Your crappiest flashlight

Yeah that's right, your crappiest, let's see them. :devil:

Here's mine, rayovac value bright, 97 cents from walmart, plus two super heavy duty from dollar store, everything brand new cost two dollars up and running.

I got an aluminium incandescent 2xAA flashlight from Poundland that is the worst ever. With batteries installed, the head-twist switch flickered so much when used. After I had finished playing with it, I twisted the head to 'off', or so I thought... Althought the bulb was not lit, there was a short-circuit. Next time I picked the light up, the body was hot, and there was not alot left in the batteries.

I took the head apart to find a shoddy micro-PR based bulb. The switch fell to pieces and could not be put back right. Eventually, I stripped it of the plastic and glass and sent the aluminium off for recycling. That was the first, and only flashlight I have ever thrown out.

I sacrificed my two crappiest in the name of science.... and movie stardom

Their memory will live on forever on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa23f_orlm8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxq9V13UyDs

Here's mine, compared to a L1D for size reference:

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/steveku/103_03752.jpg

Here's a similiar past link, on 'Most Embarassing Flashlight'. I like the combo flashlight, Pez dispenser, with a compass and other stuff:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/179413

Mine is a candle under a jar with black tapes wrapped around the side so it don't look like a lantern. :nana:

An old 2D Garrity.
The beam was horrible and the runtime too...
I bought it when I was 14-15 yro.

I have several of these Rolson branded 2xAA "aluminum" (probably the "monkey metal" so famed in motorcycle engines) lights that came free with Rolson (i.e. dirt cheap Chinese quality control failures) tool kits of various sorts. On a good day they produce rather less light than a dying glow-worm while killing batteries in very short order. The bulb is massively outdone by a stock Solitaire bulb. In fact the bulbs look about the same size as solitaire bulbs.

If I can find one I've not stomped to death I'll post pics.





The nasty blackened thing is the bulb - this has maybe seen 1 hour of battery killing use ever. Anyone who wants one in order to experience the horror is welcome - failing that, this one is for the bin which is the best place for it.

Somewhere I have a couple of cheap two-AA incandescants that I got as giveaways at a hockey game several years ago. They had the local team name and logo on the side, were fairly bright, and were made entirely of GITD plastic, which was nice because it made them very easy to find in the dark. However, within a week they started flickering because of bad battery contacts; I'd have to shake them or twist the heads back and forth to keep them shining. But since they were free, I guess they're still worth slightly more than I paid for them.

dulridge said:

I have several of these Rolson branded 2xAA "aluminum" (probably the "monkey metal" so famed in motorcycle engines) lights that came free with Rolson (i.e. dirt cheap Chinese quality control failures) tool kits of various sorts. On a good day they produce rather less light than a dying glow-worm while killing batteries in very short order. The bulb is massively outdone by a stock Solitaire bulb. In fact the bulbs look about the same size as solitaire bulbs.

If I can find one I've not stomped to death I'll post pics.
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j282/dulridge/IMG_0552.jpg
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j282/dulridge/IMG_0555.jpg
The nasty blackened thing is the bulb - this has maybe seen 1 hour of battery killing use ever. Anyone who wants one in order to experience the horror is welcome - failing that, this one is for the bin which is the best place for it.

Click to expand...

That seems like a decent body for a LED conversion.

bah, fallingwater beat me to it.

jzmtl said:

You know that light does look kinda cool, if you put in a led drop in it might be pretty decent.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. The output was possibly bad because it looks like those poor little bulbs were getting the living crap beaten out of them. The envelopes were probably black in very short order. I bet an LED mod would make that a sort of fun light.

I've found 2 of the things. First 2 people to PM me can have one each. Happy nearly Burns night! I'm not crazy enough to expect anyone to pay for one of these and am happy to pay the postage to anywhere - just PM me if you want one. I may add that even a 3mm LED probably wouldn't fit the hole in the reflector but it'd be easily enough reamed out so first 2 addresses in my PM box can have one each.

Edit: 1 spoken for, 1 to go
Edit 2: Both now spoken for.

I really, really hope their new owners like them more than I do. Hopefully they'll post pics and beamshots, I'd love to see how much better they can be made. Not that this should be hard....

jzmtl said:

Click to expand...

Mine is a lot crappier! :lolsign:

I gave away some crap-lights to nephews about the time i discovered this forum and good lights. The crappiest i have now would be a 2AA coast and a couple 3AA teknolites,which i don't really consider "crap",they're just not on par with my post-CPF aquisitions.

Riverrock 2c with an asopheric plastic lens. I was hoping I could steel the lens, but it is glued in pretty tight. It does not have a tight beam....just a wide blue moon type beam. A total waste of $20 at target.

1xAAA Dorcy incan keychain light. Painfully weak output and a pretty much unusable beam pattern. I think it's as big as a modern 1xAA LED light too.

my solitaire...:devil:
if theres a really crappy beam, thats gotta be it..

Crenshaw

HMM ... Thats has got to be a handmade sheet metal flashlight ... It has a hand-polished aluminium cupcake cup as a reflector ... That was given to me like a long time ago, doubt it still exists now .

The G2 Ghettolon. Paper pamphlet body rolled into a Nitrolon head with no lens, P60 equivalent lamp assembly, and a single piece of wire to complete the circuit.

My crappiest is a 2 year old Inova X1. It is embarassingly dim especially for how well it's built and how much it cost ($20USD-ish). I have a particularly cheapy 10 year old 2xAA minimag knock off that a salesman was giving away that is at least 3 times brighter.

I wonder if the newer ones are better...