scored my Costo's and got lucky

scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

Last 2 they had of the Chicom Luxeon lights in an unopened package. It was a customer return and buried in with the M*G lights. Paid $24.87 for the pair.

Got em home, popped the blister pack open. Both had nice fairly white lights and decent beams.

No Puke , Cat Urine green lux. Gave one to the wife and the other to the daughter.

now they have lights just for themselves and won't keep grabbing the Surefire's and driving the batteries down to nuthin.

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

Costco 2xAA 1W Luxeon, $14.97 per PAIR here. With stupid state sales tax, that's $8 EACH.

Good price, takes common AAs, but not a great light. Switch is stiff and clicks ON where you can then do momentary (can't do momentary before clicking ON), body looks nice but is a bit slippery in the hand. Pretty bright light, decent hot spot and corona, but not a perfect beam (some blotches and rings from the optic). Body is solid and pretty thick walled aluminum, machining is good, o-rings at head and tailcap.

I still have to look at the Luxeon lottery factor, but so far they seem like pretty nice lights. Just not great lights. For $8 each, they seem like a bargain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

They may not be great in the overall scheme of things, but in the class of $8-14 flashlights, don't you think they're right up there in value? They seemed like a reasonable buy even when they were at their original price, were it not for the varying quality.

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MoonRise said:
Costco 2xAA 1W Luxeon, $14.97 per PAIR here. With stupid state sales tax, that's $8 EACH.

Good price, takes common AAs, but not a great light. Switch is stiff and clicks ON where you can then do momentary (can't do momentary before clicking ON), body looks nice but is a bit slippery in the hand. Pretty bright light, decent hot spot and corona, but not a perfect beam (some blotches and rings from the optic). Body is solid and pretty thick walled aluminum, machining is good, o-rings at head and tailcap.

I still have to look at the Luxeon lottery factor, but so far they seem like pretty nice lights. Just not great lights. For $8 each, they seem like a bargain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

The two local Costco's (Vallejo and Fairfield, CA) still have a fair number of these lights in stock at $14.97/pack. I gave a couple as X-mas gifts last year and as most other users reported, one had a fairly nice beam, the other a bit green. I really don't "need" two more AA Lux lights as my XM-3 fills that niche quite nicely. But at $15 a pair (plus tax), I guess they might be useful as "mod trainers". Probably like buying a KIA Rio just to trick it out with a turbo and nitrous, but what the heck.

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

I stopped by my local Costco today and the whole flashlight section was GONE! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif Zero, zip, nada. Walked around the whole area twice just to make sure I hadn't missed it. What the...?

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

I argued the price at check out but the store manager insisted it was still $24.87 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Bought them anyway

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

[ QUOTE ]
madecov said:
Last 2 they had of the Chicom Luxeon lights in an unopened package. It was a customer return and buried in with the M*G lights. Paid $24.87 for the pair.

Got em home, popped the blister pack open. Both had nice fairly white lights and decent beams.

No Puke , Cat Urine green lux. Gave one to the wife and the other to the daughter.

now they have lights just for themselves and won't keep grabbing the Surefire's and driving the batteries down to nuthin.

[/ QUOTE ]

You could splurge on some NiMH...

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

[ QUOTE ]
Brighteyez said:
They may not be great in the overall scheme of things, but in the class of $8-14 flashlights, don't you think they're right up there in value? They seemed like a reasonable buy even when they were at their original price, were it not for the varying quality.

[ QUOTE ]
MoonRise said:
... I still have to look at the Luxeon lottery factor, but so far they seem like pretty nice lights. Just not great lights. For $8 each, they seem like a bargain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Notice the last line in my original post? A decent light at a bargain price. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Seems to run just fine on a pair of NiMH AA. Used it as the dog walking light last night. Decent. I'd give it a 75-80 on a 1-100 scale, a 3.5 on a 1-5 scale, a C+/B- letter grade. I'm a pretty harsh grader. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif For the price, it's a bargain.

Pleasing lines of the body, I like the smooth fillet from the body diameter up to the head diameter. Solid construction with pretty thick body walls, the head wall thickness for the bezel is a bit thin compared to the massively thick body. Just big enough that I wouldn't class it as EDC sized. It's like a mini-Mag on steroids converted to LED. Decent lanyard for non-critical usage (needs a cordlock to tighten the lanyard around your wrist for more solid retainment).

I measured 550 ma current draw from the AA NiMH, at that rate you'd have about 4 hours of regulated runtime from 2000 maH-class cells (just like QuickBeam reported on FlashLightReviews.com review of Costco AA Luxeon . That's about 1.5W power from the cells, so I think the LED is being driven at/near spec for a Luxeon 1w. The body/head didn't get hot or even perceptibly warm during use, so I don't know if the heatsinking is poor from the LED or if it's really good and the massively thick body just absorbed and transfered all the heat out.

I'm a bit spoiled from using sputtered/OP reflectors and a bit more power for the dog-walking duties. A near-spec 1W Lux in an optic isn't quite in the same league as a textured reflector and 5W xenon incan or a Lux-V with textured reflector.

Decent. A bargain for the price. Much more light output than a mini-Mag and much longer run-time as well, just not quite as intense of a hot spot. And I wouldn't even attempt to use a mini-Mag for my dog walking, the runtime and overall output just don't cut it for me.

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

Yes, hard to beat on price.

BTW, some retrofit those cheap IMS reflectors into these.

Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky

So I was a bit bored, curious, and had some coffee. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I should have gone to bed, but instead I opened up one of the Costco lights.

I found, TADA, a PWAJ white high-dome star. The heat-sinking should have been fine, the star is held onto a E-can type slug of aluminum. But the original application of the heat-transfer grease/paste left a bit to be desired. I Q-tipped off most of that to read the bin code on the back of the star.

I reapplied some thermal goo to the back of the star and to the mating surface on the heatsink, and also smeared a little on the OD of the heatsink and the ID of the body tube. Put it all back together and it still works! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Also, now I can feel some heat getting into the body of the light where I really didn't feel any heat before. It doesn't get hot by any means, but it's good to feel some heat getting into the body now.

The circuit board is mounted with the components inside the hollow base of the heatsink/can, so I couldn't get to that. I didn't feel like going to the (most likely destructive) effort to get at the circuit components.

My eval is still: A decent light at a bargain price. Slightly bigger than a MiniMag, but it spanks it in output and runtime.