Is There a Flashlight Heaven and Hell? Where Do Obsolete Flashlights Go?

[vicv]

As they say one man's garbage is another man's treasure. The boost drivers driving a 12v led dome a single cell are impressive. In my case if it's not available to the builder it doesn't exist! I'll take your word on the 500 lumen runtime as I've never seen such a thing. 18650s only hold so much energy. Now if there's a light that uses a buck/boost driver and has a 500 lumen mode I could see it. Or like the zebra light you mentioned that has a boost circuit. But they're few and far between

 

[bykfixer]

The 500 lumens thing has been done. Cannot speak for the couple of hours part though. In a 6" light it's not such a huge deal anymore.

As for this user I don't see any working flashlight as obsolete like some kinda DOS operated computer. I suppose the day a battery is no longer available for a particular type it would have to be deemed obsolete like for the same reason.... finding parts n pieces.

Fashion on the other hand may call something obsolete but to the average Windows XP using Joe that is far from reality.

 

[Tachead]

I also think we should give the scientists a break here guys. Considering we went from horse drawn carriages, candles, lanterns, and torches to 50000 hour lifespan high CRI LED's and ultra efficient nano tech infused incandescents in less then 140 years, all while most government, corporate, and private funding is being funneled into fossil fuel mining and tech instead of alternative energy research and battery and lighting tech like it should be, I think they are doing ok lol.

 

[STO]

I think most of the time it's not that older lights aren't still perfectly useful, it's that being flashlight enthusiasts means we always want the latest and greatest so to us sometimes things like older gen LEDs seem outdated. How are we going to justify buying more lights if the ones we haven't don't become "outdated". Still it's nice to go back and cycle some of the heaven lights back into service.

Also bykfixer's posts are really making me want to expand my currently small antique flashlight collection.

 

[bykfixer]

^^ the research and getting them to work after decades in some box somewhere is fun.

 

[Tachead]

Yeah, those are some nice vintage lights bykfixer:thumbsup:.

Old stuff is pretty cool. A few months ago while doing home renos I opened up a wall in my house and found a 1950's Coke bottle that still had some dried Coke in it. After some research I found out that the bottle was made the year before my house was built. So, the tradesman that built my house likely put it there right before he plastered the wall. Now 64 years later another tradesman(me), from a different era, was doing some new renos and found it. It was kind of a neat moment. I sat there and had a Coke while thinking about what it was like 64 years ago and what the tradesman was like.

Sorry, wildly off topic but, I thought it was cool and bykfixer's vintage lights reminded me about that bottle. Man, glass bottles were thick back then.

 

[jorn]

Some lights will never be obsolete. My old liteflux lf2xt and nitecore d10 always get the latest and greatest neutral tinted leds. Ui is just too good to put them in a drawer.

 

[gurdygurds]

The 3 to the right I presume you speak of...

Left is an early Franco circa 1910-12.

It was one that actually had this new invention...
The on/off sliding switch. These 2C sized were called baby lights because they were the ultimate in modern miniaturized flashlights. Very bright for their size with about 6 or 7 lumens cast over a wide area via the convex lens.
Rubber bodies held up better to those extremely leaky batteries of the day. It was a more durable light versus those "paper" bodied numbers of the day.
Soon that switch became obsolete.


Awe yeah! Technology.
By 1915 the internal slider was the norm for Franco. Also by 1915 police had begun to carry flashlights and metal bodies were becoming standard, although rubber bodies were still popular.

Right of the Franco are Eveready/Daylo lights called "Soldier Boys" circa 1917 to 1920-ish. Dark one is an enlisted mans light and the silver was an officer version. Eveready encouraged folks at home to buy them to donate to soldiers.


Again very bright and very portable for the period. A novel white reflector cast light much more consistant through the convex lens.
They were military issues to the lucky during the big 1. The switch combined a very effective belt clip that when not slid over the little 'ball' allowed signaling via that little 'ball'.
Ah, but soon after that became obsolete when the TL122A was released in about 1918 or so.

This one changed it all.
This one is a replica of a Bright Star.
A much more durable assemblage of parts n pieces, yet still pretty light and packable the much larger diameter right angle head cast a lot more light out front. The D cells allowed vastly improved runtimes and the switch system is still in use to this day.


Bright Star is given credit in 1925 but some old military re-actment supply sites swear they have photos of US soldiers carrying them in WW1.
The US Army and Marines still issue lights like these according to Fulton Manufacturing who supply them. It is reported that the Marines use their upgrade to LED kits that replace D cells with adapters and double A batteries.

Very cool! Thanks for the rundown. Looks like lights from an episode of American Pickers.

 

[phoenixcatapult]

It depends on how you defined obsolete.E2L aa is still 115lm,but enought lumens for long time running.

 

[bykfixer]

It depends on how you defined obsolete.E2L aa is still 115lm,but enought lumens for long time running.

That is an idea whose time should return imho.

With the efficiency available it would be refreshing, at least to me anyway to see a return of "that's bright enough" with uber runtimes.
Thanks to lumen wars it's not seemingly going to happen anytime soon.

 

[gurdygurds]

Agreed. I'll take runtime and reliability over huge output all day.......I mean all night.

That is an idea whose time should return imho.

With the efficiency available it would be refreshing, at least to me anyway to see a return of "that's bright enough" with uber runtimes.
Thanks to lumen wars it's not seemingly going to happen anytime soon.

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Agreed. I'll take runtime and reliability over huge output all day.......I mean all night.

 

[Tachead]

That is an idea whose time should return imho.

With the efficiency available it would be refreshing, at least to me anyway to see a return of "that's bright enough" with uber runtimes.
Thanks to lumen wars it's not seemingly going to happen anytime soon.

You can have the best of both worlds theses days with certain brands. High efficiency for all modes and high outputs if needed.

 

[gurdygurds]

LOL. I threw you a meatball on that one eh??

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Is there a flashlight heaven or hell? If you're about to find out, don't go into the light. It's not yet your time.

 

[etc]

I have this astounding realization, an epiphany that my lights will outlive me.

All these Surefire clones with Malkoffs. there is nothing to break, they will run forever and a day. The only semi-disposable part is the cells and you can always buy them.

The only way my lights will break if someone reverses a cell into them, and that's not even all.

That's a sobering realization.

 

[bykfixer]

Sobering realization is when you are going bald, and place 3 bottles of shampoo in your shopping cart then realize that is likely a lifetime supply.

 

[Bushman5]

I either sell my old lights, or in the case of the three LED lights that failed (2 x fenix TK70's and 1 Nitecore Caveman) despite multiple warranty replacements....i took the hacksaw to them and made them into functional storage tubes:


one Nitecore Caveman battery tube (head sawn off and filed flush, then I put a fenix plastic cap that came with the TK70's packaging, added expoxy to seal it, then two pieces of foam (one on each end) Voila! 8 x AA battery tube, waterproof, crushproof

one Fenix TK70 battery tube adn two TK70 tailcaps = waterproof storage

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

LOL. I threw you a meatball on that one eh??

Yep, almost choked on it, I was laughing so hard. :laughing: Double entendre? Or were you only thinking of flashlights?

~ CG