Well after having occational problems with my original ARC AAA LE not turning on everytime I tried, I returned it to ARC. I was a bit surprised that they sent me a new AAA battery along with a replacement AAA LE! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
The new light seems to have much tighter threads so it's a bit harder to screw on and off thou I suppose that's a good thing since it'll probably wear with use. There also seems to be a little grease on the edges of the foam ring which is probably a good thing too since on my original the threads literally ripped off little pieces of it from the edges when I first used it. It's not doing that now. The LED however is a bit more splotchy than my old one with what I'd describe as a kinda X shaped blue-spotpoint which is slightly off centered. Curiously thou, it seems a lot brighter than my returned light. I'm beginning to suspect thou it's because this one has it's LED set perfectly at the right depth in the reflector so not as much light leaks out the sides. The light however did keep it's wonderful yellowish ring compared to my old one which I like since when you're showing your light versus another brand's light that's the most distinctive feature of an LE aside from it being insanely bright. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
As far as splotchiness I don't know. I guess I should try it out tonight to see if I like it. I've so far seen 4 different LEs and each has it's own particular trait. It's too bad they can't be a bit more uniform but I on the bright side it makes each quite unique.
Unfortunately, Canada customs charged me taxes / handling fee for the item thinking it was new. I'm not sure if there's anything ARC can do about this. Thou fortunately, they sent me a letter explaining this in the package too that I hope is good enough to convince customs to refund my money back to me.
The new light seems to have much tighter threads so it's a bit harder to screw on and off thou I suppose that's a good thing since it'll probably wear with use. There also seems to be a little grease on the edges of the foam ring which is probably a good thing too since on my original the threads literally ripped off little pieces of it from the edges when I first used it. It's not doing that now. The LED however is a bit more splotchy than my old one with what I'd describe as a kinda X shaped blue-spotpoint which is slightly off centered. Curiously thou, it seems a lot brighter than my returned light. I'm beginning to suspect thou it's because this one has it's LED set perfectly at the right depth in the reflector so not as much light leaks out the sides. The light however did keep it's wonderful yellowish ring compared to my old one which I like since when you're showing your light versus another brand's light that's the most distinctive feature of an LE aside from it being insanely bright. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
As far as splotchiness I don't know. I guess I should try it out tonight to see if I like it. I've so far seen 4 different LEs and each has it's own particular trait. It's too bad they can't be a bit more uniform but I on the bright side it makes each quite unique.
Unfortunately, Canada customs charged me taxes / handling fee for the item thinking it was new. I'm not sure if there's anything ARC can do about this. Thou fortunately, they sent me a letter explaining this in the package too that I hope is good enough to convince customs to refund my money back to me.
