Home Depot 1AA Lights (pair)

[snowlover91]

I just bought one this morning. the built quality is kind of cheap. but not like it will break under abuse. It's not that bright, but it works fine if you are trying to find something at night in your car or something. I tried to disassemble the head but the board seems to be stamped to the housing. you might need to drill the spots to remove and replace the LED. I am not sure if there's a LED driver. however, there's some space between where the board contacts the battery and the level of the LED.

What would you estimate the lumens at, and what type batteries do these use? Thanks for the help, I might try them out or may stick with my Nitecore D10 on the way!

 

[Tekstyle]

They use 1AA. I would say less than 40 lumen. so something similar to a super bright 5mm.

does anyone know if there's a focused optic that will fit into the housing so i can make this a thrower? Someone said it's very similar to another flashlight above....

 

[davidt1]

I bought a pair today. Can't complain for the price. It's brighter than my Streamlight Nano. The throw is longer too. With the AA battery, I don't feel guilty playing with it all the time.

 

[flashlife]

Kramer5150 said "15L" on the MicroCenter light he has...I assume that's 15 lumens, and from the look of the HD lights they're very similar, if not identical to the one he reviewed.

The LED in the MicroCenter light looked a lot like the one in my RR 2AAA, which is a half watt.

Bright Guy specs say the Streamlight Nano is 10 lumens, so that fits what Davidt1 said.

BTW, it undoubtably DOES have a driver, since white LEDs take about 3.2V min., and you can't get that from 1AA.

 

[kwalker]

I picked up 3 packs of these this morning (6 lights for $15) and I'll put one in each car because they have low enough light so it isn't distracting to drivers yet bright enough to see things clearly. The others I'll give away and put one in wife's purse. I also own the River Rock 1AA (like it a lot) and the light output of the Husky seems about 1/2 of the RR. The Husky seems solid, but obviously the build quality isn't up to most CPF'ers standards - it should be able to handle some abuse though.
Hey, it's a light that cost $2.50 and I feel it's much better than the many 9, 12, 19 LED lights out there that cost more money.

 

[boss429]

Here's a link to some pics I took of the 1AA lights taken apart. scroll down 4-5 pictures.
http://mysite.verizon.net/res1yioa/id1.html

 

[mikekoz]

I bought a pack of these at the HD in Jacksonville, NC. Pretty nice for $2.50 each! They are bright enough for finding your way around at night, or for looking for things in your car. They have a nice smooth beam also which is really surprising! Neither of mine seen to have a purple tint. The build quality is OK, but the switch may give problems down the road. It has an odd feel to it. The threads need to be cleaned and lubed. The lanyard on one of mine broke! Oh well!! Still glad I got them!

Mike

 

[Holepuncher]

I picked up a pair this morning. Feels light and cheap compared to a Fenix L1T but not too bad for a $2 flashlight. Light output is slightly better than a Fenix E01. I put it at no more than 15 to 20 lumens. Heres where it gets really bad though. With the supplied heavy duty battery the curent draw is 650 ma. With an alkaline the current draw is 850 ma. So we are talking aprox. 1.25 Watts draw and I would say at best less than 0.1 watt is making it to the LED. I'm guessing the run time wont be much more than an hour.

Just from changing the battery a few times the threads on the tail cap are getting shiny and rough. But hey. We are flashaholics. Buy a few packs of them. Give them away. Put one in your collection but don't tell anyone it only cost $2. Looking at the husky side by side next to a fenix L1T from a few feet away its hard to tell them apart.

 

[Holepuncher]

I did some more playing around with this husky. I took the head off and connected it up to a variable power supply. Theres something really strange going on with these. At 1.5 Volts the current draw is 850 ma. Slowly decreasing the voltage, at somewhere around 1.3 volts the current draw abruptly drops to about 120 ma with only a very slight change in light output. So with a fresh battery something in the boost circuit is being severely overdriven or saturated. The I continued to decrease the voltage further and the light stays lit right down to 0.2 volts but its getting pretty dim by then. I guess the run time will be considerably greater than the hour or so I stated in my last post.

 

[tarponbill]

I got a couple of packs, perfect 'car glove box light'... Stuck a Lithium in them and in the glove box. Not that bright, but works inside the car and bright enough for minor car repair.

For $2.50 how can you go wrong.

 

[flashlife]

I got a pair this AM.
WATCH THAT CLICKY !!
I had to return the 1st pair, since one had a flaky switch (Kramer5150 warned us ! )...anyway the light wouldn't turn OFF, even tho' the switch clicked OK. SO try'em in the parking lot before you drive off.

Out put is about like my RR 2AAA, but the color is whiter and the hotspot is more defined.

An OK buy for $2.50 each.

BTW, having handled this one and the MicroCenter light, I'd say this one is 'better'. The body is heavier alum., color is better, etc. And the prices is right ($2.50 ea at HD vs $#6.99 at MicroCenter).
But the threads DO need cleaning, the O-rings lubing (beeswax is good), etc.

 

[led4me]

I bought these yesterday. For $5 for 2, I like it. Brightness as others have said already is similar to RR 2AAA but overall beam is not as wide. The threads are rough and one of the O-rings broke. I couldn't remove the emitter, it turns in place and won't come out.

I charged up some nimh and ran both of them for 1 hour. Then I recharged the nimh in my LaCross bc900. The charger put back 256mah and 249mah. These numbers seem too good based on what Holepuncher was measuring. Any one else with measurements for these lights?

 

[Photon Joe]

I got two of these yesterday and posted this morning wondering if anyone else had seen them or had them.
I have no equipment other than a VM so I just tried different batteries in them with varying levels of volts and they fire up bright as they get all the way down to a very low level of juice.
They had to be cleaned before the switches worked right but no problems now.
I thought they looked like fenix but the emitter is strange looking, very small like a 2mm cloudy yellow bubble.
I have no idea what kind of LED is in them.

 

[Holepuncher]

I bought these yesterday. For $5 for 2, I like it. Brightness as others have said already is similar to RR 2AAA but overall beam is not as wide. The threads are rough and one of the O-rings broke. I couldn't remove the emitter, it turns in place and won't come out.

I charged up some nimh and ran both of them for 1 hour. Then I recharged the nimh in my LaCross bc900. The charger put back 256mah and 249mah. These numbers seem too good based on what Holepuncher was measuring. Any one else with measurements for these lights?

As I said after the battery voltage drops to around 1.3 volts the current draw drops abruptly (its almost like a switch is thrown) so your numbers are probably right. I'll run one till it goes dead and do some measuring.

If you want to get at the emitter just screw the head off. Place it on a hard table with the lens facing up. Get something round, plastic or wood, a little smaller than the lens and push down against the lens hard. The lens, reflector and "barrel" will push out. The barrel is two circuit boards on both sides of a small round plastic cylinder. One circuit board has the led soldered to it. The other is the driver which is a minimal circuit consisting of a small surface mount transistor (it may be some kind of chip - hard to tell) an inductor and a capacitor - hence the poor efficiency and performance.

 

[Holepuncher]

For reference. As I said in an earlier post the husky draws upwards of 800 ma and then drops off. A Fenix E01 draws about 70 ma and is only a little dimmer than the husky. A fenix L1T V2 draws 1.2 A on high and about 160 ma on low. On low the brightness of the L1T blows away the husky by a long shot.

If the efficiency was on par with the other lights I mentioned, the husky would be a great light for the money - maybe even for twice the money. Right now though I consider it a dim battery eater.

 

[toolpig1]

My local HD had a giant pile of these. I bought one pack, but haven't tried them yet. The emitter looks very similar to the one in my RR 2AAA 0.5 watt.

 

[DaveG]

I also got a pack for $5,for the price better than expected.

 

[Magnus1959]

Guess I'm gonna have to check at my Home Depot to see if they have them. Price sounds right.

 

[flashlife]

I measured the current on mine at 120ma with a new alkaline in it.

I was gonna run an Energizer e2 lith. primary in it, but if it draws a gazillion ma when over 1.2 v...maybe I'll just stick to cheap alkys.

It won't be my EDC, but for $2.50...

 

[flashlife]

Guess I'm gonna have to check at my Home Depot to see if they have them. Price sounds right.

The HD flyer at my store says the sale runs thru Mon, Dec 1.
I guess after that you gotta buy'em online-only...and with ~$7.50 shipping, I wouldn't bother.

So Get'em NOW, if you're gonna !!


BTW the online SKU number to punch into the HD website search is 91072.