Why do my lights now suck???

Especially my LED lights... I mean, they didn't suck a year ago, and they haven't changed... Why am I now dissatisfied with my U2 and B42XRGT and Lion Cub, etc? DOES ANYBODY ELSE FEEL THE SAME???? OK, they don't suck, they're still great lights. But with the Cree/Seoul explosion, errr, Paradigm Shift (is it?), are we as happy with our present, non-Cree/Seoul lights? Why do I still have the urge to send them all to Milky??? I see GREAT, older lights for sale at below initial cost, stuff that would have brought a premium price on the secondary market a year ago.

Just curious on how the rest of you folks feel about this. Me? I'm going to keep, use, and enjoy my older lights, probably unmodded. But anything I buy in the future will likely be Cree/Seoul/whatever. Glad I still have and am still HAPPY with my hotwires and M-series Surefires...

Greg

Need to tell SF's R&D dept to hire extra people!!

Now, a Kroma capable of 250 Lumens on high (with longer runtimes) would be the perfect light.

But I guess everyone can complie a wishlist.

I'd say it probably means that you are dissatisfied that mainstream manufacturers are not adopting new technology quickly enough.

I'm still hoping for the car that seats 9 and runs 200mph while only getting 100mpg and zero emissions...

I don't think anybody's lights suck, I mean, if you have lights in your collection that you like for one reason or another than that is what makes them special to you. I have a lot of flashlights, some older and some newer and I like all of them. I think it's a matter of personal preference, that's all. The cree lights do rock but I have many lights that are REALLY bright but not CREE bright and I like them just the same.

I have felt the same, At the time I thought my Luxeon lights were great,
They are the Longbow, XM-3, Nuwai Q3, Surefire, Arc AA prenium ect. That was until the new Cree lights came along, I had to try one for my self so I first bought the Fenix LOD CE followed by the L2D CE and then the L1D CE. I have only had new lights for a short time, done comparisons ect and I have to say ( Hate to say this they absolutely eat just about all of my other lights of the same size) however I still like my older lights as they have seen some great times, they will always be Keepers.

I have been upgrading my luxeon lights to Cree, and Seoul leds. I have always liked my lights, and can appreciate them even more now. Not such complex thinking.

Bill

my led's work just as well as when i bought them.

I know the JetBeam C-LE isn't pushing the AA quite as hard as the Fenix lights, so I guess I haven't really seen what the Cree can do, but I don't think the crop of new LEDs diminishes a good older light. There are many qualities that make a light good other than just sheer brightness, and while the C-LE is noticably brighter, I'd say that several of my Luxeon lights keep pace. That said, I wouldn't mine getting emitter mods for some of my old favorites. My Jil DD would probably rock with a Seoul P4 .

I think it has to do with the law of conservation of energy or something...?
The Cree and friends have brought such a wonderful increase in brightness to our little flashlit world, but all that brightness had to come from somewhere. Unfortunately, it came from our old Luxeons. This is why all of our led lights that were so perfect half a year ago are now too dim to be able to adequately perform their duties.


Seriously, I think the problem I'll soon start to have with luxeons is that there's that feeling at the back of my head, getting stronger and stronger, that there's something out there now that would allow me to do the same thing but go through my batteries at half the rate. The emitters that used to feel like an efficient alternative to incandescents now seem a little wasteful. Perhaps this might be part of why I've been shifting back to incans lately, an effort to push the issue of led obsolescence off my table completely.

SaturnNyne said:

I think it has to do with the law of conservation of energy or something...?
The Cree and friends have brought such a wonderful increase in brightness to our little flashlit world, but all that brightness had to come from somewhere. Unfortunately, it came from our old Luxeons. This is why all of our led lights that were so perfect half a year ago are now too dim to be able to adequately perform their duties.


Seriously, I think the problem I'll soon start to have with luxeons is that there's that feeling at the back of my head, getting stronger and stronger, that there's something out there now that would allow me to do the same thing but go through my batteries at half the rate. The emitters that used to feel like an efficient alternative to incandescents now seem a little wasteful. Perhaps this might be part of why I've been shifting back to incans lately, an effort to push the issue of led obsolescence off my table completely.

Click to expand...

This logic is a bit of a head scratcher for me... you liked the Luxeons before because they were a more efficient technology than incandescent, but now that something more efficient has come out, you go back to the less efficient technology you were trying to replace in the first place so you won't feel as bad about being wasteful?

He's just going back to a mature technology so that he doesn't have to deal with keeping with the times

They aren't the latest and greatest like they used to be, LEDs will have a "Moore's Law" type of curve. Having gone hogwild on LED lights last year and in '05, I don't regret it.

If I were to by new LEDs, it would be Seoul or Cree, of something better if available by then. A year or more later, they might be yesterday's news as well. I am temtped to get some, but it's not like my older lights don't serve anymore.

Only Cree's I've seen were a pair of P1D CE's. Nice and bright, but they somehow reassured me my old ones were not that bad after all. Didn't do a runtime test or anything, and the Cree should have an advantage there.

I thought about getting my HDS U60 modded, but would rather keep it as is. That's my attitude with all my now "older" LED lights. It's about personal history.

Wonder what the state of the art will be in five years? Or fifteen? 10 million c.p. pocket lights? :laughing:

I've been going sort of hog-wild on the Cree and Seoul stuff,
but I didn't have a lot of Luxeon stuff to start with.

I guess I'll get mine when the next generation comes along.
Not really though, since all of these lights are moddable

A couple of my favs are going to get transplants. That's one nice thing, at least the SSC P4 can go into some of my lights with little or no modification.

-LT

For the Lion Cub, get a Cree star and McR-17XR reflector, drop right in for the Lion Cub.

Lunal_Tic said:

A couple of my favs are going to get transplants. That's one nice thing, at least the SSC P4 can go into some of my lights with little or no modification.

-LT

Click to expand...

That is my plan as well. I would like to get an SSC P4 swapped into my PD, but it's my EDC and I am not sure how I would handle being without it for a bit. I would need to get it set-up for the least amount of turn-around time possible. It would be worth the hassle for sure, as it will be almost double the brightness with roughly the same amount of runtime

Now my Surefire L5; I got bigger plans for that little guy. When I am done with that light, it should put up a good fight with the Red Dragon.....right now it gets smoked by it. We will see how it compares when the L5 has 3 emitters also :naughty:

The answers may be in this book:

:lolsign: - if that book were really available, I'd buy it in a flash.

In answer to the OP, I think it is because its a collector thing.

Flashlights (or torches - as they are called in the UK) are a
dime (or a penny) a dozen.

The only way we can justify our peculiar affinity for these objects,
is to have the most "flashy" (sorry) ones to date - otherwise
we may as well go to our local hardware shop to get them.

Unfortunately we feel that way as soon as the technology in the
flashlight becomes a bit more "yesterday".

Perhaps the best way to make this more painless is to have a
flashlight design that is very easily upgradeable.

Don designed one called the Aleph system and having bought
2 Seoul L.E's, I have managed to upgrade 2 of my favourite lights
with no modding skills whatsoever.

It is really a great concept from someone with an ability to think
ahead and hopefully the Aleph line will continue or be reinvigorated
or some other system with a similar concept will be developed.

Still like the old lights, but the temptation is great. With all the rapid changes of late I've actually been able to hold off to see what comes up. I think I'm appreciating some of the old ones more during this buying freeze.

Geoff

I like my old lights just fine. I dont see anything that the new generation of lights will do any better. I am not inclined to go with Cree or the like yet, I think they have some maturing to do yet, and time will tell how durable and reliable they are.

The new Inovas do not interest me yet, as I like(d) the older Tiros, its a preference thing. Fenix just do not ring my chime greatly, have not had great luck with them, and I am not interested in multilevel lights very much. I am not bedazzled by brightness for brightness sake, it must serve a purpose better than what I have. The one thing I see that may be interesting and useful is the increased battery life with the new LEDs if they prove to be as good and durable as their promise.

So what is there that should be so tempting and hard to pass up that it makes my current lights so inadequate as to be disappointing?

Therefore, yes, some of us are perfectly content with their older lights. And willing to wait to see what comes of the newer technology.

I like all my (older) light's. You get on a forum like this and its like an expensive buffet.
A little of this and a dollup of that and then you learn and find out your likes and
dislikes and hopefully make some friends along the way. I've bought a couple Cree's
and I like them but they wont replace all the other lights. Brightness isnt the only
issue. Craftsmanship,looks,ownership,etc all are part of this too. I dont think your (old)
lights are bad, you are learning about you, thats all. Learning to be content isnt easy,
thats the reality of it.