Review of GMC Infinity

This is the original, discontinued light.

It's too dim to be useful for anything, other than maybe map reading in your car.

It uses 1AA battery.

It comes with different colors, red, white, yellow, green. Red will preserve your night vision and IMO the best of them, even if terribly dim.

Gerber bought this and renamed it and has 2nd gen which I have not tried yet but I hear it's brighter.If so that's a sorely needed addition.

Quality is real high. It does not have a lense or a mirror inside. Just the LED sticking out unprotected.

It's a perfect light to carry in your pocket. It has incredibly long run time. A friend left one on for a day and it was still running after that.

It's built like a tank.

It's very small and can be very easily lost. It can be used as a key chain.

It has much flood, not throw.

There is no clickie switch, the head twists to turn it on, a good design IMO.

I rate it as 5/5 -- if used for the right purpose.

It's not very cost-effecient, as for what they sell for, you can get many better lights in every way, except possibly run time.

If the power goes out for days and you are stuck in a dark building and have to spend days there, this is the light you want with you. It will keep running long after everything else quits, even while being really dim.

But am looking forward to gen 2. Or Gerber Infinity Trio.

etc said:

If the power goes out for days and you are stuck in a dark building and have to spend days there, this is the light you want with you. It will keep running long after everything else quits, even while being really dim.

But am looking forward to gen 2. Or Gerber Infinity Trio.

Click to expand...

Absolutely! That's why we like this light so much, even after years and years after they stopped production. This "gen2" you're talking about, is it "gen2" of the same CMG Infinity Task Light (actually there's 3 gens of those), or the CMG Infinity Ultra, or the redesigned :green: Gerber Infinity Ultra?

We had a thread listing all the revs and colors of these; I lost the bookmark with the software migration.

As far as I can remember, these are all the revs (only 4 boards, as far as I can tell):

1. CMG Infinity Task Light, original design, with batt (+) pointing downwards and negative contact on board made out of a piece of metal
2. CMG Infinity Task Light: green board with black dot as (+) contact, battery facing up
3. CMG Infinity Task Light: green board with no black dot
4. CMG Infinity Ultra - brighter (The Ultra-G has the same circuit)
5. Gerber Infinity Ultra: first with lug style body, later "improved" :green:

Not sure if I should add the Trio, which would be a grown-up sister of the Infinity.

HA! Found it. Here's the thread I was talking about. I should re-read it to refresh my memory.

The original Infinity is one of my all time favorites. It's a great light for those who have uses for dim lights. I have a box full of them with multiples of all the colors I use often so I'll never have to buy Gerber's bigger, brighter, more expensive, more complex, unproven replacement of this perfect light.

For me the original Infinity Task Light provides just the right amount of brightness for reading in bed and not waking my wife. Most others make too much glare on a white page.

Geoff

Great for reading. The only other ones I can get by with are the Dorcy 1xAAA or the Energizer Essentials 3 LED headlamp for some flood and not too bright to cause glare. The Infinity is PERFECT for that. Also works great for watering my plants at night. Not so bright to cast shadows or glare over my neighbors windows at 2am (thinking there's a burglar outside) but just right.

RUN TIME TEST

If you are interested in serious Infinity type light run time test, go to the below link:

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=73575

Re: RUN TIME TEST

Wow 126 hours!!! I would have never guessed it would have still been burning at 80 hours even.

I was tempted to try this with a few of the lights I have but as luck would have it I'd fall asleep to wake up and find them all dead, which would ruin a test like that.

I was shocked to see the Ultra G to burn longer than the Original. Isn't the runtime 50% of peak brightness listed by CMG as like only 25 hours? You'd never expect it to run 5 times it's listed runtime.

Re: RUN TIME TEST

The Infinity is a great light, more than just for reading. It's plenty bright enough for walking around in the dark, finding stuff in your tent, etc. It's not a searchlight and was not intended as one.

I have often said that the Infinity Ultra-G is my go to light and after many years and many lights later nothing has changed. This light has some sort of hypnotic allure to me and it simply looks and feels good in the hand.

I remember once leaving one of my Ultras on overnight thinking that 8 hours later it would surely be dead when I woke up. I wanted to see just how long it could go without changing the batteries. I was shocked to see it blazing away the next morning and needless to say the light outlasted my patience level as I gave up waiting for the batteries to die.

I bought several that are in still new condition when CountyComm had them for 15 dollars. Most likely my few samples will last my lifetime so I am happy for now. I really always wondered why the so successful body style was changed. I understand the name was sold to Gerber however the new style does not seem to be close to the older style as far as being popular.

What makes it more ironic Robocop regarding the newer Gerber redesign, is that 2 of the founding members or CMG engineers are now working at Gerber and took the designs with them. That's the story Gary from Eppescorner.com told me.

Strange why they would change such a successful design, and it's not like Gerber had to worry about copyright infringement considering they bought the company and / or supplies from CMG as well as having the 2 top guys from CMG working for THEM... Maybe cost cutting measures, but still you'd think they'd keep the same design/size and use cheaper metal if that was the case of making it more inexpensive...

Why they changed the design is simple: the new one is cheaper to manufacture (plus it's made in China).

They are supposedly reviving the old model, probably due to either popular or US govt demand, to be called something like the Ultra-N. It will be made in the USA but cost about 2x as much as the old Ultra-G did. This is from the pocketlights.com blog around the SHOT show this year.

I had no idea that the founding members were still involved with the design of the new style and that is strange that they would alter the design.

There must have been a reason for it however I am not sure if it were cost. If I remember correct the new style I modded seemed to have a few more parts to it. The old style had no spring and was a 2 part design. The new style has 3 sections I believe with a spring in the tailcap as well. It seems that the new style may cost more to make. Of course I know nothing of costs of material or even labor in lights so this may all be not a factor but it seems logical to me.

The simple design of the Ultra was what made it so good I believe. Plain lines and a simple twist to activate design. Worked every time and seemed easy to make and market. It will always be a classic I believe and who knows maybe one day the new style will go back to what made the Ultra famous.

The old design was way more expensive: its parts had to be machined. The new one is just extruded or stamped, is my guess. The parts count is irrelevant, given the cheap Chinese labor used for assembly. I took apart a Chinese-made radio recently and remember having the impression that the designers would rather use ten 5-cent parts than one 60-cent part, which only makes sense if the assembly labor is nearly free. This is sort of the same phenomenon.

I have an old CMG infinity white led which is the spirit of Christmas in our house!

We have a nativity scene which resides in our entrance hall over the festive period and above the model of The Angel Gabriel hangs the infinity. With all the lights off it burns away continuously, the kids stare at the scene for ages,moving the charecters and animals about.

Using 1AA NiMH it lasts for appx 2-3 days without much variation...good value and proof of longevity. This torch is on continuously for about two weeks!!!!

Nearly every time I pick up an Infinity it goes through my mind that I wish I had one 35 years ago when I was backpacking and climbing. Back then I carried a little 2xAAx222 Duracell 'Mallory' light. It was a good light but the runtime and bulb life were pathetic compared to an Infinity. The difference still amazes me.

As paulr said, Gerber must have made the changes to cut costs. The light had a great following and they wouldn't mess with it without a reason.

If you mean a #222 screwbase bulb, the output is actually pretty similar to an Ultra, but yes, runtime would have been a lot worse. I still sometimes use a Tekna Splashlite which comes with that bulb (I swapped it to a K222, which uses even more current).

paulr,

Oops -- Yes, that's what I meant -- 222.

I'm still kind of fuzzy on this. Is Gerber going to bring a non-Ultra Infinity back into production? In emails to me right after buying CMG they (Gerber) flatly stated that they weren't in the least interested in it. They were quite emphatic.

The only problem I had with the original CMG Infinity Ultra was that the machined edges on the tail end were sharp and I had to rub them down with sandpaper. Other than that this little light has impressed both myself and my friends with its superb flood beam quality and excellent tough build.

I have an Ultra G. Occasionally there are issues with it. tighten it down, turns on, eventually turns off. Tighten more, comes back on. Turn it off, then go to turn it on again and you have to tighten it even further than before. Tried different batts and still same.
Otherwise a great light and have no quams about carrying it except the unexpected on/off issue, which keeps it in the drawer so far.

As far as brightness, works great with a Lith batt, and the darker it is the better the output, as with any led.

Webley445, try cleaning the contacts. If you don't have alcohol and/or DeOxit/ProGold, you can use a pencil eraser to rub the contacts clean. First do the contact on the head, and then clean the bottom of the battery tube. The negative path on the Infinity lights is on the body, so you'll have to clean the threads as well (both on the head and the body).

If else fails, I'm looking for broken Infinities to use as mod hosts; PM me if you want to get rid of it and we'll figure out something.