The last few times I've been in a Menard's store, I've noticed a package of two aluminum 2AA flashlights under the "Guidesman" brand, for around $15 (Menard's SKU 575-6557). I've been unable to find a review of these lights anywhere online, but having used some of the more expensive Guidesman lights and found them to be perfectly acceptable, I've kept my eye on these. Recently, I decided to pick up a set, for something cheap to throw around. Since there aren't any reviews out there, I figured I ought to report my experience.
OVERVIEW
The lights are packaged in standard heat-sealed blister pack, and it looks appropriate for such an inexpensive item. Nothing fancy, but perfectly ordinary for a retail environment. Sorry you only get a picture of the cardboard insert, but I had already destroyed the packaging before I decided to write a review.
This packaging makes several claims about the lights. Approximately half these claims are reasonably true. We'll get to the others in a bit.
The lights themselves are about the size of the old incandescent MiniMag 2AA, although they trade the Mag's knurling for big, chunky blocks of metal. The lights fit comfortably in the hand and seem to offer plenty of grip. The head has a roughly pentagonal shape, and the light stays put very nicely. The metalworking is not bad at all for the money; there are no serious blemishes, although there are faint grooves left over from machining. My only real complaint here is that both lights have a slightly oily feel, presumably left over from part of the machining process. They wiped off just fine, though.
There's a reverse-clickie switch on the tailcap. The switch feels like decent quality, and it's covered with a rubber boot to ward off water. On a light this size and shape, I would have preferred a switch on the side, but that would probably have required a thicker barrel and more complicated machining, so the tailcap switch is understandable.
The reflector and lens are low-quality plastic, but they look like they'll probably do the trick. It's worth noting that there's no O-ring behind the lens, so despite the two in the barrel this light is only marginally water-resistant. In the store, with the lights still in the packaging, I was unable to identify the emitter. Even after I got them unpackaged and took a good look at the business end, I wasn't positive - but I had a nervous, horrible suspicion. If you can recognize this LED, it might just spoil the review for you.
Inside, at first glance, things are also pretty decent. The threads felt a bit rough at first, but after a few uses they rate a solid "tolerable". Head and tailcap are both well-sealed by O-rings, and although there's not much lubricant on them, they're not being asked to turn constantly for a switching mechanism, so they're probably fine. The battery tube acts as part of the circuit, and the contact faces are well-cleaned and shouldn't offer much resistance. Things start to go downhill when you look inside the head, though. The driver circuit is held in place with a thin steel retaining collar, which adds a pointless extra electrical contact, and not a high-quality one, either.
PERFORMANCE
Well, time to see what these lights are really worth. I'm not set up to do beamshots, so this part of the review will be text-only. I loaded them up with fresh off-brand alkalines (cheap lights deserve cheap batteries), and turned them both on.
Well, turned one on. The second required some fiddling, tightening and loosening the head until a more reliable contact was found. I think this was due to a misplaced solder blob on the back side of the driver circuit, as the switch on the first light hasn't given me any trouble.
Now we start getting into some of the less-accurate claims on the packaging. For instance, the light output - the package claims 70 lumens, but in truth I doubt both lights combined reach that level. I don't have any fancy measuring equipment, but by comparing to several of my other lights, I'd estimate them at a solid 25 lumens each. The beam was very smooth, with a large hotspot and much dimmer spill. It looked very similar, in fact, to my Fenix E01, but brighter, and rather more bluish.
I pulled the tailcap off and stuck my digital multimeter in line with the batteries. The reading jumped around a bit, but the driver was pulling around 300 mA from the batteries. Looks like the package got that part right, at least - unless the regulator is phenomenally inefficient, the lights are running very close to the advertised one watt. At this power, the light should have no trouble managing an 8-hour runtime from good-quality cells. More, if the regulator isn't too fancy and lets output drop as the voltage sags; a bit less if it's a Fenix-style circuit which manages totally flat regulation till the batteries are screaming for mercy.
Ignoring the calculations, I managed to perform an actual runtime test. Since I'm not set up to do beamshots or lumen measurements, you might find it surprising that I was able to do runtime. To be honest, I didn't expect or intend to, but the way things worked out, it was no trouble at all.
You see, I didn't have to wait for the batteries to die. Even as I was comparing the beams to my other lights, I realized they were getting dimmer. And bluer. They both stabilized at an estimated 2 lumens, and very bluish. Total runtime to this level? Approximately 15 seconds on the first light, and 30 on the second.
DISSECTION
Plainly, after a performance like that, I had to see what was going on inside. I pulled the head off both lights, and set about removing the retaining ring. There's no graceful way to manage this, so I mangled both rings quite badly. So much for returning them and getting my money back; I'm willing to eat the $15 to satisfy my curiosity.
Some of you will have guessed what I found inside. Others will be as shocked as I was.
Yep. That's a single 5mm LED, without even the slightest attempt at heatsinking. And it's eating the better part of a watt. I'm pretty sure that's against the Geneva Conventions, or something. The circuit board is set up to take an extra seven LEDs in a parallel array; if you felt like making that simple modification yourself, each LED would see less than 40 mA and the flashlight would be substantially more useful, although probably still not worth the money.
At this point, I really don't know what else to say. Maybe to laugh at you, for reading a thousand words when I could have finished this review in ten if I'd started at the other end. It surprises me some that any company today could produce something with such blatant lies about the performance, and surprises me even more that they were willing to sell a product with a lifespan of less than a minute. I suppose the packaging never claimed anything about longevity, not even the usual LED claim of 10,000+ hours. Other than some optimistic phrasing about energy consumption and water resistance, their only outright lie was the lumen count.
I'd try returning the lights if I thought it would make a difference. The money doesn't bother me, but I'd like to see the manufacturer address the more serious issues with the product. Unfortunately, I know returning the light to the store won't achieve anything, and since Guidesman appears to be a Menard's-owned brand, I'm unlikely to find any contact information for the manufacturer.
Anyway, there's a definite verdict here. Do NOT buy these lights. Not at full price. Not on sale. Not even free after rebate. Maybe if you think you'll use them as bodies for a homebrew, or if the store makes an accounting error and offers to pay you for taking the lights.
OVERVIEW
The lights are packaged in standard heat-sealed blister pack, and it looks appropriate for such an inexpensive item. Nothing fancy, but perfectly ordinary for a retail environment. Sorry you only get a picture of the cardboard insert, but I had already destroyed the packaging before I decided to write a review.
This packaging makes several claims about the lights. Approximately half these claims are reasonably true. We'll get to the others in a bit.
The lights themselves are about the size of the old incandescent MiniMag 2AA, although they trade the Mag's knurling for big, chunky blocks of metal. The lights fit comfortably in the hand and seem to offer plenty of grip. The head has a roughly pentagonal shape, and the light stays put very nicely. The metalworking is not bad at all for the money; there are no serious blemishes, although there are faint grooves left over from machining. My only real complaint here is that both lights have a slightly oily feel, presumably left over from part of the machining process. They wiped off just fine, though.
There's a reverse-clickie switch on the tailcap. The switch feels like decent quality, and it's covered with a rubber boot to ward off water. On a light this size and shape, I would have preferred a switch on the side, but that would probably have required a thicker barrel and more complicated machining, so the tailcap switch is understandable.
The reflector and lens are low-quality plastic, but they look like they'll probably do the trick. It's worth noting that there's no O-ring behind the lens, so despite the two in the barrel this light is only marginally water-resistant. In the store, with the lights still in the packaging, I was unable to identify the emitter. Even after I got them unpackaged and took a good look at the business end, I wasn't positive - but I had a nervous, horrible suspicion. If you can recognize this LED, it might just spoil the review for you.
Inside, at first glance, things are also pretty decent. The threads felt a bit rough at first, but after a few uses they rate a solid "tolerable". Head and tailcap are both well-sealed by O-rings, and although there's not much lubricant on them, they're not being asked to turn constantly for a switching mechanism, so they're probably fine. The battery tube acts as part of the circuit, and the contact faces are well-cleaned and shouldn't offer much resistance. Things start to go downhill when you look inside the head, though. The driver circuit is held in place with a thin steel retaining collar, which adds a pointless extra electrical contact, and not a high-quality one, either.
PERFORMANCE
Well, time to see what these lights are really worth. I'm not set up to do beamshots, so this part of the review will be text-only. I loaded them up with fresh off-brand alkalines (cheap lights deserve cheap batteries), and turned them both on.
Well, turned one on. The second required some fiddling, tightening and loosening the head until a more reliable contact was found. I think this was due to a misplaced solder blob on the back side of the driver circuit, as the switch on the first light hasn't given me any trouble.
Now we start getting into some of the less-accurate claims on the packaging. For instance, the light output - the package claims 70 lumens, but in truth I doubt both lights combined reach that level. I don't have any fancy measuring equipment, but by comparing to several of my other lights, I'd estimate them at a solid 25 lumens each. The beam was very smooth, with a large hotspot and much dimmer spill. It looked very similar, in fact, to my Fenix E01, but brighter, and rather more bluish.
I pulled the tailcap off and stuck my digital multimeter in line with the batteries. The reading jumped around a bit, but the driver was pulling around 300 mA from the batteries. Looks like the package got that part right, at least - unless the regulator is phenomenally inefficient, the lights are running very close to the advertised one watt. At this power, the light should have no trouble managing an 8-hour runtime from good-quality cells. More, if the regulator isn't too fancy and lets output drop as the voltage sags; a bit less if it's a Fenix-style circuit which manages totally flat regulation till the batteries are screaming for mercy.
Ignoring the calculations, I managed to perform an actual runtime test. Since I'm not set up to do beamshots or lumen measurements, you might find it surprising that I was able to do runtime. To be honest, I didn't expect or intend to, but the way things worked out, it was no trouble at all.
You see, I didn't have to wait for the batteries to die. Even as I was comparing the beams to my other lights, I realized they were getting dimmer. And bluer. They both stabilized at an estimated 2 lumens, and very bluish. Total runtime to this level? Approximately 15 seconds on the first light, and 30 on the second.
DISSECTION
Plainly, after a performance like that, I had to see what was going on inside. I pulled the head off both lights, and set about removing the retaining ring. There's no graceful way to manage this, so I mangled both rings quite badly. So much for returning them and getting my money back; I'm willing to eat the $15 to satisfy my curiosity.
Some of you will have guessed what I found inside. Others will be as shocked as I was.
Yep. That's a single 5mm LED, without even the slightest attempt at heatsinking. And it's eating the better part of a watt. I'm pretty sure that's against the Geneva Conventions, or something. The circuit board is set up to take an extra seven LEDs in a parallel array; if you felt like making that simple modification yourself, each LED would see less than 40 mA and the flashlight would be substantially more useful, although probably still not worth the money.
At this point, I really don't know what else to say. Maybe to laugh at you, for reading a thousand words when I could have finished this review in ten if I'd started at the other end. It surprises me some that any company today could produce something with such blatant lies about the performance, and surprises me even more that they were willing to sell a product with a lifespan of less than a minute. I suppose the packaging never claimed anything about longevity, not even the usual LED claim of 10,000+ hours. Other than some optimistic phrasing about energy consumption and water resistance, their only outright lie was the lumen count.
I'd try returning the lights if I thought it would make a difference. The money doesn't bother me, but I'd like to see the manufacturer address the more serious issues with the product. Unfortunately, I know returning the light to the store won't achieve anything, and since Guidesman appears to be a Menard's-owned brand, I'm unlikely to find any contact information for the manufacturer.
Anyway, there's a definite verdict here. Do NOT buy these lights. Not at full price. Not on sale. Not even free after rebate. Maybe if you think you'll use them as bodies for a homebrew, or if the store makes an accounting error and offers to pay you for taking the lights.
Menards definitely needs to get a new light on the shelves.
