Which Sandwich

I ordered a Badboy 400 from Dat2zip, but he shipped a BB500 by mistake. Since I wanted longer runtime, he'll let me exchange it for the original BB400 or the MadMax.

What to do?

The 500 is wonderfully bright and will give even light, thanks to regulation. The 400 will run longer, a little dimmer, but still evenly regulated.

I'd really like the even longer runtime of the Madmax, but don't know what to expect in terms of output. I plan to adjust it down to 250-300mA. If I do that will the output curve be pretty flat? At higher outputs, the graphs on his web page show flat output with NiMH, but not with alkaline and I plan to use alkaline. Anyone have experience with this? I like long runtimes, but not at the expense of a steadily declining output.

You might consider an unregulated Reactor III (3AA) which runs ONLY on alkalines. Mine takes 3 hours to get down to about the same brightness as my BadBoy 400, which has a total runtime of about 2 1/2 hours before it falls out of regulation.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not looking to make a 1st time buy. I already have the BB500 and need to decide what I want from the maker in exchange.

Mostly I'm trying to find out if a Madmax, adjusted down, will have 4+hrs of steady light output.

How about a bad boy 200? Maybe it will last 4 hours.

My advice would be to keep the BB 500 if you have got one with a good luxeon in it. Luxeons can vary so much in color and output that you have no guarantee whether or not you will get another good one. If you don't particularly like the color of yours then give the BB 400 a shot.

The BadBoys both will have a nice even flat output. Wayne said that it was kind of a fluke that the MadMax on his site had a flat output graph; it was just luck that he happened to get it adjusted just right. Usually the MadMax will not give you perfectly flat output like the BadBoys.

Hope this helps,
Pat

I kept my two BB500's, but my daughter has my BB400.

Brightness means more to me.

My daughter can use her BB400 on her college student's allowance when she doesn't need the brightness of her KL3 on her 9P.

As I look at it, you got a free $5 upgrade on your BB500. It will take you quite a while to use $5 more batteries in it than the BB400 would consume.

I'm really happy that my BB500's are happy with alkaline AA's while my ARC Hybrid 500's start dropping into moon mode after ten minutes of alkaline run time.

i would keep the 500 and invest in some good NiMH batteries, my badboy 500 will crank out light for a little over 2 hours and still be at near full brightness on 2100ma AA's, the dropoff after that is very noticable.

Look at the graph on wayne's page for runtimes of the madmax with different battery types. Only the nimh rechargeables maintain good flat regulation with the madmax. The alkalines all take nosedives.
I'd recommend only buying the madmax if you care to use rechargeables.

Rechargeables really are great if you have a great charger. I recommend buying maha AA 2000 mah AA's and maha's c401fs 100minute cool charger. Just remember to leave the lid open when charging to cool the batteries. When your charger can fully charge 4 AA 2000 mah batteries in about 100 minutes, the short storage life of nimh rechargeables is not an issue any longer.

If you just want to use alkalines and ONLY alkalines the best flashlight you can buy is a direct drive with no resistance. Mr. bulk's LGI is made specifically for this purpose. Also, Elektrolumens has made a new flashlight, the blaster II which has the world's only 30mm collimator. You need to ask him to remove all resistance from the flashlight however so it will give MAXIMUM light output and lifespan with alkaline batteries. But you will never be able to use anything else besides alkalines without destroying the light.

OK, sounds like I'll either keep the 500 or exchange for the 400. I've got NiMH around because of my digital camera, but don't want to use them in my BB since it will likely sit since it's not my EDC.

By the way, my 500 puts out a very warm light with a somewhat greenish corona. Nothing like the "moonlight white" of my Nichia based lights.