The led invaision is here and getting stronger every day!

3 months ago led lights were here and there, but now I am seeing them everywhere!!
Costco is selling cree loaded lights in 3 packs for 20 bucks with batteries, gas stations are now selling better than multy led lights at the checkout, walmart is getting better and better every visit!!

soon I think you will see brighter and brighter leds in every corner of the market and I think it is just great!

I do see the build quality is low on alot of these lights as the 3 pack i bought had 1 that was throwing a weird pattern but still.. they are here.

and cheap!

what do you think about this?

I think it is great. At first, I was worried that my awesome lights would be a waste of money, but as you said, quality is low, but at least they are out there. Now though, the more people out there buying lights, the better!

I have compared some of my cheaper lights ($20 - $40) against some of the higher performing "cheap" lights, and mine still win in form factor, brightness, tint and beam shape. so I am not feeling that my lights are a waste of money, and I know the value of my lights cannot be justified by non-flashaholics... but I can definately appreciate my lights

I'm going to miss having some of the brightest lights around though.

Qoose said:

I'm going to miss having some of the brightest lights around though.

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Start modifying your lights with newer emitters then, my P7 Maglight remains the brightest hand held light at my site and it's already 12+ months old IIRC

Bright and cheap is over overrated. I've had a few cheap lights that are bright and efficient, but lack the quality and ruggedness of better quality lights.

I'd rather spend $150 on one single quality light than $150 on ten cheap lights, even if they did come with batteries.

I don 't care if my mates can go out and buy a light brighter than mine for a quarter of the cost (which they can't, the joys of living in Oz).

A true flashaholic is not one measured by the amount of lights they might have or even the output of their lights vs. another. They are measured by their love and appreciation of a light that has had a lot of planning and thought put into it's design and production, and knowing that if what they had in their hand was the last light they will ever own, they will be happy.

Jash said:

and knowing that if what they had in their hand was the last light they will ever own, they will be happy.

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Jeez, that's a bit heavy for a Saturday night, isn't it mate?

I think the emergence of economical LED lights is great, but agree that an eye on build quality is important.

I bought a couple "cheapies" recently, because their use was likely to be very infrequent. Got them home and powered 'em up, and they just felt so flimsy in the hand that I returned them.

Guess it's just a judgement call - striking the right balance, I mean.

~ Edge

Cree XRE lights have been in retail stores for about a year.... unfortunately XRC and XPCs are also becoming more commonplace. So not all Cree LEDs are equal and some are ****-poor at best. A large percentage of the XRE lights are 3AAA:green:.

Generally I have not been impressed with any of the cheap Cree lights I have seen in stores... they are mostly 3AAA junk lights with Cree emitters.

There have been high quality Cree B&M deals out there though if you look, but generally they are few and far between:
-Leatherman L1TV2 + multi-tool $45 costco
-Icon lights at Micro center and radio hack
-Fenix, Surefire, Icon, ITP at Frys
-Energizer headlamp + 1AA light combo $29 costco

As far as the build quality thing is for me I think having 25 cheap lights all over the place is better than one really good one that the zombie ate and ran away with....

If I was a cop or a person that used a light as part of my work I would have 2 lights, one small and one that was bigger and both would be of high quality.

I have 5 vehicles and I like to have 2 lights in each in case of emergency and the cheap bright lights fit that bill very well.

I would rather have one good quality light that I enjoy using, that works everytime, and carry it with me, using it where ever required. The main thing for me isn't whether it's LED or incan, just well built, pocketable, and reliable.

Qoose said:

I'm going to miss having some of the brightest lights around though.

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If you hang around here and spend any money you'll either:

1. Still have something that blows the masses away in terms of brightness, or

2. Have something that equals the masses, but is way smaller, runs way longer, is way tougher, or all three.

M@elstrom said:

Start modifying your lights with newer emitters then, my P7 Maglight remains the brightest hand held light at my site and it's already 12+ months old IIRC

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That's not a flashlight. .. pulls out P7 Maglite .. Now THAT's a flashlight.


after seeing your location

they are everywhere....I remember years ago when Maglites were all the rage...LOL

I tend to not buy really cheap lights because I've got a bit of pack-rat-itis that I inherited from my mom. This means that I tend to keep stuff that most people would trash. For example, my brother bought a cheap 3AAA flashlight from Harbor Freight and it died on him. I now have grand plans on quadrupling its cost by throwing a driver, SSC P4, and nice optic in there. Why? Because I can't bring myself to throw the bits and pieces away.

BTW, he bought that light about the same time I registered on this site as his way of saying, "see, a cheap light can do what your expensive (MagLite) can do for a fraction of the cost." Three months later his cheapo light was not working and my old Mag still is to this day. I will always try to buy quality over quantity or cheap any day. I just need to get it out of my head that MagLites are not exactly of the same quality of SureFire and the like.

My take on the latest LED developments (after being away from CPF for over a year....) are the impressive output measures. To illustrate, an overdriven incan hotwire, 100w Osram bulb, could get 35 bulb lumens per watt. Example: Osram 100w 64623 bulb overdriven at 14.5v and 134 watts is predicted at 4639 bulb lumens via LuxLuthor's destructive bulb tests. With a 65% OTF, factor, that would be 3015 OTF. Not bad! Great, impressive lights, but with short runtimes.

Now we have LED flamethrowers that are achieving much more than 35 lumens per watt. Heck, I have read about some newer ones in the planning stages that are approaching 200 emitter lumens per watt! This means dramatically longer runtimes for very bright lights. A current example: Olight M31 medium level advertised at 320 OTF lumens with a runtime of 3.5 hrs.! Or the Olight SR90 with an advertised 2200 emitter lumens at 30 watts --- 73 emitter lumens per watt. This is just about double the rate of the best hotwire incans. Plus the LED products are off-the-shelf and do not require special battery holders, modified high temp switches, etc. Not to mention, there are sure some high quality lights out there, such as the Jetbeam RRT-3.

Just as the developments have brought out all kinds of new LED products on the high end, such has translated to less expensive products on the lower end as well. Just go see the offerings at stores like Walmart and Home Depot.

This is indeed a great time to be a CPF-er.