For EUR 2.99, I obtained this rubber-armed, triple LED flashlight at Real / Freiburg today:
After I examined it, I found it is a great value and I decided to give it a review.
The List of Cool Features:
- Unbeatable price
- Near unbreakable
- Sealed against water
- Triple optics that focus the light into a very tight and rather clean beam
- Starts even with the weakest batteries
- Feeds on 2 cells and NOT 3 cells like many cheapies
- Excellent tailstandability
- Rubber lanyard
- Doesn't scratch any surfaces when put down
- Will not roll off the table
- Perfect size to prevent loss
- Extremely easy to get to the converter and LEDs
- Estimated runtime is 50h on a set of alkalines
- Single stage, side-mounted reverse-clicky switch
- A great light for kids
More photos of the light:
Closeup of the optics (plastic reflector):
The mandatory beamshots at different exposure. Beam is tighter than the Streamlight 4AA one. It is rather round and smooth, with minor artefacts only. Light color is a little on the blue side:
The head is held together by three little screws. The circuit board with LEDs can be taken out without any damage done to the light:
Here's a detailed view of the circuit board:
..and here are the circuit charateristics:
I've measured on the input of the converter. Obviously, it's not regulated / stabilized while its discharge curve is still a lot nicer than the typical 3-cell light.
The 2 transistor converter starts up at 0.7 V (!). This beats many more sophisticated circuits and it allows to drain the batteries to the very end. The circuit has a modest efficiency, though.
The LED current is estimated to be around 80mA and runtime is an estimated 50h on a set of 2 alkaline D-cells.
The LEDs are wide-angle, low dome 5mm ones. They do not attach to the metal ring for heat sinking and I expect them to dim considerably over a few hundred hours.
Modding potential:
- Change to LEDs of a different color
- Change to brighter 5mm LEDs
- Change to Luxeon Rebel LEDs
- Tweak the converter
- Upgrade the converter to a multi-level one (enough space to fit an additional pill in)
- Put AA to D battery adaptors to make a lighter, floating light.
Now who can tell me the manufacturer and model of this flashlight ? Nothing written on the housing or the packing.
After I examined it, I found it is a great value and I decided to give it a review.
The List of Cool Features:
- Unbeatable price
- Near unbreakable
- Sealed against water
- Triple optics that focus the light into a very tight and rather clean beam
- Starts even with the weakest batteries
- Feeds on 2 cells and NOT 3 cells like many cheapies
- Excellent tailstandability
- Rubber lanyard
- Doesn't scratch any surfaces when put down
- Will not roll off the table
- Perfect size to prevent loss
- Extremely easy to get to the converter and LEDs
- Estimated runtime is 50h on a set of alkalines
- Single stage, side-mounted reverse-clicky switch
- A great light for kids
More photos of the light:
Closeup of the optics (plastic reflector):
The mandatory beamshots at different exposure. Beam is tighter than the Streamlight 4AA one. It is rather round and smooth, with minor artefacts only. Light color is a little on the blue side:
The head is held together by three little screws. The circuit board with LEDs can be taken out without any damage done to the light:
Here's a detailed view of the circuit board:
..and here are the circuit charateristics:
I've measured on the input of the converter. Obviously, it's not regulated / stabilized while its discharge curve is still a lot nicer than the typical 3-cell light.
The 2 transistor converter starts up at 0.7 V (!). This beats many more sophisticated circuits and it allows to drain the batteries to the very end. The circuit has a modest efficiency, though.
The LED current is estimated to be around 80mA and runtime is an estimated 50h on a set of 2 alkaline D-cells.
The LEDs are wide-angle, low dome 5mm ones. They do not attach to the metal ring for heat sinking and I expect them to dim considerably over a few hundred hours.
Modding potential:
- Change to LEDs of a different color
- Change to brighter 5mm LEDs
- Change to Luxeon Rebel LEDs
- Tweak the converter
- Upgrade the converter to a multi-level one (enough space to fit an additional pill in)
- Put AA to D battery adaptors to make a lighter, floating light.
Now who can tell me the manufacturer and model of this flashlight ? Nothing written on the housing or the packing.
