Advice needed for my first high powered LED flashlight

Hello,
I have been doing some research on this forum, and am thinking about buying a bright LED flashlight. I would like to have the brightest light I can get in a similar size to a 2 AA maglite. It seems that there is a lot of talk about the CREE Q5 LED being a good one in this size of light. I am not picky about battery type, I just really want something compact and very bright. I think that the throw of the light is probably a bit more important to me than the flood characteristic, but I would settle for a good balance between the two. I have seen good things about the UltraFire WF606-A and the Romisen RC-N3. Any comments about either of these, or any suggestions about others I should consider? I would like to keep the price under $40, including batteries and charger if possible. Thanks for any help you can give.

Welcome to CPF, kg4cro.

This thread in the Review section gives a very good comparison of the leading 2xAA lights currently available.

kg4cro said:

Hello,
I have been doing some research on this forum, and am thinking about buying a bright LED flashlight. I would like to have the brightest light I can get in a similar size to a 2 AA maglite. It seems that there is a lot of talk about the CREE Q5 LED being a good one in this size of light. I am not picky about battery type, I just really want something compact and very bright. I think that the throw of the light is probably a bit more important to me than the flood characteristic, but I would settle for a good balance between the two. I have seen good things about the UltraFire WF606-A and the Romisen RC-N3. Any comments about either of these, or any suggestions about others I should consider? I would like to keep the price under $40, including batteries and charger if possible. Thanks for any help you can give.

Click to expand...

if you havent played with any of the popular led lights here you are in for a supprise.in the past 4 weeks i have aquired about 5, some used some new, all cheap-ish

i have a couple romisens, a novatac 120, D10, some terralux dropins and a malkoff.

they are all EXTREMELY bright and run for a long time.

you wont be disappointed with any of them.

ive had a couple of the 6 star lights here,

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/209354

and they are simply amazing bang for the buck ($11.00 for a light that is truely impressive? RC-G2)

if i were you tho, id find another $20 and get a nightcore D10.

as long as you get a good one (there have been a few faulty ones but you can return em till you get a perfect 1, mine has been perfect for weeks now every day in my pocket, use it all the time) it can do almost anything, bright or low level light, very long runtimes and a great beam.

but for $40 you can get 2 or 3 other lights on teh www.

you can get a 'terralux' dropin for your AA maglight, that costs $25 is as bright as any of my other lights and very easy to install.

your call

im also very impreesed with the romisen rc-g2

RC-N3-Q5 from shiningbeam.com, CPFuser is the %5 discount code.

From there you have to decide what kind of performance you want and pick the right cells. I prefer MAX brightness (~135L), and MIN size so I use RCR123 cells and an WF-139 charger (DX:2086, DX:1251). I am RETENTIVELY obsessive about NOT over-discharging these cells and they have served me very well. Their main drawback is short run times (40 minutes), and warm operating temperatures for the emitter. So you have to be careful NOT to over discharge the cell, or over-heat the emitter (turning the light on in your pants pocket...etc).

Using AA NiMH cells will drop output to about 85L, but gain you ~3.5-4 hours of run time per charge.

Third option is to use a primary cell. This retains the small size of the RCR123, but significantly drops operating temperatures and extends run times to a little over ~60 minutes.

Whichever light you choose... just STAY away from Alkalines and you'll do just fine.

:twothumbs

DM51 said:

Welcome to CPF, kg4cro.

This thread in the Review section gives a very good comparison of the leading 2xAA lights currently available.

Click to expand...

OP... FYI, None of the lights reviewed in that thread are under $40.

Cree(company) XR-E(model) Q5(flux bin) is a LED used by many lights you see around here.

The RC-N3 Q5 from shiningbeam is a good light to start with. 6% off coupon is "cpfuser"

:welcome: