MacTech
Enlightened
On the way home from work, i stopped off at the local Ace Hardware to look around, and found a rather nice rubber-clad flashlight, an "Ace-brand" 3 D-cell light (most likely made by either Garrity or Dorcy), had a nice solid rubber clad body, and, most importantly, a very nice faceted reflector
i have a spare Sears Endurable 1W Luxeon bulb, that previously was in my Mag 3D, and then the Rayovac Industrial, however, i have some MJLED PR's on the way from Lighthound for the Rayovac and as a backup bulb for my MagLED 3-D, so the Sears Lux needed a new host body....
I put the Sears bulb in the Ace 3D, popped in the 3 crappy carbon-zinc cells it shipped with, and lit it up
it produces a very nice, almost SureFire-esque beam, a nice balance of throw and flood, with absolutely *no* beam artifacts, rings, or holes, the nicest beam pattern yet i have found from a cheapie, it doesn't throw as well as my "Little Red Sleeper", but it also has a much smoother beam than the LRS, the LRS is brighter, as it's running a 3W 2 cell MagLED bulb, but the beam from the Ace Sleeper is far more usable at close to medium distances, no "starbursty" pattern of artifacts, no "donut hole" if the target is closer than 5 feet away, a far more usable beam
sadly, the MagLED bulb is too big to fit inside the Ace Sleeper (tried fitting my 3 cell MagLED in it, no go, the MagLED is too wide), so i'm stuck with the Sears 1 watter
one thing that surprised me about the Ace 3 cell is how well it was built for a cheapie, it's a rubber clad plastic bodied light, but the reflector appears to be metal, and the switch contact ring also acts as a reasonably large heatsink, the faceting does an excellent job of smoothing out the beam, at the expense of throw, however
here's some pics of the light itself, beamshots tomorrow evening once it's dark enough....
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/Acesleeper2.jpg[img]
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/Acesleeper3.jpg[img]
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/Acesleeper4.jpg[img]
i have a spare Sears Endurable 1W Luxeon bulb, that previously was in my Mag 3D, and then the Rayovac Industrial, however, i have some MJLED PR's on the way from Lighthound for the Rayovac and as a backup bulb for my MagLED 3-D, so the Sears Lux needed a new host body....
I put the Sears bulb in the Ace 3D, popped in the 3 crappy carbon-zinc cells it shipped with, and lit it up
it produces a very nice, almost SureFire-esque beam, a nice balance of throw and flood, with absolutely *no* beam artifacts, rings, or holes, the nicest beam pattern yet i have found from a cheapie, it doesn't throw as well as my "Little Red Sleeper", but it also has a much smoother beam than the LRS, the LRS is brighter, as it's running a 3W 2 cell MagLED bulb, but the beam from the Ace Sleeper is far more usable at close to medium distances, no "starbursty" pattern of artifacts, no "donut hole" if the target is closer than 5 feet away, a far more usable beam
sadly, the MagLED bulb is too big to fit inside the Ace Sleeper (tried fitting my 3 cell MagLED in it, no go, the MagLED is too wide), so i'm stuck with the Sears 1 watter
one thing that surprised me about the Ace 3 cell is how well it was built for a cheapie, it's a rubber clad plastic bodied light, but the reflector appears to be metal, and the switch contact ring also acts as a reasonably large heatsink, the faceting does an excellent job of smoothing out the beam, at the expense of throw, however
here's some pics of the light itself, beamshots tomorrow evening once it's dark enough....
http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/Acesleeper2.jpg[img]
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/Acesleeper3.jpg[img]
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/mactechg4/.Pictures/Acesleeper4.jpg[img]
