How is Mag doing now ??

Purely as a person who understands the better made luxeons I for one was dissapointed with Mags entry into the LED market......from a CPF member point of view I quickly grew dissapointed with the lack of heatsinking and the loss of output when the lights grew hotter. Of course this comes from a person who is a little spoiled on high dollar lights or even low cost lights with better heatsinking.

So after reading a recent thread here where some WalMarts are discounting their Mag Luxeon stock I am wondering how Mag has done with this new product. I have read where many here were a little dissapointed however what about the general public that Mag has done very well with in the past?....I have not really noticed much of my Local WalMarts or other suppliers running low on their inventory and recently asked one of the night managers how they were selling.....he mentioned that they do not move nearly as fast as the incandescent versions.

Does anyone else care to guess as to how well the new Luxeons from Mag are doing with the average consumer? I am wondering if they are not selling very well what is the reason.....the average person would most likely not know about heat issues nor the circuit cutting back the output so if they are not doing well why?.....Could it be the average consumer does not understand the cost difference and just is not willing to pay the difference between the incandescant versions?

Maybe it is my imagination but it just does not seem that these new versions have caught on yet with the public....I can say I have never seen anyone other than a fellow flashaholic owning one yet where I always see people from all walks of life with the incandescant versions.

So whats your take on this....is Mag doing well with the Luxeons and if not what will there next move be?

Most haven't seen them in action. While they aren't as nice as more expensive lights, they are very good for the price, and I expect the D-cell ones to be quite reliable, too. For well under $40 w/ tax, and performing well on alkalines, they are pretty sweet. The beam is ugly as can be, but very useful once focused.

Everyone I know who's seen one lit up has gotten one. But, I think a lot of people still don't understand how much light for how long they are going to have. I expected them to be far worse offering than they are. I didn't see one out of the package until my neighbor, who has cheap lights in every room of his house, and keeps two Maglites in his truck, got a drop-in head.

He also, who is not the least bit into flashlights as a geek/toy thing, has turned a few people on to them. I'll relate what I remember of his story for one guy: someone was doing work on a house (a roof, I think), and was trying to use a really dim D-cell Mag. He helped him a little with his LED one, and then compared to the two--the incan's bulb was fully visible once the Lux one was shining into it. He then mentioned that his batteries in the LED Mag were ones that barely lit up his other (still incan) Mag. The guy said he'd have one before he got home that night.

I don't think they've really caught on, either. If Maglite really wants them to, they need to advertise. A few simple beam shots in an ad (after both have run for 5+ hours, especially) could make them take off. Seeing a fairly bright light with any kind of regulation is like seeing a different universe. It's not what anyone expects it to be like. They're going to figure it's like their cheap LED flashlights, where it's brighter at first, but then dims down just the same as any other. Why pay $10+ more for that?

Mag D sized battery LED flashlight are some of the best throwing flashlights available to the common buyers and not too bad even compared to enthusiast models costing hundreds of dollars.

Not too bad vs. lights twice the price yea... but only for the first few minutes. But a magled couldn't hold a candle (pun intended) to a custom magmod in the hundreds. 50 lumens vs 500 lumens anyone?

Even after heating up, they're still brighter than the incans. Consumers shouldn't be disappointed even if they do notice the output drop (but they probably won't). If they aren't selling as well, than they haven't gotten the message out that they're brighter, better.

Bernie

P.S. I wouldn"t own one.

I still think the M@GLed 2AA are good value for money

If they drop the price of the Mag2AA down to about $12, it would be a great value.

99.999% of the average consumer will not notice lack of heatsinking, nor the output drop in the 2D models. Heck, compared to the precipitous drop you see with incandescents running on alkaline as the battery depletes, they are still an improvement. I think the public is still not familiar with Luxeons and to them "LED = keychain light".

Forgetting what's available around here with research and elbow grease, all of the Magleds are great improvements for a flashlight for the common household and even professional use. The improvements that you should be noting are the ones over the stock incan Mag - it's what all the millions of buying consumers are doing. The improvements are quite significant, and if you are the average joe (which includes around 5 billion people, minus the professionals for whom companies like Streamlight and Surefire serve, and a perverse few thousand CPFers), this is a terrific new light with which you'll be thrilled.

the 2aa magled is ok for $12 walmart closeout.
it aint no arc-ls but good for the price.check the closeout aisle at your walmart.

I think Mag is afraid their (still very profitable) incan reputation would take a beating if they compared their LEDs to it. Their strategy is probably to keep making free money off the incans until LEDs take over the entire market of their own accord via word of mouth and other companies' advertising, then start comparing to those other companies' LEDs. That is where a beamshot would help them and not hurt them at the same time.

cerbie said:

... If Maglite really wants them to, they need to advertise. A few simple beam shots in an ad (after both have run for 5+ hours, especially) could make them take off. Seeing a fairly bright light with any kind of regulation is like seeing a different universe. It's not what anyone expects it to be like. They're going to figure it's like their cheap LED flashlights, where it's brighter at first, but then dims down just the same as any other. Why pay $10+ more for that?

Click to expand...

I have to agree with most post posters here, the MagLED is still a terribly good light for most purposes, even proffesional. Those who really need something better, they realise it and turns to other solutions (Streamlight, Pelican, Surefire etc), and some of THEM end up here in the end.

Excellent point. They probably are making much better margins from their non-LEDs.

Another thing to consider is that it's always hard to sell the general public a $35 flashlight when you've got one that looks just like it for $19. That's why Dorcy, Garrity, and other mass market vendors play up battery life and make the LED models look sexy (Aircraft Grade Machined Aluminum! Free Holster! Red and Green lens covers!). If the $15 1W looked just like the $5 New! Super! Krypton! it wouldn't sell.

The exception I've seen is Home Depot - people there buy a flashlight to use it hard, so even the plastic ones are rugged and (relatively) expensive. (Yeah, I appreciate the irony in calling a $19 flashlight expensive to people who spend (or wish they could spend) $200 or more . It's all relative.

They could probably do well to drop many of the incan models in favor of the LED, and lower the price on the LED.

Lower the number of manufactured incan models to only the well selling few would drop costs, and let them focus on the LED market. I can't imagine they are doing that well, I don't know anyone with a Mag LED light.

Mag came out with the new Mini Mag version for LED only. The redesign dealt with some heat and reflector issues for better beam focus etc,. Do you think that one day, years from now, they may have to redesign their C and D cell line up in the same way? For better thermal management for future LED evolution paths? I mean, theoretically speaking, when incandescent bulb flashlights are no longer wanted by the public, and LED light sources dominate the market… think Mag will redesign their C and D line up to take way brighter LED's and be able to deal with the heat? Finally there comes a point where the old Mag design has to be abandoned or changed. Just an idle thought to futurity…

Or do you think Mag is so conservative that they will just come out with "drop in V2.0" and "drop in V3.0" to stretch out the old design life another decade+ and avoid retooling for new designs?

sysadmn said:

Another thing to consider is that it's always hard to sell the general public a $35 flashlight when you've got one that looks just like it for $19. That's why Dorcy, Garrity, and other mass market vendors play up battery life and make the LED models look sexy (Aircraft Grade Machined Aluminum! Free Holster! Red and Green lens covers!). If the $15 1W looked just like the $5 New! Super! Krypton! it wouldn't sell.

The exception I've seen is Home Depot - people there buy a flashlight to use it hard, so even the plastic ones are rugged and (relatively) expensive. (Yeah, I appreciate the irony in calling a $19 flashlight expensive to people who spend (or wish they could spend) $200 or more . It's all relative.

Click to expand...

If you say it's hard to get the public to give away $35 for a flashlight, even a well known, reputable brand like Mag, you could just imagine the success they'd have with trying to sell questionable brand product that cost way more.

Hi.

I honestly do not know how mag leds are viewed in general. Personaly it seems to have rather mixed reactions.

Localy there are no LED maglites (sold/retail) except for the 2aa which is about 60$(total).

They do have the dropins for 2 and 3-6 cell mag's.

I can't speak for the "out of factory" C and D cell LED mag's as there are so few localy.

I'm assuming that there is little difference between the factory and dropin versions as far as mounting is conerned.

I made a heat sink jacket of sorts out a piece of thin copper pipe with the bottom flared out like a daisy. It works.

I knows it's crude. However there is limited space in a c-cell mag.

If you were to compare it to an Everled even at 1 watt, in my expierence everled is very much ahead of the mag dropin. Granted there are some design differences.

I find the mag dropin led's expensive 40$+taxes. Especialy with overheat problems.

Granted it's much brighter than a Nite-ize, but then again just about everything is.

As with most i would agree that the prices must drop in order encourage new
purchases.

However..... I'm not holding my breath.

Enjoy.

P.S> I forgot to mention that mag would need to change it's reflector to a textured one (for led's), Wide beam mode is currently awful.

I also feel Mag is doing a crappy job of promoting their LED models, and they're taking a big hit in the marketplace because of it. The MagLED is actually a MUCH better flashlight than the incandescent one -- maybe as one poster said Mag doesn't want to really compare them for fear of killing their incandescent business.

The key point is that the run time graphs are misleading (although correct) in the sense that the MagLED dims after a couple of minutes but then brightens right up again after you switch it off and the LED module cools. As long as you are only using the flashlight for a few minutes at a time (which is the norm) it's always bright until the batteries run down so far that it drops out of regulation (5-20 hours depending on # and type of cells).

The incandescent doesn't really do that -- it's bright when the batteries are brand new, dims relatively quickly, and STAYS dim even if you only use it occasionally.

The runtime graphs don't show this because they are based on a "switch it on and leave it on" methodology so you can't tell whether the light drop is from the module going into thermal throttling or from the battery voltage dropping.

I got really PO'ed with the way Mag was (IMO) wasting a great opportunity here and posted a long rant with a list of all the simple, inexpensive things they should be doing to get back in the game.

I guess nobody from Mag has read my rant yet

I was simply curious as to others opinions of how they thought Mags Luxeons were doing and I appreciate all the input.....

I actually did find the few units that I bought to all have a very good tint for what I like in a luxeon and I did like the design of the actual drop in replacement part. I was most shocked at how Mag had waited so very long to enter the market and really thought they would have had some incredible design only to find they had no heat sinking.

Once again the average consumer would not know this and would most likely focus on price thus the appearance of the slower sales on the luxeons. I am curious now as to what Mags next move will be.....how long can they float on the low sales of their luxeons without having an effect on their incandescent prices I wonder. Does any here feel as if Mag will simply abandon the luxeon market or maybe even experiment with more efficient emitters thus using less heat for their current design.

I also have long wondered why many of the modders among us have not attempted to find an easy solution for the heatsink problem and offer a simple drop in part to improve on their design.....or maybe the actual pedestal design of the Mag makes this very difficult. I do like the reflector design of the AA as it does throw very well along with all of the other Mag luxeons.

I just got back from Wally world and noticed a huge amount of various Mag luxeons on the shelf.....the guy stocking the shelf said he knew of no plans to discount the Mag luxeons however again stated that the percent of the luxeons sold was maybe 10 percent as that of the incandescents.

I am curious as to the statements in this thread where some have said one would most likely not notice the drop in output when the circuit heats up.....is this really true that a 50 percent said drop could not be noticed? If this is true then why not simply keep the entire output much lower in the first place for better runtime if running much less power has no effect on brightness??

Robocop said:

I am curious as to the statements in this thread where some have said one would most likely not notice the drop in output when the circuit heats up.....is this really true that a 50 percent said drop could not be noticed? If this is true then why not simply keep the entire output much lower in the first place for better runtime if running much less power has no effect on brightness??

Click to expand...

Sure, the drop is there, but it's far from as big as I suspected. I'm not even sure I would have noticed it if I didnt know about it before hand and was looking for it. Maybe it's more noticable in the larger models, I have a 2D.
Even though if it was noticable, most people don't use their flashlight that long anyway. And most people would be happy since the light is always bright when they turn it on, regardless if the batteries arent brand new.