DeWalt Work light ?

[quebec128]

Hi All,

I was curious how well a Work light from one of these companies like DeWalt, Milwaukee, Ridgid, Makita etc... Would work as a flashlight. Mostly for walking around at night or from the barn/shed to the house and back ?

On the Makita site they claim 4500 lux from their work light BML 185 does this seem realistic ? How does that convert to lumens ?

here is the light

http://www.makita.com/en-us/Modules/Tools/ToolDetails.aspx?ID=893

Also if anyone has any opinions of what brand to go with ?

Thanks

 

[gsxrac]

Well unless you already have the batteries and a charger I'd say no since there's some much better lights out there for the money. And if it were me I wouldn't even bother with the light unless your gonna use it as a host for another project! Are you just looking fir something rechargeable to use around the house and yard?

It fails to make sense to me why these tool manufacturers have failed to notice the LED technology out there today when you concider their target consumers are construction workers who probably need long runtimes anyway?

 

[ElectronGuru]

It takes a bit of brain twisting to understand the logic, but its there. When you 'buy a flashlight', you are investing in:

1) the host/formfactor
2) emitter/bulb
3) batteries
​

But in power tools, everything is upside-down. Your example light does NOT include the $ battery. Once you pick a company and even a voltage (9, 12, 14, 18, 24), you get more of the same batteries and more of the same tools. In my case, a DeWalt 14 with a drill and circular saw. If I want a reciprocal saw or impact drill (or vacuum or...), unless I want to invest in another line up of batteries (which can run hundreds by themselves), it has to be a Dewalt 14. So it ends up more like:

1) battery
2) host
3) bulb
​

Even with an old setup like mine, the basic incan will run for hours before dimming. With the newest 24v LI systems, a basic LED would run for months. Incan or LED, by itself you're paying a lot money for a battery thats only doing one thing and with pounds, not ounces to carry around.

On the other hand, as part of a proper power tool eco system, its makes tons of sense. Were I starting now, I would get Milwaukee, m12 (small), m18 (medium) or v28 (large). Each has its own line of tools, lights inclusive. When a battery packs enough energy to drill through concrete, why bother with LED, but the small (m12) is a different story (with 160 lumens):

http://www.milwaukeetool.com:80/Pro...-24-0146&CategoryName=SC:+M12+Cordless+System


and 5600K puts it on par (colorwise) with a 2008 Malkoff:

​

 

[Belker]

I was curious how well a Work light from one of these companies like DeWalt, Milwaukee, Ridgid, Makita etc... Would work as a flashlight. Mostly for walking around at night or from the barn/shed to the house and back ?

They work very well as a rechargeable around-the-house flashlight and are very bright by the standards of average people. The batteries are so expensive that it makes no sense to buy the light unless you already have the batteries and charger. I have one for my Dewalt 14.4v tools and, even though I have "better" flashlights, if I lost or destroyed it, I would still look into buying another one. Maybe, in some way, this doesn't make sense but that is how I feel.

 

[Benson]

ElectronGuru and Belker have it right; just guessing, I'd say this is 15W or so, but I don't really know. Brighter than a Mag, but nothing terribly impressive. If you've got the charger and batteries anyway, a flashlight that uses it makes sense, so go with the brand you've got. Buying that infrastructure for a serviceable, but not awesome, flashlight, not so much sense, but I've no real handle on which would be best if you did it anyway. Unless you need the runtime these offer, or the stable base/pivoting head worklight aspect, I'd go with a ROP high -- same or better output (I'm guessing, of course), cheaper, and handier form-factor for walking and general use.

OTOH, they'd make a real nice hotwire host, with an appropriate reflector and some wiring upgrades; Makitas use Sony cells, IIRC, which aren't the best for super-high currents (see LuxLuthor's shootout, but you could probably get a hundred watts or two out of it, and proper (and fast!) charging for a 5-cell pack is already taken care of. In this context, given some people's addiction to kilolumens, batteries and a charger might be a perfectly reasonable expense.

For this, you might prefer Milwaukee, Ridgid, and I think one or two other brands, which use Emoli cells (better high-current performance). The A123 cells are even better, but lose substantial capacity and voltage; I think DeWalt uses them, but I'd not bother. (I'm not at all sure you can even handle the maximum output of an Emoli pack without melting down a plastic housing, let alone the A123s...)

As for the 4500 lux, that simply doesn't convert to lumens. 1 lx = 1 lm/m^2, which could represent total intensity (maybe it's a 1 lumen light, and they measured it on a 1 meter square right in front of the lens, or maybe 100 lumen light measured on a 10 meter square...) but more likely means beam center intensity (in which case it contains no information about the total output, and we'd still need to know the distance to estimate throw in Cd). Without some specification of measurement conditions, it's meaningless, and even with info, it's not convertible to lumens.

 

[ElectronGuru]

They also make a 3-level LED, but I don't think the screen and articulated camera are optional:

http://www.milwaukeetool.com:80/Pro...=2310-21&CategoryName=SC:+M12+Cordless+System

 

[Linger]

OTOH,...

Benson that was great.
Both the public safety message and the flashaholic msg underneath.

-Linger