battery life is impressive in Tektite exp 1400

Recently I bought my first multiple LED flashlight, an Expedition 1400 from Tektite. They claim on the packaging, 40 hours of battery life. I turned mine on and dropped it in a bucket of water and left it on for two weeks! Sure it had a drop in brightness, but I took it out of the water and left it on still. It has now been burning for 17 days! If you were to throw something out in my yard in the dark, I could still find it, using this light and the same old batteries. I just wanted to say that I am impressed. This is the kind of light I want at my house, so if my wife picks up a flashlight, it is going to work. Thanks Tektite!

It sounds like they were honest about their advertised battery life. In other words, they used the time at which the user will typically want to change the batteries, as opposed to the time at which the flashlight stops putting out its last feeble amount of remaining light.

If you thought the Expedition 1400 was long-burning, you should check out the Expedition 50, with 1 single nichia and 3C cells... This guy should take you through 3-4 straight months constant on...
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I think I will try that with a Trek 4 light. The kids are using the same set of batteries for a month now and they fall asleep every night with them turned on. The never ending battery.

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walkinwith1 said:
Recently I bought my first multiple LED flashlight, an Expedition 1400 from Tektite...

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The 1400 was my favorite walking/hiking light before the advent of small bright relatively long-burning Luxeons.

I still reach for it when long runtime is important.

Brightrnorm

Thanks, All. We provide our battery life ratings to 1/2 of the original brightness. I'll pass on your comments to everyone here. "They keep going and going..."

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walkinwith1 said:
Recently I bought my first multiple LED flashlight, an Expedition 1400 from Tektite. They claim on the packaging, 40 hours of battery life. I turned mine on and dropped it in a bucket of water and left it on for two weeks! Sure it had a drop in brightness, but I took it out of the water and left it on still. It has now been burning for 17 days! If you were to throw something out in my yard in the dark, I could still find it, using this light and the same old batteries. I just wanted to say that I am impressed. This is the kind of light I want at my house, so if my wife picks up a flashlight, it is going to work. Thanks Tektite!

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The TEK 1400 became my favorite long-burn walking, hiking LED before the Luxeon "revolution", and I sometimes still use it when long burn is important, though there are some small 1 Watters that will outperform it as long as you remember to take along extra AA's or 123's. Example: UBH 3x123 + KL1 (if you can find a decent KL1) will give you 6+ bright regulated hours, steady burn, no dimming whatsoever.
The ARC LSH-P will give you 5 hrs on 2AA lith, but its beam (high dome) is relatively narrow. My best 1W is the superb Lambda Illuminator (2AA), but even on lithiums it only gets about 3hrs+ It is far superior to any of my Mad Maxes or Bad Boys in terms of brightness and color, while the UBH/KL1 is superior only in brightness (and runtime).

There's no escaping the physics. Until we have high efficiency luxeons, long & bright will still = big and heavy.

Brightnorm