Floody LED Light

I have been around here a bit and asked some questions here and there and made a few small purchases to get things rolling. I got an MTE 1xAA P4, and a Fenix P2D. Love both lights, but both are good at one thing .. throw. By good, I mean it has a tighter hotspot and covers more distance WAY in front of me than where I really want it at night sometimes, DIRECTLY in front of me. Basically I want a good light with really bright flood, minimal hotspot. The flood/spill on my current ones are ... usable,but not bright enough.

Let the suggestions begin ...

There are not many floody lights in the 1x cr123 form. If you consider the flood/spill from the P2D as inadequate to satisfy your needs, than the slightly floodier amility neo T5 probably wouldn't be enough to meet your needs either. You may have to go with the 2x cr123 form and get a L4? Beware that the L4 still uses a Lux V though, and at this point in the improvement of LEDs where we are looking at the release of R bins from Cree, Lux Vs look particularly long in the tooth (inefficient).

Replace something's lens with ucl with ldf coating on it
Flashlightlens.com

I was going to suggest, as daveman did, the Amilite T5. It's about the same brightness as the P2D, but with less hot spot and more of the light in the spill beam. If you think that would fit your needs, check it out.

The ZebraLight H-50 headlamp (1-AA cell) is ALL flood !


A very impressive light, in so many ways !


:twothumbs

Phaetos, take your P2D and stick a piece of Scotch Magic Tape #810 over the lens. Trim it carefully with a cutter and you will find yourself with a nice floody beam.

I bought one of these....

http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/carfnbr/249/prrfnbr/185/F04-Beam-Diffuser

....and put it on my Surefire L4. But it should work on quite a few models or just about any model with a 1" diameter head. The beauty of it is, you can pop it off momentarily to get throw. The flood that it produces is perfect; slightly brighter in the center, but mostly just a wall of light. You also get much better light pass-through efficiency than a piece of Scotch tape.

frank777 said:

I bought one of these....

http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/carfnbr/249/prrfnbr/185/F04-Beam-Diffuser

....and put it on my Surefire L4. But it should work on quite a few models or just about any model with a 1" diameter head. The beauty of it is, you can pop it off momentarily to get throw. The flood that it produces is perfect; slightly brighter in the center, but mostly just a wall of light. You also get much better light pass-through efficiency than a piece of Scotch tape.

Click to expand...

I've measured the loss of matte Scotch "Magic" tape, which is a great diffuser, at 11% with a Quickbeam type light box. I consider this to be insignificant. How much better is the Surefire diffuser?

c_c

imho the best floody led light is the old (!) version of the surefire l1! i really hope, that surefire will make a new version of this great light!

I'm trying to answer the same question as the original poster - looking for some lights (will be buying for family) that put these newer LEDs (Cree, P4, Q5's) to good use as a floody trail light. I plan to get a headlamp too, probably one of the Zebralights. But for hand-held lights, how solid are these options I've read about at CPF:

LumaPower LM31/33

Amelite T-5

Fenix Q5's ? (maybe with a diffuser but would prefer not to monkey with something that might fall off or get stuck in a holster, etc)

I see the NovaTac 120P and Surfire L2/4 getting a lot of praise here but both are probably more than I want to spend... :shakehead The Olight T20 Q5 sounds like one of the best personal lights out there right now but I'm hesistant about the tight hotspot.

Any specific pro/cons with these lights, folks? Well made, reliable, good runtimes, OK with rechargeables. Comments about using diffusers or even replacing the deflectors on the Fenix & Olight models to get more flood?

Thanks, much appreciated. :twothumbs

+1 for the Zebralight H50 - pure flood at a good price.

My recommendation would be to keep saving and go for a Novatac 120P and an SF F04 beam diffuser - about the most versatile single light solution I can think of.

I think you can try one of these cheaper (and somewhat dated) flashlights with clusters of say, 30 odd, 5mm LEDs. These are going very cheap these days and they produce very good floods and not much throw. But they look like the thing for you.

Streamlight makes a 4AA with 7 LED's that is all flood, also a 3C with 10 LED's. Pelican 2440 with 4AA and 5 LED's is also all flood - You can get the Pelican with a glow in the dark body or lens shroud that glows.

All 3 just spread the light out -

The Pelican runs about 8 1/2 hrs on Eneloops & 9 1/2 hrs on Alk.
Streamlight 4AA LED 3 1/2 hrs on Eneloops & 4 1/2 hrs on Alk.
Streamlight 3C - something over 12 hrs on Alk.

mb

you need a Surefire L4....throw is nonexistent with this light, no beam covers necessary:thumbsup:

LED_Thrift said:

I was going to suggest, as daveman did, the Amilite T5. It's about the same brightness as the P2D, but with less hot spot and more of the light in the spill beam. If you think that would fit your needs, check it out.

Click to expand...

Where might I find this? in the Marketplace?

Kilovolt said:

Phaetos, take your P2D and stick a piece of Scotch Magic Tape #810 over the lens. Trim it carefully with a cutter and you will find yourself with a nice floody beam.

Click to expand...

But won't that diminish the brightness of the beam?

frank777 said:

I bought one of these....

http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/carfnbr/249/prrfnbr/185/F04-Beam-Diffuser

....and put it on my Surefire L4. But it should work on quite a few models or just about any model with a 1" diameter head. The beauty of it is, you can pop it off momentarily to get throw. The flood that it produces is perfect; slightly brighter in the center, but mostly just a wall of light. You also get much better light pass-through efficiency than a piece of Scotch tape.

Click to expand...

I think the head of a Fenix is at 0.8".

Ok .. checked out the Amilite website. It appears that all the lights are the same. What is the "Double SSC" mean? It doesn't appear to have 2 LED's in it. And what is the difference in a P4 emitter and a star P4 emitter? I may look at some of the multi-led lights also. Can find tons of those all over the place, I forgot about those lights being all flood, thanks to whoever suggested that.

For really bright all flood,look for a used ELECTROLUMENS My little friend.It is a 3 led using optics for all flood.2 stage high/low.Low runs 2 hours for me.There was even 2 optics,10 degree and 45 for even more flood.I replaced my leds with seoulP4,high is now around 500 lumens.All in a sub 5 inch package.

Paul6ppca said:

For really bright all flood,look for a used ELECTROLUMENS My little friend.It is a 3 led using optics for all flood.2 stage high/low.Low runs 2 hours for me.There was even 2 optics,10 degree and 45 for even more flood.I replaced my leds with seoulP4,high is now around 500 lumens.All in a sub 5 inch package.

Click to expand...

Where do you get the 45 degree optics for yourLittleFriend? I tried to order my 2nd one with 45 degree optics but recieved the 10 degree optics.

The Little Friend is no longer in production. Elektrolumens is now selling the Firelion beamshots

There is a review of the Zebralight with beamshots.