as with all advising newcomers... I started with basic observation skills inside the stores around on...occasionally when a keyword pops up like LED my mind goes crazy looking it it, trying to reveal its secrets.
I once bought a reciprocating saw because the features included an LED light.
Heres the thing, normal
[again I stress normal, in this case nominal (yeah, voltage bias comes to mind doesn't it ] people usually don't have a budget for high quality flashlights
[that is, until they've seen the (or blinded by) light]. Plus in this day and age money is tight
[in fact everything is tight, I need to lose weight or buy new shorts].
tedshred, if you read the first review on that website, you will know the truth regarding unreliability.
to save you and others the expense of search link after link heres a screenshot
"connector on the bulb would slip off the battery"
Sounds like like those wee flashlights that comes with the tent you just bought in target doesn't it? Where a pair of pliers, a round file, flat head screwdrivers, and hardware that cost more than the flashlight to succeed in getting it to work...only to find that a match in the blank corridor has not only more light but a more even radiation pattern
Since price is usually the difficult speed bump on the road to enlightenment for your buggy to pull across, I'd recommend starting with 5mm LEDs, but a more decent quality flashlight...
Inova might be a bit expensive as the X5 is a very impressive light given its limitation in technology. See if you can locate a
Gerber Trio. Its a very heavy duty light that uses 3 5mm LEDs, while not the peak in LED technology the utilitarian capabilities of the trio is still amazing. Plus its 2AA, twisty operation [yes, thats a technical term, twisty means you have to screw the tailcap all the way in to use the light, clickie means theres a button where you must press in to activate the light, reverse clickie just means the "momentarily on" operation can only be used after the button is clicked on....then theres the fun (or phun) lights like the
fliklite, but we'll leave that off the table for now
]
For starters, try to deviate away from CR123As...prolonged exposure to this sort of material from the forum will be very beneficial to you when you actually start to use them, it also facilitates the education of possible operational/instrumental hazards. Then we'll go to LiCoO2, then LiMnO2, LiFePo4 and all the fun stuff from that point on.
Keep your eyes peeled and cheers:thumbsup: