Safe Light - Love/Hate

[Budman231]

I bought a half dozen Safe Lights to give as gifts for the holidays. I grabbed an extra one to keep around the house. I have to say there are things I love about this light, and things I hate. Anyone out there see it the same way.?
Love :
- Overall Construction
- Solid Feel & 9v Power is good
- Find Me Setting
- Low Setting
Hate :
- High mode is disappointing at best, even from a single LED.
- Strobe mode is lame. Get rid of it !
- The need to toggle through all modes all the time. Wouldn't be that bad if strobe was gone.

Overall it is a good light and one that you can trust.

Needs some work I think.

 

[Illum]

never bought a safelight...sounds like yet another light to put on the list


What I use are pak-lites, alot more simplified

 

[paulr]

I think Budman's comments are well taken but will remark that everyone who buys the Safelights seems to like them. I've never been that big on 9V lights myself since AA cells are alot more common and cheaper, and two AA cells hold more energy than a 9V battery in less space. 9V batteries in the old days were commonly used in handheld transistor radios but those radios almost always use two AA's now. It could be that the Safelight's very useful "find me" mode is more efficient with a 9V battery than it could be with a 1AA or 2AA light using a dc/dc boost converter.

The Paklite is a cute device, elegant in its simplicity, but ridiculously overpriced in my opinion, and not that great for camping because of non-waterproofness and lack of a lanyard hole. It's sort of a 9 volt version of a Fauxton. One of these days I'll get around to making one at home out of a couple leds and a resistor and a battery clip scrounged from a used-up 9v battery, total cost about 30 cents.

Meanwhile I prefer the small 1AA lights (e.g. Gerber Infinity Ultra) to these 9 volt lights.

 

[Curious_character]

I bought a half dozen Safe Lights to give as gifts for the holidays. I grabbed an extra one to keep around the house. I have to say there are things I love about this light, and things I hate. Anyone out there see it the same way.?
Love :
- Overall Construction
- Solid Feel & 9v Power is good
- Find Me Setting
- Low Setting
Hate :
- High mode is disappointing at best, even from a single LED.
- Strobe mode is lame. Get rid of it !
- The need to toggle through all modes all the time. Wouldn't be that bad if strobe was gone.

Overall it is a good light and one that you can trust.

Needs some work I think.

I just got a few from the CPF group buy. I agree with most of the comments, but would add that the high setting is probably appropriate for this light. I measured the current at 84 mA with a fresh battery, which means you can expect something like 3 - 5 hours of run time on high with an alkaline 9V battery. I think this is a reasonable tradeoff between brightness and run time for a light with this purpose.

What I don't like about the one I've looked at so far is the awful color. It has a very blue central spot surrounded by pukey green. I don't expect pure white from something like this, but I've never seen anything so unattractive in any light I've got, including many with 5 mm LEDs. Yecch! It's certainly not something I'd give as a gift.

c_c

 

[Flying Turtle]

My old PALight e-Lite will turn off (return to find me) from any mode by holding down the switch, and cycling through the other modes isn't required. I guess they've changed the switch in the Safe Light.

Geoff

 

[LED_Thrift]

Yes Budman, I agree with all of your pros & cons. Get rid of that strobe!

They used to make a light called the Workman, that was just high & find-me. That was great, I wish they still made that one. It was less expensive, too. You did loose low mode, but it was worth it to get rid of the useless, annoying strobe.

One other plus - you can squeeze the very last bit of energy from a 9v cell. IIRC some of the ones I would remove because the light was getting too dim measured only 3v!

Flying Turtle may be right about the new lights, try holding the switch to get it off without having to cycle through the other modes.

 

[Bearcat]

Do not forget that the light comes with a clip for hands free operation and a magnet for attaching it to the fender of your car when changing a flat. The strobe might come in handy, but if you do not like it, you never have to switch through it if you know how to operate the light. Press once = Low, press again = high, press and HOLD in either low or high = off. The find me light is easy too, press and HOLD = on, press and HOLD = off. Mine stays on my night stand and I am very happy with it. It may not be perfect, but it does the job. The only time that I really notice any blue tint to the light is when I am ceiling bouncing or wall hunting.