Flashlights have gone mental recently

I am a total flashlight junkie. I love my lights and seem to HAVE to buy more. I have to know what's new and what's cool. I've been a little behind cos I havnt really kept up on things for a while. I used to manage a camping and outdoor adventure store a year or so ago and kept up to date with lots of different products. Led Lenser and Surefire Were the lights we spent most time ordering. Tho because I live in one of australias smallest cities it meant that we mainly focussed on led lenser and of course mainly had requests for maglites even when compared to the output led lenser are far more convincing to sell. So we ordered mainly P7s, MT7s, P3, 4 , 5 and 17 lights. Some little M3s and what not. A few Surefire 6PDs were sold, some G2s and I sold a MASSIVELY overpriced Aviator Incan with red LEDs. I was always pushing for tougher more military lights like C2leds and 6PDs. But upper management would never approve my M6 Guardian orders... Due mainly to the fact that they cost $990 aus dollars... Sigh.

Anyways to get to some kind of point b4 I ramble into an old man talking about random bullshit. I remember a few years ago I was gonna b willing to shell out $280us for an HDS 40Lumen edc because it was the most programmable versitile light I could find... Now it's intensely different. LOADS of lights are FAR more programmable and cheaper. Just as good in build quality and far less scarce. I just bought my first good light in years, Jetbeam RRT-0 S2 and I LOVE it. I have an Olight M21 500 lumen coming in a week or so and am definately looking forward to it. But I guess what I'm saying is lights r SO bright. SO small and SO cheap now. It's awesome. It's great to see new technology being used to bring us usable products like this. BUT I would like to c a different style of tactical light. I don't even know what. But something different. Differen take on the traditional designs. Something weird and cool but functional. That Fenix with three heads... (would have probably known the name this time a year ago... Being out of the industry for a while has kept me out of the loop) but something like that. It's different. But possibly impractical. I dunno. The Novatac 120P used to be my edc for AGES. It's awesome to the max with it's programmability but truth be told it's kinda dull. Buuutttt I guess it's functional... I still love the design FOR it's simplicity but there has to be something different. Something still legitimately tactical, dependable and reliable. But new. Innovative. Something else... U know what I'm sayin? Instead of one design with 8 different outputs or LEDs. 8 totally different designs. Totally fresh approach.

This post is probably gonna sound whiney or lame. I'm not meaning to make it seem like I'm complaining... I mean I do LOVE the designs in the current market... But, like what happened to the Surefire Optimus? The Invictus? Where did they go? I wanted one and Surefire NEVER bothered to make them??? Led Lenser was mean to produce a P12 I think... 3xnichia LEDs... 500 lumens an focusable... Never got made... It's just interesting to see that Surefire have literally stopped designing stuff... Damn downturn in the US economy making companies like this slow their design pace down... Lol. This post is lame. Sorry... Just felt like expressing some thoughts

Lots of product ideas evaporate over time. If the market-research guys say the concept isn't compelling enough to make people want to pay what it will cost to produce, it won't get built. That's life.

I'm not sure you're going to find a small light better than the RRT-0 right now. I have an RRT-0 and its titanium cousin the TC-R2, and I am firmly convinced that continuously-adjustable-brightness using a control-ring interface is the direction all the good lights will go in over the next few years; why have 2 or 3 or 10 or 15642 modes when you can have all possible modes at once? You got in on the ground-floor on this one -- you'll be set for a while.

It's such a cool light. I want a RRT-3 now I really need a massively bright light next. Something over 1000 lumens ur so right about marketing (I feel about ppl in marketing as bill hicks did) I WANT an optimus dammit!

I want a 10,000 lumen 1xAA flashlight and has excellent flood ability with the best throw available. And it has to get 100 hours on high.

Cheers

The 1xAA is the battery for the remote control, right? :devil:

fyrstormer said:

why have 2 or 3 or 10 or 15642 modes when you can have all possible modes at once?

Click to expand...

Because if I have 3 modes, I know how long the battery will last on lo, med or hi. If I have infinitely many modes, I don't know a thing about it, and I'm kinda control freakish about this. So selector rings are fine, but I like discrete power levels, thank you very much.

radioactive_man said:

Because if I have 3 modes, I know how long the battery will last on lo, med or hi. If I have infinitely many modes, I don't know a thing about it, and I'm kinda control freakish about this. So selector rings are fine, but I like discrete power levels, thank you very much.

Click to expand...

Perhaps I'm in the minority but I agree. I dislike the infinite lights. I like to have the ability to get to 3 to 6 brightless levels with one hand and one click of one button. I want a one handed flashlight.

So I must also be in the minority. I rarely find that many situations where I need a very precise amount of light and I also like to have a sense of how long a light will last from fully charged batteries. My ideal light has 4 settings:

0.1L -- Night adjusted vision, not waking the whole house/camp up but I can still navigate. Reading map in car at night.

7L -- Meaningful amount of light. Many evenings worth of runtime when I know or suspect I won't be able to charge the light at will.

100-150L -- Lots of light. Guaranteed to get me through one evening without power from a full charge.

200-500L -- Gobs of light. When I need to simulate the sun at night. Enough runtime to either get me through one complex task needing maximum brightness (1-2 hours) or enough runtime to periodically shift to "turbo" from 100-150L to extend my range while outdoors.

Right now I have an Armytek Predator configured as above without memory so it comes on moonlight when the bezel is loose and ~125L when the bezel is tight.

I also will chime in with the preference against infinitely variable lights. It sounded cool when it first came out, but for all of the above mentioned reasons, I sold my Infinitely variable light within a week of owning it and stuck with my OG RRT-0.

Same thing with the HDS rotary. I was all kinds of stoked to jump on that bandwagon but Im now sure I like my clickies better.

wakemare said:

I remember a few years ago I was gonna b willing to shell out $280us for an HDS 40Lumen edc because it was the most programmable versitile light I could find... Now it's intensely different. LOADS of lights are FAR more programmable and cheaper. Just as good in build quality and far less scarce.

Click to expand...

Are you referring to the current HDS models, or the older ones? I can't think of any light that comes close to the programmable features of current HDS models (besides the discontinued LiteFlux). I don't think there are many that can match build quality as well, besides the elite companies (Surefire and a few others) and some custom builders.

Captain Spaulding said:

Same thing with the HDS rotary. I was all kinds of stoked to jump on that bandwagon but Im now sure I like my clickies better.

Click to expand...

The HDS isn't a true infinitely variable light. Have you tried one yet? I have a rotary and love it. I think my next light (months away) will be an HDS high CRI, but I'm debating on getting a clicky or rotary.

radioactive_man said:

Because if I have 3 modes, I know how long the battery will last on lo, med or hi. If I have infinitely many modes, I don't know a thing about it, and I'm kinda control freakish about this. So selector rings are fine, but I like discrete power levels, thank you very much.

Click to expand...

The light can be tested for runtime at specified brightness intervals, and you can connect the dots to form a graph; the performance isn't going to spike or plummet unexpectedly between brightness intervals.

Besides, you don't know the exact runtime anyway. Either you use a primary battery with a statistical variance in its initial charge or you use a rechargeable battery with a statistical variance in its recharge capacity, and in both cases the capacity droops during the time the battery sits on the shelf. You're not in control of your flashlight's runtime and you never were. That's what spare batteries are for.

tre said:

Perhaps I'm in the minority but I agree. I dislike the infinite lights. I like to have the ability to get to 3 to 6 brightless levels with one hand and one click of one button. I want a one handed flashlight.

Click to expand...

It's funny you should mention 6-mode lights; three years ago people were arguing about whether 3 modes were actually useful or whether 2 modes were sufficient. There are still plenty of people who prefer single-mode lights, but in regards to multi-mode lights, it's clear the trend is towards more brightness settings, because people keep finding them useful for EDC applications.

radioactive_man said:

Because if I have 3 modes, I know how long the battery will last on lo, med or hi. If I have infinitely many modes, I don't know a thing about it, and I'm kinda control freakish about this. So selector rings are fine, but I like discrete power levels, thank you very much.

Click to expand...

HDS rotary has a selector ring located in the back of the light, which can be operated easily with one hand. The control ring does not have continuous steps, but rather discrete steps. Mine got 6 days on the lowest setting with a Surefire CR123 battery.

I just want surefire to step up and make some 2x123 or 1x18650 lights that will blow me away. I LOVE my 6PLED DEFENDER but only cos I put a 250lumen P60 drop in in it. I think surefire are really overrated. Unless of course u spend $500+ on one. Which I'm happy to do but I know I can get more power and similar build out of different brands.

Infinate light adjustment is awesome for getting ur eyes used to light. Not night adapted vision but when ur needing a lot more light to get rid of the shadows from behind a tree stump or if ur trying to check something in the near distance it's good to ramp up slowly (ramp up at the same rate as ur pupils shrinking) I've found that I don't get anywhere near as much 'beam shock' when I do this on my RRT-0 but when I instantly jump up to full power on my novatac 120P my eyes take a few seconds to readjust themselves

This went from "something new and different" to let's discuss the pros and cons of infinitely variable.

I'm interested in ideas for new and different.

As to the latter issue, it sure is a good thing that we have so many quality lights out there to choose from...isn't it.

jabe1 said:

This went from "something new and different" to let's discuss the pros and cons of infinitely variable.

I'm interested in ideas for new and different.

As to the latter issue, it sure is a good thing that we have so many quality lights out there to choose from...isn't it.

Click to expand...

+1! It's depressing and invigorating at the same time looking at all these lights! As to the OP's thoughts, I actually am catching on to this newer idea of lights being programmable via computer by the end user to have a light "EXACTLY" as he/she wants it. If they ever come up with a way to keep at least an IPX8 rating, I will want at least one of these computer programmable lights. But I also want total control of all features. Like exactly how the switch works etc. Similar to Henrys HDS lights, so you could program what a press and hold, or just a click, or double click, etc, does with YOUR light. That would be sweet! :devil:

I still want an HDS, but I'm trying to behave. Maybe I'll sell something to get one, or hope one comes up in the marketplace for trades

I would like a "usage stopwatch" feature built in a flashlight which would indicate how many minutes the light has been used since the last time the stopwatch had been reset. After some experimentation, I could use this information to tell the amount of time remaining before needing to replace or recharge the battery.

Monitoring battery voltage would suffice for alkaline batteries, but not when using other types of batteries due to their different discharge characteristics.

CarpentryHero said:

I still want an HDS, but I'm trying to behave. Maybe I'll sell something to get one, or hope one comes up in the marketplace for trades

Click to expand...

I used to get tired of people talking about HDS all of the time, but now I have one and always talk about my rotary. It is perfect for EDC, I just wish he made a larger output light that ran on something like 2x18650s (like that would happen). At least I got into lights when there is a lot of competition and options out there like the OP stated, it gives me more reasons to buy more lights.

parnass said:

Monitoring battery voltage would suffice for alkaline batteries, but not when using other types of batteries due to their different discharge characteristics.

Click to expand...

Everything I have read on CPF suggests otherwise, unless I have misunderstood several posts.... I thought li-ions charge status could be read easily with a volt meter and certain lights can recognize charge status of lithium primaries and li-ion rechargeables under load (HDS lights)?