28 LED 3AAA light from True Value Hardware store

I stopped off at my local True Value on Saturday, to pick up a 6 volt lantern battery, while there, i noticed they had some cheap Chinese Multi-LED lights, 5 LED, 8 LED, and 28 LED (as well as a 32 LED "Maglite-esque" 3-D cell)

I've always wondered how these large array lights performed, so i decided to take a chance, picked up a red one, as the LED's seemed to be aligned pretty straight, most of the other lights had off center LED dies

i took it home, popped the batteries in the carrier (i *HATE* carriers) and fired it up, it had a relatively clean white hotspot, a very faint bluish tinge, not the "angry blue" of overdriven LED's but just your basic "bluish" LED light, the overall beam profile is that of a wide flood tapering off to a usable spill light, it's a flooder, not a thrower

I then noticed some distinct flaws in the fit-and-finish, there was *RUST* on the LED bezel and scratches in the color anodized finish, clearly defects in the light itself....

I then noticed the light beginning to flicker randomly, i pulled the head and removed the light engine, and saw several cold solder joints, clearly a bad solder job, so i returned this one and swapped for a replacement in camo

the camo unit didn't have any cold solder joints, yet there was a small crack in the "reflector", lets be honest here, a reflector on a multi-LED array is basically cosmetic, as your average 5MM LED projects most of it's light forward, rendering a reflector essentially meaningless, a couple dabs of superglue fixed the crack anyway

the camo unit also had a decent wide flood, a nice usable short to medium range light, all in all, not too bad for an inexpensive "LED array" light

28 LED light Pros;
nice, wide flood
LED's have decent color balance, don't appear to be overdriven
rear clicky switch
body can support 2 CR123a cells (not sure if LED array can, but the batterries do fit, a spacer would be a big help though)

28 LED light Cons;
Fit and Finish is hit-or-miss, miss more than hit, but lets be honest, it's mostly cosmetic
iffy reliability, the first light was clearly defective, it wouldn't surprise me if this one fails down the road
accesories (lanyard and nylon case) are rather cheesy, but hey, it's a low-end light anyway

overall, it may make a decent host for experimentation...

Pics and beamshots tomorrow after work

Interesting, how does the 28LED compared in build and output to this one on Flashlightreviews: http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/amart_28led.htm

I recently picked up the new version of this light from Dae here for $12, based recommendations on the forums here, and was quite pleasantly surprised: http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/28-led-4-recommended-p-234.html

Sure, it's nothing fantastic (I also hate battery carriers), but finish and output is surprisingly good. I'm currently keeping in on my night stand for when I nead a room flooder at night. Compared to the cheap $30CDN 3AAA 1W luxeons available locally, this seems like a pretty good deal - if you don't mind the shower head effect

that Flashlightreviews link pretty much covers the beamshot, decent wide flood, the body of the light is just different, looks more like an oversized bolt, very angular bezel and tailcap,, which reminds me, one other advantage of the 28 LED light;

Bezel and tailcap have flat surfaces, preventing rolling

one other disadvantage;
tailcap clicky prevents tailstanding for "candle mode"

Here's some pics;

That camo looks good. That flashlight would be perfect for use at the dock when loading up the camo Jon boat.