Worst lights for throw?

or to put it another way, best for flood?

For close up use, I don't want a hotspot. I want a nice even spread of light, over maybe a 60 degree angle.

I have several cree lights, but they all have a strong hotspot which is too small for close use.

I made a nice flood for the boot (trunk if you like) of my car with a bare Cree in a brass cap. I could convert a cheapo light in a similar way, but doesn't anyone make something suitable? Maybe I could just remove the reflector from a light - which would be suitable?

I'm sure there are flood fans out there, but there seem precious few threads on the topic.

The best lights with a flood pattern that I have are the CR2 Ion and the McGizmo Mule. Both have no hot spot and wide spillbeams.

The worst light for throw and flood is a Dorcy 2C 8LED.

Well you could always try to get a Mule, but I think most people use a surefire F04 beam shaper, put some contact paper on the lens, or buy a diffuser lens from flashlightlens.com

Central Tools is coming out with the FlashFlood in about a month that's designed around the head of the CentraLED. It'll use a potentiometer and be fully variable from single-digits lumens to over 80lm OTF.

I made a recent order from flashlightlens.com to get some AR-coated UCL lenses for some maglites to improve throw. I ordered the lenses with the added light diffusion film by mistake, and ended up actually liking the flood better! The frosting softens the glare so the Maglites (Seoul LEDs with a Litemania Heatsink) are much nicer to use as "candles". It primarily softens the spill (light coming directly from the emitter), which before would create bad glare reflected off of windows etc. and cast sharp shadows. It also makes the mag focusability useful -- even fully defocused the light has no donut holes, and I can choose between narrow-angle flood, or wide-angle flood. There is still enough throw, and enough lumens that the light is still plenty useful outdoors.

I say just buy a UCL with LDF for one of your existing lights, prefererably one with a smooth reflector, since you will lose so much throw, it helps to have a lot to begin with. A stippled reflector is better if what you are looking for is a hotspot with fewer beam artifacts, but if you want flood, a diffuser is a better way to go.

Surefire L4

In general Lux Vs are floody.

Princeton Tec Tec-40 (4AA cells), with the Nite-Ize PR-based LED (sold for the C & D size Mag-Lites).

This combo (very reasonably priced) provides ALL FLOOD,
and no hot-spot.

As MattK (from Battery Junction) sez:
It's a "glower", not a thrower.


Note: this bulb does NOT provide MUCH light.
Rather, its "claim to fame" is a very long runtime.

Don't count out the 5mm LED just yet! Pretty much any LED that uses multiple 5mm LED will be all flood, good for close-up work, if you don't mind the bluish tint. SL ProPolymer series is a tough line. But there are all kinds of very cheap Chinese-made multi-LED lights out there, so it won't cost much to experiment.

By the way, there was a thread, "Looking for a floody flashlight" just a couple weeks ago. You might get some more ideas in that thread.

Inova X5, CR2 Ion, Surefire L2/L4, McGizmo's Mule, and of course anything a Surefire beamshaper will fit on. Those things are GREAT.

dcowboyscr said:

Surefire L4

Click to expand...

Agreed. It lights up a wide arc in front of you, but I am always wondering what's just beyond...

Virtually any light that can be used in the kind of candle mode where the head unscrews off will produce no hotspot and all spill.

The worst I have ever seen are some of those Cheap multi led lights fould
on ebay

McGizmo's Mule is at the top of my flood list, followed by the CPF Edition Eternalight EliteMax with the Blaster Kit. Or, for truly massive flood, my USL.

The CPF EliteMax Blaster, though, is a best-bang for the buck. The standard EliteMax can been seen here, but you'll need to email them about the CPF Edition and the blaster pack.

CPF Edition EliteMAX

Another route to take would be to mod an ordinary light to use a Khatod stippled flood reflector. Should be more light efficient (i.e. brighter) than a standard diffusing window. Of course, if you have money to burn, a holographic diffuser ($$$) will do thejob quite nicely.

Inova X5, Pentagon 19x5mm led light--S2 I believe. Brighter alternative---Lightcannon 10watt hid with both (included) diffusers on it.

If you don't mind a head lamp, a petzl tikka xp with the beam diffuser gives a nice flood. Very handy when doing close up work.

sounds like a cree with out any optic or reflector. have you got a cree torch that you can remove the reflector?

Stu

RustyKnee said:

sounds like a cree with out any optic or reflector.

Click to expand...

Ah, but a naked Cree has a narrower output than a naked Seoul.