Stanley Tripod LED brief Comparison Review

[UnknownVT]

While in my local WalMart I came across the Stanley Tripod LED flashlight at a very advantageous price - on a peg marked $4 - when I checked out it was $3!!!

The model # is 95-112. Stanley Tool's Webpage on the 95-112 light

Size -

Seems a very handy light that can be used as a hand flashlight (bit shorter than a 3D MagLite) or the legs open up as a tripod and the head can be tilted in 4 click-stop positions (but one can set positions between the clicks).

The light uses AA batteries - 3x AA in each tripod leg - but the light works on any 3, 6 or 9 batteries - which means the light has 3x AA batteries in series in each leg, and the 3 legs are in parallel.

So there has to be some current limiter between the batteries and the LED - probably a simple current limiting resistor.

Head -

that's a lot of green coloring from the circuit board showing in the reflector....
I don't recognize the LED - but the webpage above claims it's a 0.5W - and the rating is 20 lumens.

So is it 20 lumens?

vs. 4Sevens Quark 123 (clipped) at Level 3 (rated 18 lumens)

looks fairly comparable - the Stanley Tripod seems warmer tinted - at least in its side-spill - the very center of the hot spot is blue/violet (not show in these beamshots)
- so maybe the LED is a Nichia 1/2Watt?

INDEX to follow up parts -

Construction quality and closer photo of (original) LED - Post #10

Current draw at tailcap with max power consumption and Estimated runtimes - Post #11

Better pics of head and LED/emitter - Post #13

 

[Illum]

First imagine if they've taken the same idea and just made a light capable of tailstanding without the angled head?

Then imagine how valuable that middle black piece between the legs would be if it was a heatsink?:thumbsup:

Then consider 9AA cells...assuming 3S3P with NiMH... you'll have 3.6V 6AH to work with if eneloops was used

Now consider what you can run with a heatsink that size and capable current draw from a battery bank of that capacity

 

[Black Rose]

The model # is 95-112. Stanley Tool's Webpage on the 95-112 light

My daughter bought me this exact model for Father's Day.

It will definitely come in handy.

 

[kramer5150]

I bit of a warning about this light... I have the 9x5mm LED version and its a nice little task light. I dropped it onto the padded carpet from my bed to the floor (about 3 feet) and the tripod mechanism busted. The legs are now no longer inter connected and I can not lock the legs back into a closed position.

Good Idea/concept but lacking in the durability department... IMHO

 

[supasizefries]

Heh, I have the very same light that I JUST took apart and modded. I was planning on posting a build thread in the modified section. In a nutshell, I ripped out the stock LED and circuit board which was one piece. I replaced it with an unknown bin Cree emitter (on the star it says 7090) from a River Rock 2C nightfire light. I'm driving the LED with a 800 mA driver from DX. I can say the difference in brightness is night and day. :laughing: I've rigged a very crude heatsink solution inside which seems to be working. :rock: Hopefully, I'll get around to writing up a build thread. But damn, if my local Walmart is selling these lights for $3-4 a piece, I'm gonna stock up!

Here's a pic of my modded light:

 

[nanotech17]

best bang for the $$$$

 

[recDNA]

Terrific idea...mediocre execution but OK for such little money. The flashlight/worklight combo seems more appropriate than the flashlight/lantern combo. I wouldn't mind having one in the garage as a quick dual purpose light...especially in a power outage.

Seems like a diffuser for the lens is needed or an led designed for pure flood. I wouldn't want a hotspot in a worklight. I would want an even flood.

If the legs weren't so weak it would be worth spending $100 for a premium model with the right power and LED...like an Eagletac M2 with legs.

 

[recDNA]

Imagine if the legs were wide enough to hold 18650's

 

[supasizefries]

Seems like a diffuser for the lens is needed or an led designed for pure flood. I wouldn't want a hotspot in a worklight. I would want an even flood.

With a Cree LED, my modded light is a pretty damn good thrower...but yeah it's much more appropriate to have flood for this application. I'm thinking about sputtering the reflector, but I've never done it before. :thinking:

 

[UnknownVT]

I bit of a warning about this light... I have the 9x5mm LED version and its a nice little task light. I dropped it onto the padded carpet from my bed to the floor (about 3 feet) and the tripod mechanism busted. The legs are now no longer inter connected and I can not lock the legs back into a closed position.

Good Idea/concept but lacking in the durability department... IMHO

I looked at my light more carefully - it does not look that flimsy.
However I am not going to do any destructive testing.

Stanley seems to me to have always made good tools
- certainly seems to be above average in quality -
I would have thought they'd have a reputaion to uphold even for these flashlights.

BUT perhaps they have been having problems - at least for the earlier versions - and maybe that's why I got it so cheap?

Anyway a bit clearer pic of the (original) emitter - does anyone recognize it?

 

[UnknownVT]

Current draw reading at the tailcap - for single set of 3x AA -
Note should be taken that my Kodak Pre-Charged LSD NiMH AA's would be a very tight fit - so much so that I did NOT want to risk putting them in to find I could not remove them.

Reading were with eneloops (fully charged a couple of months ago) -
series voltage = 3.99V

Current draw = 0.07 to 0.08A = 70mA to 80mA on 10A scale.

This means the max total power consumption was aprox 0.08 x 3.99
= 0.32Watts - note this is somewhat less than the 0.5W rating for the LED
- so it looks like the LED is not being driven that hard.

Runtime claimed by Stanley was upto 90 hours max
- this is probably with 3 sets of 3x AA
- so a single set is likely to be max of 30 hours, but with other losses, most likely <30hours.

eneloops AA's are rated 1900-2000 mAh
- the current draw was 70 mA to 80mA
this should mean an estimated runtime on a single set of 3x eneloop AA's
= 23.75 - 28.6 hours - assuming no other losses.

This is very encouraging as it is at least in the ballpark of the Stanley claim.

 

[alpg88]

I bit of a warning about this light... I have the 9x5mm LED version and its a nice little task light. I dropped it onto the padded carpet from my bed to the floor (about 3 feet) and the tripod mechanism busted. The legs are now no longer inter connected and I can not lock the legs back into a closed position.

Good Idea/concept but lacking in the durability department... IMHO

i had that too, but it is easy fix, it now works as good as before it broke

 

[UnknownVT]

I have daylight so am able to get some better pics of the emitter -

Head -

Details of emitter -

Can anyone (please) id the LED used?

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

http://catalog.osram-os.com/catalogue/catalogue.do?favOid=000000000002cbe900030023&act=showBookmark

Osram Power TOPled?

 

[Illum]

Details of emitter -

Can anyone (please) id the LED used?

I'm pretty sure its a Nichia's SMT Helios [Dimensions LxWxH, mm: 6.5x5.0x1.35], could be wrong though

Nichia Rigel might also be a likely candidate, provided some post a picture of their Fenix E1's business end for visual comparison

 

[jirik_cz]

The LED could be SSC Z1. http://www.acriche.com/en/product/prd/zpowerLEDZ1.asp

 

[Illum]

highly doubt it...SSCs has a cathode mark that's round, Nichia uses triangles on edges

 

[zapper]

Hate to bring an old thread back from the dead but this came up as a good deal for me. About $14 if I remember correctly.

At WalMart there was this light packaged with a 3x5mm, LED mini tripod that uses one AAA battery in each leg. For lack of better words it was cute.

Ripped both open right away as neither was very bright.

In the small 5mm led version it had a resistor in series with each LED. I can't remember the resistance now but I soldered an equal rated resistor in parallel with each to increase the current to each LED. After the mod I think each LED was now receiving ~30 mA. Definitely noticeable. The lens on top is magnified over each LED so it gives that perfect circle of even light with no hot-spot or spill. Not my preference and it looks better to me without it but its fine as a small work light like for looking into a computer case. My 7 year old daughter thinks the legs and tilting head are the coolest. At 90 mA draw at the tail cap on one leg, even a AAA will last quite a while.

The tint on the larger one was just awful, yoke of a hard boiled egg, and the output was pitiful, like a AA mini-mag with dying batteries.

On the circuit board there's a resistor in line with each leg and one more in line with the LED. The wires are multi-strand and weak as can be imagined. I used a Dremel to cut the board up only leaving the electronics and switch wires connected. I soldered a jumper across the resistor in line with the LED but still only about 300 mA to the LED. I used a Cree XR-E Q5 I believe (a few laying around from well intentioned mods) and epoxied it to an aluminum heat-sink the size of a nickel. That's about all the room there is inside. Stuffed it all back in after having to grind it down to a size that would fit and re-soldering all the flimsy original wires back on a few times. I would say it's in the 60-90 Lumen range now but very concentrated making it a throw type light. Once again not the best beam for a task light. A piece of scotch tape is a cheap fix but does cut down on total output.

In summation, good potential, easy to mod, cheap and fun to mess with.

 

[DollarstoreLurker]

I'd love to see other modifications, even a how-to. I've had one for a few months now, and the purple-yellow beam is bugging the munchkins out of me! I've never done a flashlight modification, and I figure this is a good enough place to start.

A few more notes, and some (Very large) pictures:

http://imgur.com/uucgP
http://imgur.com/8y1uT
http://imgur.com/51Po5
http://imgur.com/xgrXC

The board is attached via what seem like aluminum rivets, so some cutting/grinding might be required (fingernails didn't work).

I really don't know where to start looking, and I'm new, so any and all pictures/help would be appreciated. I don't even know what I want to end up with!

I did do some searching on this forum and on google, and not much came up.

Thanks in advance!