New LED lights from Dorcy too!! 1-aaa, 1-aa

Ok, so Slick's post got me surfing the Dorcy website and although I'm not at all impressed with the site these definitely caught my eye!

http://www.dorcy.com/led_new1.htm

I imagine they must be regulated??? In the rest of the site, it looks like they have some interesting new aluminum incandescents too.

That is interesting indeed. I guess I'll be watching the store shelves for them. I don't know of any online Dorcy merchants.

Wow, a most excellent find Zman!
Those look very cool.
I can't wait until they show up in stores.

Pat

They all look good but that 1-AA 3-LED light really has my attention.
It is what I was hoping Peter had in mind for the Arc-AA.

Pat

Now.. let me get my hands on them an I'll strip em naked to their glory /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Vince.

These look good. With the exception of the 1-AAA light, they use more LEDs per battery than comparable flashlights from other manufacturers. It's a promising sign that Dorcy is doing something new rather than, say, just copying the three-cell Trek and Lightwave designs.

Those lights really look promising! If anybody's able to find them anywhere, keep us posted!

PJD

There's a store near me that has the aluminum 4AA 1 LED model for $20. I was very skeptical, as the marketing seems to be more towards "Look how hi-tech this is" than "Look at the good quality!"

The one LED is not a LS, so why bother driving it with 4AAs? It seems like a cheap version of a Turtlelight to me. (Although maybe it's OK, it's the same price as a Turtlelight...)

[ QUOTE ]
Smaug said:
There's a store near me that has the aluminum 4AA 1 LED model for $20. I was very skeptical, as the marketing seems to be more towards "Look how hi-tech this is" than "Look at the good quality!"

The one LED is not a LS, so why bother driving it with 4AAs? It seems like a cheap version of a Turtlelight to me. (Although maybe it's OK, it's the same price as a Turtlelight...)

[/ QUOTE ]

That model (the Cool Blue) is over two years old, so don't be too hard on Dorcy for selling them. (They may even be discontinued now.) The plastic version was my first LED light.

It's pretty good for a one-LED light--not very bright but having a long battery life and very good throw. The LED is installed in a PR base, and the epoxy is ground down so that it will work better with the reflector. You can swap out the LED for an incandescent bulb, or in order to put the LED into another 6-volt light.

By the way, the plastic version of the Cool Blue is identical to the original Turtlelight.

The idea of driving an LED with four cells is to not need a step-up converter. Using a limiting resistor you should get very long runtime. The PT Attitude, Streamlight 4AA, and so forth also use four cells.

Thanks for the tip,
That 1AA 3-LED one looks to be the replacement for my N-cell Batonlite that is used in a small tool pack. No more expensive batteries! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Boosted, yes, but I don't see anything about regulation on Dorcy's site.

The 1AA/3LED seems to fill a gap in our light collections. I wonder how it compares size-wise to an Inova X5. I'll be looking for these lights in the usual places.

[ QUOTE ]
asdalton said:
That model (the Cool Blue) is over two years old, so don't be too hard on Dorcy for selling them. (They may even be discontinued now.) The plastic version was my first LED light.


[/ QUOTE ]

You know, I was in Menards today for bug repellant and a pruning clipper... Naturally, I meandered by the flashlight section, and saw a bunch by Dorcy. One of them was the plastic version you mentioned. It was only $10.

[ QUOTE ]
asdalton said:
It's pretty good for a one-LED light--not very bright but having a long battery life and very good throw.
<snip>
By the way, the plastic version of the Cool Blue is identical to the original Turtlelight.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. If that is true, I'm all over it and I will eat my words. When you say it's identical to the original Turtlelight... How do you know? Is Dorcy affiliated with LEDCORP? Or is that just an educated guess based on the similarities?

I was very close to buying the plastic one, but then I read the boast on the packaging:
[ QUOTE ]
Dorcy said:
Projects a tight spot over 30 ft!

[/ QUOTE ]

So I thought to myself:
"Well shiver me timbers! A whole 30 ft? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

Still, if you say it is on par with the Turtlelight Andrew, I will buy them out and give them as gifts. (with the first gift to myself, hehehe)

The 3 LED, 1 AA looks interesting to me, as well. The second interesting one is the 8 LED 2 C cell.

I would be interested to see a runtime graph of the 3 LED, 1 AA. I wonder how it compares to an Opalec.

The runtime claims, 10x regular lights on the package & 40x elsewhere on their site, sound like unregulated lights to me. It steams me to once again see the deceptive efficiency claims. One cannot make efficiency claims unless also comparing output. LEDs are somewhat more efficient than the average incandescent source, but nowhere near 10x. Maybe at some point LEDs will be a large enough part of our society for the Justice Department to pay attention to these claims.

While the ad writers are at it, why not claim that sedans get 10x better mileage than SUVs by testing the sedans at 30 mph and the SUVs at 120mph?

The 1xAA light size and shape is almost identical to the 1xAA light I made by cutting down a Minimag tube, except that my light surely spanks the Dorcy on output and beam since it runs a Madmax. I am amazed that no manufacturer, major or niche, has come up with a light designed to make the most of a 1xAA NiMH - exhausting it in about 1 hour with regulation and a beam that balances hotspot & spread. A cutdown Minimag isn't quite there because the head is too big.

A review of the Dorcy Cool Blue is here. This site also mentions that it is re-branded Turtlelight.

Smaug said:
Wow. If that is true, I'm all over it and I will eat my words. When you say it's identical to the original Turtlelight... How do you know? Is Dorcy affiliated with LEDCORP? Or is that just an educated guess based on the similarities?

SMAUG: No, I don't believe that Dorcy is affiliated with LEDCORP. Maybe they just both buy from the same source. I found this on a website for a large Asian manufacturer.One change from the Turtlelite family: this newest model has 4 LEDS. It is model L-1083.

LOOK>>>
YOU CAN FIND IT HERE: Ningbo Futai

My understanding of it all was that LEDcorp developed their ground-down-LED PR lamps for use in Mag lites, then found that they worked in the Dorcy Boss lights too, and so the Turtlelite 1 was born. Dorcy were impressed so LEDcorp licensed out their LED bulb design, in order to sell "turtlelights" to supermarkets in vast quantities that LEDcorp were not capable of doing. Dorcy also sell an adjustable-beam aluminum version which is identical to the LEDcorp one, for a similar reason.

Maybe I`ve just gotten a bit confused, but that was my take on it. Looks like Dorcy are moving away from the single-LED-narrow focus model though, and about time too. I bought an original Turtlelight when they were still cool, and never really cared for it. Nice body, shame about the beam /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif . To me, a single LED is not bright enough to make a narrow beam practical. Too tight for close work, too dim to light stuff further away, and although tough and long running, too big physically. The Turtle 2 looked like a slightly better model but I always thought it was too expensive and still a bit big for its output. Definately not EDC territory!

Nowadays the flashlight world has moved on. Luxeon LEDs are bright enough to be focussed into a narrow beam and still be nice and practical, and the ever decreasing cost of 5mms has made larger clusters more affordable. I`d be quite keen to see a Luxeon version of the Turtlelite, maybe with a bit of electronic regulation gizmology inside too. The size compared to the increased output wouldn`t seem so bad then. I wonder if it`ll ever happen? Of course I could always just stick an EverLED into a Dorcy Boss and do it myself but that`s cheating!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Maybe I'm wrong, and the Chinese company model is a "knock-off". I suspect we'll never know, since when a company has a product contract-made for them overseas, they are legally entitled to say they are the manufacturer. Anyway, however the Turtlelite started, several Chinese companies have the same light. I know that recently, the trend has been for large American companies to have lights made overseas to be sold here under their brand name. Example: Streamlight. Their ProPolymer and Twin-Task series are both made in China, and sold here as Streamlight products.As the world economy becomes more globalized, I guess this would be expected. And healthy.

If it makes for better and more interesting lights at good prices, I'm for it.

As far as I know, LEDCORP licenced the "ground-down" LED in PR base technology to Dorcy.

You can get a Turtlelight 1, Turtlelight 2, and "Our Best Aluminum Flashlight" directly from LEDCORP, or get the Dorcy Cool Blue (two models, one is yellow plastic and works like a Turtlelight 1, and one is blue metal and works like an "Our Best...") from just about anyone who has a lot of Dorcy flashlights.