Apologies in advance for being a PITA newbie with uninformed questions, but you all go DEEP on lighting here, and it'd take a LONG time to catch up with you all, especially with all the equipment changing rapidly, and with so many different offerings out there I'm getting bug-eyed just perusing them all...
With that said,
THANKS MUCH IN ADVANCE for the input & help... I've got a lot of flashlights, and was sorta the go-to guy in my circles before I moved if someone needed anything like lights, etc, anytime a storm came or something undesirable happened.
But now I want a FireLight®© to deter these bears I've gotten myself into... I've resorted to keeping cans of starting fluid with a lighter taped to them scattered around camp, and I figure a nice fireball in their direction will deter them, but I know some of these lights they have nowadays will blind them long enough for me to make an exit stage left ASAP...
You still have some options if you want to stick to AA cells, since you can just use an adapter to stack lots of them into the Mag's body; that's how I power my 2D TLE-300 Mag, using a 2D/6AA adapter loaded with Eneloops. You could get just over 3000 lumens this way using Mac's drop in.
And no you don't need a permit for the big gun lights, the aforementioned HID unit I linked to is commonly found at your local Wal-Mart. Yes it's too large for a pocket, but you won't notice the size nearly as much when you see it throw a hotspot a half mile away (and animals definitely cannot look anywhere near your direction)
If you're talking about stars and getting out the soldering gun, you may as well get an SST-90 or XM-L on a star and do-it-yourself.
What emitter are you using with the 2-D Mag? Mac's?
Could you possibly give me a pointer to the most popular AA-->D cell adapters people around here prefer, without costing like they're made from gold? Mac's drop in is nice, but way outta my price range...
I'm pushing it going even $50 more on another light right now.
The 3 lights I have option to mod I think would do the best if I were to go the mod route are a 2-D Brinkman with the 3w LED, a 3-D MagLite and a 6-D Mag, which I'm using Xenon bulbs in my Mags...
My Mag 3xAA is LED, and I really like it, is there any drop in star upgrades for that thing anyone knows of?
I'd rather stay away from the 123 & 18650 batteries although I know they are much better batteries. I can charge D-cells with my Maha charger, or go with the AA-->D adapters. Have Eneloop AA's, and they beat everything else I have hands down, and I've been using rechargeables for <15-yrs. I'm an employee of a company that used to be the majority owner of the 2-companies which owned a company called Cobasys (Look Cobasys up on Wikipedia and you'll understand why the electric cars haven't came further along than they have)
If it were you, which route would you take? I do like the looks of the Fenix TK41, but it's not quite that 3800 lumen monster... And I think I might be able to get nearly as bright as the TK41 with a drop-in mod to 1 of my existing lights for a fraction of the cost of a $100+ light.
What are your preferences between the SST-90 or XM-L?
I can't locate their lumen rating just yet, have any idea on their lumens?
Could you possibly point me to one that would drop into one of these lights.
I've found links listed above to a couple of stars, and have since found these as well:
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/xm-lt6-885lm-led-emitter-6000k-white-light-bulb-3-0-3-5v-50599
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/ssc-p7-c-bin-led-emitter-with-21mm-heat-sink-base-3-6v-3-7v-12721
Would one of those drop into the Brinkman 2-D 3w LED ?
The thing about NiMH is that their power density is low, so you won't be seeing pocket lights with even like 300 lumens. Unless you go D sized NiMH, which also means new purchases....so you might as well go Li-ion in the first place. I don't think you wanna play with Energizers, most flashaholics don't use their lights much, but the batteries do get used up soon because most of us want to keep it topped up (brightest).
You did say high lumen light.
The only AA high-lumen light I know is Fenix TK41, TK40, which are in the hundred dollar range and they need 8pcs of AA.
Another option you can consider is Solarforce L2i. 2xAA, with 3-mode XP-G drop-in. You'd probably get 180 lumens or so from what I see when i put in 2 AA on a normal L2 and used wires to connect the end. Cheap also at $29 USD shipped. (add $2 for registered mail tracking). 2 x NiMH is 2.4V nominal.
Flashaholics like 3-mode operation.
Built quality for their L2 is extremely good, seriously its as good as the branded flashlights.....just no hard anodization. (my hard anodisation on my $$$ branded light is chipping off...)
Li-ion is cheap...$14 for a pair of Solarforce V2 18650, they are tested very close to 2400mAH in hobby chargers, in BLF someone is testing 3A-5A for some other stuff. These are not cheap chinese crap.
You can get generic LiMn IMR 18500 for just $8.80 a pair shipped and tracked, if you need "shortie" 180mm length operation for the 3 x XM-L Sky Ray. This one is also tested to be as good as the "AW" brand which you see often used here, at pretty high current and the capacity is still good/battery not warm at all.
Would really prefer something in the 1000-lumen or higher range, but am a bit flexible if I can get something good while keeping cost as low as possible. Can charge NiMH D-cells in my Maha charger, so that is an option open to me. It's just the 123 & 18650 are too expensive considering what I already have invested in NiHM batteries and chargers, I prolly have 60-80 AA & ~40 or so AAA's + 7 chargers, including a Maha.PowerEx.MH-C808M and 2 – LaCrosse chargers...
Haha, guess we won't be satisfied until we have a hydrogen cell powered PetaWatt light flare that can ignite rock at 5-miles :O
And *THANKS MUCH TO ALL FOR THE INPUT * SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE*
