I have bought $2000 in these LED flashlights, maybe $3000. I posess a inretech trilight, an inretech helios, a blaster II, a lambda white 5 watt side emitting megaclops running on 6AA's, an elektrolumens 5 watt lambertian 6AA focusable garrity flashlight in addition to many other lesser lights many of which I wish I had not bought (the nichia based ones). I think I can give you an opinion of how the blaster VI will stack up against the helios even though I don't have a blaster VI. I won't post beamshots since I never learned how to and I don't want to go through the hassle of learning how to work with my digital camera. My computer stinks; it's an old pentium II.
The trilight and helios are fine lights, and I am very satisfied with inretech's customer service etc. I wish I could give every company's product (that is every nice company like inretech) a perfect score but this is the real world and the truth is the truth. I wish inretech would begin selling focusable competiion to the megaclops. At any rate, the trilight and helios suffer from the deficiencies in the old NXO5 collimators. They produce a beam that dissipates quickly and therefore they can't cast a bright beam very far although it will light up a good distance dimly. The helios really is power hungry and this is not good since I get the same amount of light from the megaclops which consumes 1/3 the power since it has only 1 luxeon.
The megaclops and garrity focusable 5 watt flashlights produce great amounts of light up close and also cast FAR. The garrity is cyan. Cyan sucks compared to the white color even though both put out the same amount of light. I believe that the blaster VI will perform close to these focusable flashlights since it has the 30mm optics but I'm just guessing.
Ihave the blaster II and it does produce a bright beam. But it's tighter beam takes some getting used to up close since lots of the room will be dark. With the 5 watt luxeon I think there may be enough sidespill light with the 30 mm optics so that you wont even have a problem up close. Just make sure to get the 6AA blaster not the 5D blaster which is just tooo large.
I'm not sure of this because I don't have a blaster VI but I would say that I'd rather get a megaclops 5watt focusable or have elektrolumens build me a megaclps clone. Second choice would be the blaster VI, which also is cheaper.
If you like the trilight which is 3 1watt luxeons, I would recommend going with the lambda hydra XP4 instead or lambda's regulated 1 1watt luxeon maglite. I also have the lambda's hydraXP4 and the other lambda. Their regulation makes their beams much brighter than the trilight even though all these flashlights use the NX05 collimators. But none cast very far.
Bottom line... Get a megaclops or a blaster VI. If you want to use rechargeable batteries with them ask elektrolumens or lambda if it's safe first. Sometimes they have to add a resistor to their flashlights to make it safe. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
