Re: scored my Costo\'s and got lucky
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Brighteyez said:
They may not be great in the overall scheme of things, but in the class of $8-14 flashlights, don't you think they're right up there in value? They seemed like a reasonable buy even when they were at their original price, were it not for the varying quality.
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MoonRise said:
... I still have to look at the Luxeon lottery factor, but so far they seem like pretty nice lights. Just not great lights. For $8 each, they seem like a bargain. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
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Notice the last line in my original post? A decent light at a bargain price. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Seems to run just fine on a pair of NiMH AA. Used it as the dog walking light last night. Decent. I'd give it a 75-80 on a 1-100 scale, a 3.5 on a 1-5 scale, a C+/B- letter grade. I'm a pretty harsh grader. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif For the price, it's a bargain.
Pleasing lines of the body, I like the smooth fillet from the body diameter up to the head diameter. Solid construction with pretty thick body walls, the head wall thickness for the bezel is a bit thin compared to the massively thick body. Just big enough that I wouldn't class it as EDC sized. It's like a mini-Mag on steroids converted to LED. Decent lanyard for non-critical usage (needs a cordlock to tighten the lanyard around your wrist for more solid retainment).
I measured 550 ma current draw from the AA NiMH, at that rate you'd have about 4 hours of regulated runtime from 2000 maH-class cells (just like QuickBeam reported on
FlashLightReviews.com review of Costco AA Luxeon . That's about 1.5W power from the cells, so I think the LED is being driven at/near spec for a Luxeon 1w. The body/head didn't get hot or even perceptibly warm during use, so I don't know if the heatsinking is poor from the LED or if it's really good and the massively thick body just absorbed and transfered all the heat out.
I'm a bit spoiled from using sputtered/OP reflectors and a bit more power for the dog-walking duties. A near-spec 1W Lux in an optic isn't quite in the same league as a textured reflector and 5W xenon incan or a Lux-V with textured reflector.
Decent. A bargain for the price. Much more light output than a mini-Mag and much longer run-time as well, just not quite as intense of a hot spot. And I wouldn't even attempt to use a mini-Mag for my dog walking, the runtime and overall output just don't cut it for me.