Which led thrower to get or should I wait?

I was just going through all the reviews and am confused as to which thrower to get for myself does not matter what batteries it uses as long as it throws the best and upgradeable.

I was also thinking whether I should wait to see if anything new arrives next year.

Thanks for all your help.

The only one that is easily upgradeable is the Dereelight DBS due to its screw in modules. Any others such as Tiablo, Raidfire, the Dealextreme WF models and such will require you to be handy with a solder gun from what I understand.

machoamigo said:

I was just going through all the reviews and am confused as to which thrower to get for myself

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A laser?

machoamigo said:

does not matter what batteries it uses as long as it throws the best

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Define "throws the best." Many lights have (relatively) lots of throw, but very little flood or spill, making them great for "spotting bears in trees at 200 meters" (as another CPF'er put it), but relatively useful for little other than the "wow factor."

For example: My two latest purchases were an OLight T20 and a LumaPower LM31. Neither one of these are flame-throwers, and one's a 2xCR123 while the other's a 1xAA, but still I think the comparison illuminating: The T20 hits the beginning of our backyard treeline, about 250 feet, nicely. The LM31 is about useless that far out. But they both do about equally well at 50 feet or so, and the LM31 is much handier indoors.

machoamigo said:

and upgradeable.

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I believe some of LumaPower's lights are upgradeable. You might want to look at the M1 series. (I just noticed that BatteryJunction has the M1-T Tactical on sale for 40% off. Good thing for my wallet that wasn't the case when I placed my order last seek .)

machoamigo said:

I was also thinking whether I should wait to see if anything new arrives next year.

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Something new will always be coming out. If you wait for the next new thing, you'll never buy anything.

I tend to wait and see what our fellow CPF'ers widely acclaim and go with that. I also tend to go with state-side distributors.

You might mention your price range.

What kind of form-factor are you interested in? If I was looking for "throw," I'd go with a 3D Mag host and either Malkoff's or Elektrolumens' (single emitter) drop-ins. For a more useful (IMO) beam, albeit at the sacrifice of some throw, I'd either add the stippled reflector to the Malkoff or go with Elektrolumens' three-emitter drop-in. There's also the new TerraLux three-emitter Mag drop-in, which uses focusing optics, instead of reflectors.

Jim

SEMIJim said:

Something new will always be coming out. If you wait for the next new thing, you'll never buy anything.
Jim

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Wisdom of the Ages, there.

It doesn't matter when you buy, it will be obsolete within a few months.

However, the Q5 (I think in my humblest opinion) has reached a point to where a smallish light in the class of the DBS/A9s/MRV-SE lights has reached a milestone where they will easily light up anything you can reasonably need to see at night already.
While brighter emitters are on the way, none of the types of lights mentioned above will become obsolete in any short time.

But even then, most of the most well known and best selling lights are made by companies that either have offered upgrade modules or have said they will soon offer them, so read again what the wise man said in the above quote.

Any of the new throw lights are worth having. All of their performances are within 10% of each other. (comparing Q5 lights to Q5 lights etc.)

DBS, Tiablo, MRV are all incredibly bright and are fun to play with, and have great wow factor.

Dereelight DBS is the most modular, allowing you to easy change between smooth and textured reflectors, various modules depending on what types of modes you want, and when newer emitters come out it's just a matter of buying a new module to screw in.

I would recommend the Regalight WT1 v2, great light for the price, including smooth and textured reflector (I got it cheap in preorder). I received mine yesterday and I'm really imressed of it :thumbsup:.
Another option is the Raidfire Spear, wich also will be upgradable. Personally I'm waiting for my Spear to compare it with the WT1 (which should already have a better throw compared to the Tiablo A9.)

Thanks guys for all the suggestions and info. From what I see I think I might go in for the DBS Q5 or the Raidfire Spear leaning more on the DBS as WadeF suggested in his video about the end of the spear being like a mushroom even though the flashlight looks good compared to the DBS.

Any suggestions on which DBS :thinking: to get since I don't mind 18650 or CR123 batteries whichever one is brighter.

Thanks for all your help. :thumbsup:

machoamigo said:

Thanks guys for all the suggestions and info. From what I see I think I might go in for the DBS Q5 or the Raidfire Spear leaning more on the DBS as WadeF suggested in his video about the end of the spear being like a mushroom even though the flashlight looks good compared to the DBS.

Any suggestions on which DBS :thinking: to get since I don't mind 18650 or CR123 batteries whichever one is brighter.

Thanks for all your help. :thumbsup:

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The best performance (brightness plus runtime) will come by using one of the digital modules in the DBS (2SD or 3SD).
The one drawback is that you CANNOT use CR123 batteries with those modules because the driver would be damaged from the higher voltage.
Best case scenario with the DBS is to get it with a digital module, but also buy a spare 2SM module that you can pop in for use with CR123's during power outage situations when you can't recharge the 18650's.

If you don't want to do that, then you can go with just the 2SM module which can be used with either CR123 or 18650 batteries, but it's performance with 18650 isn't as optimized using that battery as are the digital modules.
Also note that the 2SM module is the ONLY Deree module that you MUST install the batteries with the + terminal toward the tail end, not the head.
Failure to do that will fry the driver board.

Thanks Zenster I did go ahead and get myself the DBS 3SD and now will have to wait for it to arrive hopefully by New Year or maybe earlier if I am lucky.

SEMIJim said:

A laser?
Define "throws the best." Many lights have (relatively) lots of throw, but very little flood or spill, making them great for "spotting bears in trees at 200 meters" (as another CPF'er put it), but relatively useful for little other than the "wow factor."
Jim

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Glad to see you went with the DBS Machoamigo, I know you won't be disappointed. I would have to disagree with SEMIJim to a point on some of the throwers being useful for little other than the "wow factor". I hear this a lot, but I find that in my experience, the opposite is the case. In the case of the DBS, I will agree that it has less spill than a non-thrower, but after taking it out in the woods several times at night, it has plenty of spill to fill short, medium, or long range needs.

Here are a couple of beamshots of the DBS vs. my P3D Rebel 100. You can see that it has less spill area than the Fenix, but still plenty of bright, usable spill to get the job done. Just for a change, and to give me even more spill area from a thrower (plus it is a very sweet looking light ) I have a Tiablo A8s on the way.

DBS - High (Fence at 40')


Fenix P3D RB100 - Turbo (Fence at 40')

machoamigo said:

Thanks Zenster I did go ahead and get myself the DBS 3SD and now will have to wait for it to arrive hopefully by New Year or maybe earlier if I am lucky.

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Let us know what you think when you get it. I love using 18650 batteries. Almost all my regular use lights are fed with AW batteries, 18650's, R123's, 14500's, etc. It's nice not having to worry about buying so many primaries anymore.

BTW, for those that didn't hear, Dereelight claims they had the inside parts of their switch improved, so it should be even more reliable than before. I never had any switches go bad, but some people had doubts about the switch. I don't know how big of a difference the change is. I was told the DBS I got for my Dad has the new switches (one installed, one spare).

rpshank said:

Glad to see you went with the DBS Machoamigo, I know you won't be disappointed. I would have to disagree with SEMIJim to a point on some of the throwers being useful for little other than the "wow factor". I hear this a lot, but I find that in my experience, the opposite is the case.

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I've also found the DBS to be very useful, even at close distances. I've told this story before, but one night at my parents I was walking around their pond spotting whatever was around. I noticed when I would spot a frog, like a large bull frog, the hot spot was large enough, even at 10-20 feet, to emcompass the frog. What was interesting is how bright the frog was lit up, compared to any of my other lights at that range. It looked like it was sitting in sunlight. It was so bright and clear I could see every detail clearly, all it's colors, etc. It was pretty neat. It was also fun to spot crayfish and fish in the pond, the beam piereced right through the water to light things up. I was shocked to see the size of some of the crayfish in my parent's spring fed pond, something I never saw when I was a kid because I didn't have bright flashlights like I have now that can really light things up under the surface of the water.