LOVE my Sunwayman. It's a great light. Had trouble with the variable ring over the years. Last time I fixed the ring I accidentally damaged the body of the light and it's a pain to change the batteries now. Still really like the light, but I'm thinking it might be time to try out an 18650 light. I really enjoy fiddling with the adjustable ring on the V11r, but find that I frequently have it set brighter than I need, and it's eating through batteries. And anytime I let someone use it for a bit, they crank it on max brightness.
I like the idea of a USB rechargeable 18650, though I know this will be quite a bit bigger of a light. I'd be ok to give up the USB charging as I have a nice Nitecore charger, but it sounds pretty convenient. What's out there thats awesome? It will be pocket carried with a clip next to my Leatherman XTI, so the smaller the better.
I have a V11R, and like all 16340 or 14500 lights, the runtime is terrible.
My solution was to use two of the AA adapters and bore them out and run it on a 16650. Much better runtimes and it's still smaller than many 18650 lights.
It's looking a little beat up, but works perfectly:
However I admit, this doesn't solve the issues that can occur with the mag ring.
Sadly if you like the constantly variable adjustable lights with mag rings, they seem fairly few and far between. No other UI will offer the same versatility and instant access to different modes however. So expect a different experience with any others.
As for which lights. Well seriously there are hundreds of options, from under $15 right through to $300 if you want. So you may need to narrow down what you are wanting from the light and a price point.
As for the charging. I'm not personally keen on the inbuilt chargers. Firstly because some/many just aren't good chargers. But mostly because you can't use the light while charging the battery. And that you can only charge one battery at a time.
As a travel light, where you might just plug it in every other day, then yes, it could be a good solution however.
For a mid priced light, I say check out the EagleTac D-Series lights. There is a twisty, clicky and a few other flavours. All compact for 18650 lights. And EagleTac offer good quality lights and a nice choice of emitter types.
If you fancy going budget, then the as mentioned Convoy is a great way to go. They offer two main models the S2 and the S2+. The S2+ is slightly shorter with a shallower reflector, it'll offer a more floody beam. The S2 is slightly longer and has a deeper reflector and a little more throw. Other than that they are very similar.
Places like banggood dot com sell these for a very good price. Some as cheap as $10.00 and the quality is superb on them. And they offer a really good range of LED tints too and a choice of driver outputs. These are as bright and as well made as pretty much any other lights on the market. The only slight downer is the driver is a bit basic and the mode options are a bit limited, no moon light and just scroll through the modes. But it has no PWM and works well.
The Convoy lights also use standard 17mm driver boards and 16mm stars, so are ever so easy to mod if you want something else.
A step up from the Convoy is an Astrolux S1 also available at Banggood and is only $30.00
This is a 100% superb light. Very very powerful, lots of modes, choice of tints and a programmable driver. It'll out perform lights that might cost 4 or 5 times more money.
It even comes with an extra body tube, so you run it as a shorty 16340/18350 light if you want, or a bigger 18650 light. You seriously would not be disappointed with this light.
