL-1 standard) of 60 hours on the supplied "Heavy Duty" zinc carbon.

These can be found in a local dollar store at 3 pack for $1.


makes them very economical to run.

Thanks for the review and additional info!

This is the second version of the Eveready 1D, the original used 5mm LEDs; if you see one of these earlier versions laying around, a runtime test should definitely be in order..

StarHalo said:

This is the second version of the Eveready 1D, the original used 5mm LEDs; if you see one of these earlier versions laying around, a runtime test should definitely be in order..

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I'm not sure but this could be the third version of it as I think I've seen 2 previous versions:
1) with build in 5mm LED and optical lens
2) with PR base LED drop in module with clear lens

I could be wrong and one version could have been Energizer instead of Eveready.
I have taken the PR base drop ins and used them in 2 cell lights with nimh batteries to reduce overdriving them too much.

I think the PR base dropins will be history in the future but would love to see an SMD based PR dropin instead of 5 or 10mm LEDs.

Lynx_Arc said:

I'm not sure but this could be the third version of it as I think I've seen 2 previous versions:
1) with build in 5mm LED and optical lens
2) with PR base LED drop in module with clear lens

I could be wrong and one version could have been Energizer instead of Eveready.
I have taken the PR base drop ins and used them in 2 cell lights with nimh batteries to reduce overdriving them too much.

I think the PR base dropins will be history in the future but would love to see an SMD based PR dropin instead of 5 or 10mm LEDs.

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When I did a search on Eveready 1D - I did not find this current 60hours 25lumens model -
but just about everywhere - including Eveready's own site
shows a 50hr 9lumen model - they include a pdf Data Sheet download.

This is a crop of that datasheet


Amazon's current listing shows the 50hr 9lumen model and among the pics is this one -


Certainly different from the SMD version of this review -
may be it's the PR2 drop-in?

Yes that is the previous model with the PR base drop in LED. It was offered at several stores in a 2 pack for about $5.

Lynx_Arc said:

Yes that is the previous model with the PR base drop in LED. It was offered at several stores in a 2 pack for about $5.

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Thanks.

I also just noticed the switch had changed that PR drop in model had a sliding switch similar to the 2D Eveready incandescent host for that MJLED PR2.

The model I reviewed has a push button switch under a rubber cover that's why I even thought of any water resistance at all.

UnknownVT said:

Thanks.

I also just noticed the switch had changed that PR drop in model had a sliding switch similar to the 2D Eveready incandescent host for that MJLED PR2.

The model I reviewed has a push button switch under a rubber cover that's why I even thought of any water resistance at all.

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The 1D version I have is a sliding switch as they just retrofit a plastic incan version with slight change to inner parts of the plastic battery holder the rest is probably identical. I mainly bought mine for the LED PR base dropin to use it in other light. I took one dropin apart and used it in an old Techna 2N light with 1AAA battery

Seems like there are several variations to this Eveready 1D -
I think the earliest ones were based on the original 2D Economy flashlight referred to by Lynx Arc, and as shown in the opening post.

Originally I did searches on the web to see if there were later/better versions -
unfortunately I found lots of listings had older pics and even specs.

I know I had a job making sure the one(s) I bought were the 25 lumens, 60 hour versions
in the end I bought them in the flesh at a local Walmart so I can be sure of the version.

Here's some of the confusion -
I think the ones with the rubber booted push button switches are later versions
even then I found there are at least 3 versions!

Walmart's listing shows this pic:


shows the same rubber booted push button switch - but -


but wait there's more... (didn't know I was on TV?)

One of Amazon's listings -


looks kind of the same...? not so fast -


really? an improvement of 1 lumen?
can they really see that?

Not only that -
notice the 7 lumens version is claiming a range of 15m
but the 8 lumens version is only 12m?
Both are supposed to be FL-1 standard.

Current version - the ones I bought - also comes singly at about $2.50 with battery -
25 lumens, 60 hours -

I think the first two (7 and 8 lumens) are based on 5mm type technology while the newest 25 lumen more efficient SMD technology.
As LEDs for these lights have gone from 30 lumens/watt to over 100 lumens/watt you only need 1/3 the power for the same light output or the same amount of power for twice to 3 times output hence the increase from 8 to 25 lumens I believe.

Lynx_Arc said:

I think the first two (7 and 8 lumens) are based on 5mm type technology while the newest 25 lumen more efficient SMD technology.
As LEDs for these lights have gone from 30 lumens/watt to over 100 lumens/watt you only need 1/3 the power for the same light output or the same amount of power for twice to 3 times output hence the increase from 8 to 25 lumens I believe.

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Many thanks for the explanation.

It would be interesting to see the LEDs of the 7 and 8 lumens versions.

Thanks

UnknownVT said:

Many thanks for the explanation.

It would be interesting to see the LEDs of the 7 and 8 lumens versions.

Thanks

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The version I have is a PR base drop in using a 5mm LED with a white plastic spacer/ring to support and center it in the base. I do have some of the Dorcy type pr base drop ins using a ~10mm LED which are brighter than a 1D driven 5mm PR base LED. I have the Eveready in a 2D cell flashlight and it is considerably brighter but others who have overdriven these dropins have had mixed results some frying the LEDs I wouldn't use them with Energizer lithiums or brand new alkalines I have one in a 2AA incan waterproof light driven by 2 Rayovac Hybrid LSD Nimh batteries that works well.
I love plastic flashlights with decent LED output but typically they are unimpressive in the brightness category. My problem with many plastic LED lights is the output is TOO dim to be overall useful they are good for power outages for dim area lights but in normal everyday use they aren't bright enough for some tasks. I do think the 25 lumen updated version may be more useful than a 7-8 lumen version.

As someone who has used incans and later fluorescent lighting in several power outages in my life and in most tasks and had to deal with stocking up on alkaline batteries of all types for decades and dealing with looking for sales on them and the continuing cost of replacing them as they were used up when LED lighting came into the picture even the 5-10 lumen single 5mm LED solutions were incredibly energy saving to me. I made PR base bulbs with resistors in them with 3-4 LEDs to run off 3 and 4 cell flashlights (AAs mostly) these provided adequate light output for most tasks and ran down to about the 5 lumen level before I either changed the batteries out or purposed them to dim area lighting instead.

What would be the more ultimate in these type of lights is a 2 level output with about 80 lumen high and a 10 lumen low but that would probably cost another dollar or two for the electronics and probably not be less than $10/pair then essentially most folks wouldn't buy them for that price.

Thanks for the review. I saw these in the store a while ago and was wondering why 2 lights only came with 2 batteries.......didn't realize they were 1D! 25 lumens for 60 hrs is pretty good (assuming that most of the output is closer to 25 lumens than 2.5?) but I wonder what a 2D version would do.