Seeking recomendations: 1-3w flood long battery life

[TigerhawkT3]

That's pretty weird with the preemptive quote.

I've seen MagLED products at Wal*Mart, Home Depot, and Fry's.

 

[xoham]

I ultimately purchased a Maglite 2D with a Magled. It was around $42.00 U.S. Funny how the bulb is more expensive than the Maglite itself.

I already had some old Rayovac D Renewals to run a big portable fluorescent tube lantern and they appear to be working well in this light.

A somewhat blue-ish beam and a dark-center donut, as predicted, if you expand the focus of the beam.

Effectiveness:
Very wide spill but still with a spot. I would prefer a more floody beam, or at least a wider spot, but this appears to work very well.

Almost every car that passed me when I took it on my walk turned on their high beams to make sure they could see the pedestrians (me). Since this didn't always happen before, I take this as a sign of my new visibility.

A guy on the far side of my apartment complex shouted, "Hey, flashlight!". I turned it on him and he said, "One minute it is 10:30 pm, the next it is high noon!".

Good cheap product with high battery life expectations as per this review:
http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/maglite_mag-led.htm
I'm glad I didn't go with some of the >$100 lights I had considered.

It would be nice if it had some sort of glow-in-the-dark feature to find it in a power outage.

Thank You everyone that posted advice, even if I didn't take it.

 

[TigerhawkT3]

If flood is more important to you than focusability, you can always remove the reflector.

 

[nerdgineer]

Waion's new VB-16 lets you set power levels from 0.3 through 4 watts (plus a moon mode) and runs off rechargeable 18650's and 2xRCR123s (also primary cells). Beam does have a hot spot but the smallish reflector gives a brighter spill compared to the hot spot. It has type 3 hard anodization, coated glass lens, etc. and costs $55 shipped.

Don't know run times but if it ran 2 hrs to 50% at full power (level 32) on one 18650 (an educated guess), it should (assuming equal efficiency at all levels) deliver 50 hours at level 2. Level one is a moon mode which I guesstimate would deliver about 2000 hours run time on one charged 18650.

 

[chesterqw]

you want normal style or the flashaholic style?

for normal= get a magled 3D and buy a diffusing lens.

for flashaholic= get a 3D mag(incan) then mod with a u bin, some good driver and a HOP reflector. then find those nimh D cells with 12000mah capacity and a good charger for them.

 

[InfidelCastro]

If I wanted something like that, I'd probably just put a Fenix L2T or similiar light (Jetbeam MKII or LightFlux LF1) on low. Get a good 20 hour runtime on low and using rechargeable batteries as well.

And then the high beam is there too, if you would need it for some reason.

 

[lrp]

I would recommend going with the SF L2. You would have good runtime on low and that is all the light you would need at nite imho.

 

[Cevulirn]

I haven't read this entire thread, but I found that a big cell m*g-LED along with the reflector that I use for my RoP (MoP from sandwich shoppe,) creats a nice wide flood, but isn't very bright.

 

[europium]

Waion's new VB-16 lets you set power levels from 0.3 through 4 watts (plus a moon mode) and runs off rechargeable 18650's and 2xRCR123s (also primary cells). Beam does have a hot spot but the smallish reflector gives a brighter spill compared to the hot spot. It has type 3 hard anodization, coated glass lens, etc. and costs $55 shipped.

Don't know run times but if it ran 2 hrs to 50% at full power (level 32) on one 18650 (an educated guess), it should (assuming equal efficiency at all levels) deliver 50 hours at level 2. Level one is a moon mode which I guesstimate would deliver about 2000 hours run time on one charged 18650.

This is a high-quality variation of the light I recommended. It can be had, including 18650s and charger, for $100 or less.

I really don't understand the popularity of D-cell lights for walking. I got the CPF LE Multi-Level Light precisely because I got weary of carrying my 3-D Mag with Lux drop-in. I am not a weakling nor infirm, but holding a D-cell light in my hands for a couple of hours was no fun at all. I now use my 3-D with cool-tinted Lux for power outages, or "mood lighting."

 

[xoham]

This light has probably saved me from a hospital stay already. People drive pretty foolishly near where I walk.

Somebody rolled down their window and shouted to me, "Thanks for being visible!" That was cool.

The reasoning for going with the D light is the really long battery life. It is a bit cumbersome to lug around but does the job well.

What is an HOP reflector and where could I get it?

 

[xoham]

I have Press n Seal under the lens of my MagLED 2C. I can focus to a pretty wide flood with no donut hole. The instructions on my drop-in clearly state NO RCHARGEABLE BATTERIES.

I don't recall if the MagLED package said NO RECHARGEABLE or not. I use rechargeables with it and so far, no troubles.