Dead Reliable Lights

[nyyankeefen]

Alright, so recently i've been wondering about the reliability of my lights, and I want to know what you guys think.

IMO the most reliable light that I own is my Arc AAA

What do you guys think is the most reliable light out there regardless of price, battery, etc....

 

[Rossymeister]

RA Twisty Flashlight

 

[kramer5150]

**EDIT**
I just dropped my Inova X1-V2 on the concrete and it died... Definitely not physically as robust as they appear to be on the outside.

On the other hand, the Inova X1 and X5 are the only lights I know that can be water-flooded, frozen and thawed... repeatedly. I can't think of any other consumer electronic circuits that can survive this.

Fenix E01 gets my vote though.

 

[Burgess]

Well, let me be the first one here to point out . . . .


No matter what flashlight you decide to carry,


you should ALSO carry a back-up.


Always.



If there's one thing we've seen here on CPF,
it's that ANY brand of flashlight can fail.

Any brand of BATTERY can fail.

Not to mention, you could just plain ol' DROP IT.


If it's critical to have a flashlight,
then be sure you carry a spare.


Words of wisdom, gathered from numerous CPF postings.

_

 

[metlarules]

Not in any necessary order
Maglite,Surefire,Inova,Streamlight

 

[KeyGrip]

A second vote for the Arc AAA and Inova X5. Most well built twisties are very reliable.

 

[mossyoak]

McG 27LT... you cant kill it.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Gerber LX 3.0. Has survived hundreds of drops on concrete. Has been smacked accidently hundreds of times getting smacked against an escape ladder (it stuck out of my back pocket and hit the ladder every time I got on and off). Survived the heat from being used all day in 110+ degree weather. Still works as good as the day I bought it, it's just shinier in more places. Many HA III anodized lights don't have enough metal to survive being dropped that many times. I'd also consider any Inova lights with the stainless steel bezel and tailcap end incredibly tough.

 

[SnWnMe]

I have to give props to the ol 2AA Maglite and the multi D cell units. The abuse these things put up with onboard a warship is amazing but they perform day in and day out. Mind you that everything on a ship is made of metal which is harder than the Mag body. And the sailor and his/her holstered Maglite bang against many things everyday. They're in the hands of the XO while he/she crawls into every nook and cranny inspecting for cleanliness. They're walking with the Chiefs and Officers as they check every nook and cranny for cleanliness before the XO finds them They're on the bridge (fitted with red filters) providing the watchstanders with faint illumination on their charts and instruments that help navigate the ship.

Mine is fifteen years old and finally got retired after I got my first SF. The only thing it asked for aside from fresh batteries is a new bulb (after 10 years)

 

[ZMZ67]

Another vote for the INOVA X5 :thumbsup: Not the most exciting light performance wise but very well made and not much to go wrong.

 

[Juggernaut]

As long as the bulb doesn't break I thing the original Minimag is probably the toughest light. The internals are so simple "two peaces of plastic and a tail spring that pushes them up when the head is loosened. I mean besides physical harm "like crushing it under a tank, that would stop it's head from turning" I really don't thing they can be destroyed. I have drooped my AAA one maybe like 67+ times and the bulb never broke yet. There isn't even electronics like in an LED to get trashed if water leaks inside.

 

[paulr]

I had endless problems with flaky contacts on the small m*g lights (2aa and Solitaire, especially the Solitaire). The 3D that I had was pretty reliable. The most reliable possible light probably has multiple led's, direct drive with no electronics, separate resistors for each led. The Tek-Tite Trek 4 comes to mind (3 aa cells, 4 leds, not sure if it has separate resistors).

 

[MikeSalt]

Lummi Wee Ti 80. Including the body, tailcap, three o-rings, mineral glass, cell, PCB, Cree emitter and current limiting resistor, there are only 10 parts that go into it. It is usually the case that devices with the fewest parts tend to be the most reliable. Just look at the Large Hadron Collider failures recently, and you will understand why.

 

[metlarules]

As long as the bulb doesn't break I thing the original Minimag is probably the toughest light. The internals are so simple "two peaces of plastic and a tail spring that pushes them up when the head is loosened. I mean besides physical harm "like crushing it under a tank, that would stop it's head from turning" I really don't thing they can be destroyed. I have drooped my AAA one maybe like 67+ times and the bulb never broke yet. There isn't even electronics like in an LED to get trashed if water leaks inside.

I have to agree. You can buy a minimag just about anywhere for 10 bucks.Add a smjled and for less than 20 bucks you have a light that has loooong runtime,reliable,and comes with it's own spare bulb.

 

[RobertM]

I also subscribe to the idea that in general, simple=reliable. With that being said, how about a good old SF 6P/G2? It's tough to get more simple/reliable that a lamp being direct driven from some primaries via a LOTC (no clicky to fail). Probably the only way to make it better would be if it were direct drive to an LED, but a LED could have a freak incident where it dies just as an incandescent lamp could.

Always remember the saying on CPF, "Two is one, and one is none."

 

[PhotonBoy]

I understand the votes for the Maglite 2 AA light, but like any incan light, its weakest point is the bulb. I know the light has a spare in the tail cap, but that doesn't cut it for me.

In fact, it was a Maglite bulb failing at 3:30 am (it was mounted on my bike's handlebars, probably the worst environment for an incan) in 2003 that led to my searching on the internet and finding CPF. It's been entirely different since then: all my light purchases since have been LED-based.

So, for me, the Maglite 2 AA and all other incan lights FAIL.

 

[nerdgineer]

I would pick one of the better quality spring loaded twisty designs: Fenix L0x/E0/E1, Gerber Infinity Ultra, Civictor V1, et al. You give up a little convenience for dead solid "on demand" reliability (not "I can replace the bulb fast" reliability...).

The Fenix E01 is of that type and probably OK, but I prefer the full ring PCB negative contact in the other Fenix AAAs versus the 2 points contact in the E01 PCB - although I have no practical basis for this opinion except instinct.

In the same vein, I would guess the twisty type tails on the Surefires would also be very reliable if they had a LED front end (no bulb failures), but I also don't have any of those.

For the most reliable clicky lights, I don't know which but at the same price points, I would guess that reverse clickies would be more reliable than forward clickies (simpler...).

For forward clickies, I would guess (instinct again): 1) big Mags because their side switches are so much larger and therefore presumably more robust than tail clickies; and 2) Fenix T1/T10/T11 series only because I think Fenix makes some effort to properly engineer and test their lights.

I have no first hand experience with Surefire clickies. There was some noise about clicky problems once, but that may have been corrected since.

 

[asdalton]

I had endless problems with flaky contacts on the small m*g lights (2aa and Solitaire, especially the Solitaire). The 3D that I had was pretty reliable. The most reliable possible light probably has multiple led's, direct drive with no electronics, separate resistors for each led. The Tek-Tite Trek 4 comes to mind (3 aa cells, 4 leds, not sure if it has separate resistors).

Yes, I definitely trust the full sized Mag lights more than the AA/AAA versions. The latter sometimes become glitchy after a few years due to corrosion of the contacts. The contact area of the switch is much smaller, and less accessible for cleaning, compared to most other twisty lights.

I have Tektite 2-LED and 12-LED lights that I'm still keeping. Even though they're technically outdated, they are built so well that I don't want to let them go. They even have warm/neutral LED tints, which at the time I purchased them (2004) were much rarer than they are today.

 

[shomie911]

My Inova X1, X03, and X5 are lights I'd trust as well as the Fenix E01 and the Arc-P.

But my most trusted, dead reliable light is the Peak McKinley SS 7 LED.

Stainless Steel body, 7 individually wired 5mm perfect, snow white LEDs, long runtime, and epoxied head.

I highly doubt I will ever break this flashlight, ever heard of 7 LEDs failing at the same time?

But at any time I usually have 2 or more lights on me.

My Arc-P and McKinley SS 7 LED are my daily EDC on my keychain.

 

[tango44]

MY RELIABLE LIGHTS:
Surefire
Novatac

NOT RELIABLE LIGHTS:
MagLite

LIGHTS THAT I OWN BUT HAVEN'T TEST UNDER REAL CONDITIONS:
Streamlight
Inova

IMHO