Toughest led lights...Cheap but light plastic...or expensive and thick metal?

[woodrow]

Hi, I just picked up a Brinkman Armormax AA $14 light at BG. It is a total resin light..with a plastic lens. It weights barely enough with a E2 lithium AA batt in it so it will not float off my desk...but a gram or two lighter and I fear it would.

This made me start thinking... Is the possibly the toughest light I have ever owned? Out of all the Surefires (inc. a M3) and every variant of the 6p that has exhisted...would this light take more abuse?

I bought a Streamlight scorpion led (which I hated)...but in trying to destroy it, it still worked even after 7 20+ foot throws up in the air to crash on to the concrete. And that light weighed ounces more than the little Armormax I have here.

So, I thought I would let the rest of you weigh in. Does a resin light's utter lack of weight..and therefore lack of impact energy imparted to its components when it takes a fall, make it tougher than our durable HAIII aluminum and hardened glass lights that we pay so much more for? I personally kind of think it does. Am I wrong?

 

[jax]

haha,i know what you mean,i have,or i should say had the exact same light,but here in canada brinkman also sells the exact light but rebranded as a "noma"...60 lumen cree xr-e...a good little light that i was using for my EDC till my nitecore came..
anyway,i think your right this light is probaly tough as hell,i was thinking the same thing when i had it (gave it away to a coworker)
to put it into perspective i dropped my nitecore on the road and it took a little chunk outta the bezel,this was only a 3ft drop..same thing with my fenix TK11,dropped it on the same road from the same hight and a chunk came outta the same place near the glass as my d11,however these lights might be able to take unknow amounts of these chunks from the aluminium and still function soundly,if battered cosmetically...
BUT...i am pretty sure the old fenix could be boiled,frozen,sunk,drove over by large trucks ect..
not so sure the brinkman/noma could endure this..but maybe..
and you know what else? i liked that little brinkman,kinda want to buy it again,exactly same beam pattern as my tk11r5 except way less lumens..
hell i even gave the brinkman a smooth reflector,that i created from another light...then quickly went back to the op unit it came with..
also..stuck a aa lithium in it and used it for A REALLY LONG TIME!!
:twothumbsTWO THUMBS UP FOR THAT LITTLE NYLON REINFORCED FREAK:twothumbs

 

[Matt7337]

So, I thought I would let the rest of you weigh in. Does a resin light's utter lack of weight..and therefore lack of impact energy imparted to its components when it takes a fall, make it tougher than our durable HAIII aluminum and hardened glass lights that we pay so much more for? I personally kind of think it does. Am I wrong?

I really must take pics of this some day and post them up here... but I'll just describe it for now. My experience is that the thick Aluminium, Titanium and glass flashlights will take much more of a beating than the lighter resin or plastic lights. My Fenix TK11 (which I keep referring back to as a benchmark for durability) is the only "beater" light that I have alongside I suppose you could say my modded 3D Maglite and the TK11 has taken an incredible amount of both abuse and heavy use (the trick is knowing which is which ) and the only thing that has gone wrong with it after several 20'+ drops, throws etc is it needs a new tail switch, and they used to fail in TK lights on a regular basis without hard falls. It took mine over two years of ridiculously heavy use to actually break, and it's easily replaced. The glass, bezel, body etc of the light are still in remarkably good condition considering what it has been through.

I said it then and I'll say it now - The TK11 may have had it's problems with poor regulation, poor beam patterns and dodgy tail switches in past versions, but - and this is my honest admission - there's only one other light that I own which I trust as much as my two year, one month old Fenix TK11 Q5, and that other light is made from Titanium.

 

[Wyeast]

In my experience, the "toughness" of a light has way more to do with the quality of the guts of the light that cannot necessarily be determined just by how the housing looks.

I've had "plastic" lights work dependably for years, while others have fallen to pieces. I've had metal lights weather daily commutes on a bike, and others have switches that fail after just a few hard knocks.

 

[carrot]

One of the prized properties of metal is high ductility (how far a material can be distorted before it reaches a breaking point).

Polymers can be very strong and tends to have fairly high elasticit, but they will eventually reach a point where they shatter or crack. Metal is not known to shatter or crack in most every-day life, but it can be deformed.

Both have weaknesses and both have strengths.