Re: Black body/red LED AAA\'s
The first AAAs didn`t have retail packaging as such, but rather were shipped in the plain ziploc bags. The retail pack was introduced later on, as was the internal Chemkote layer. The very first run of AAAs had a fairly wide gasket sealing the head instead of an o-ring (I am looking for one of those if anyone has one for sale). Version 2.0 came later and also used a gasket, but it was thinner, more like a square o-ring, since the original V1 gasket was prone to tearing and bunching. Neiter gasket design was very effective so version 2.1 went to an ordinary round o-ring that oddly enough was also used on the very first prototypes.
The red AAAs from PocketLights are probably version 2.0, and as mentioned, are indeed collector`s items now. The red LED with narrow beam is a Toshiba part if I remember rightly. Later reds used the Hewlett Packard LED that was/is also used in the Photon lights (and incidentally was originally bought from Photon makers LRI at ~$6 each!) that emitted a much wider, smoother and brighter red beam.
And yes, I *am* dissapointed to have missed out on this deal, but have one the same or similar coming from another source so all is good nevertheless.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif