Let me take this moment to say...

...I have several Sure Fires. Z3, 9PT, 6P, G2, E2, E2e and E1. The only bulb I've blown is an N2. And I dropped that outside of the light. Why do I bring this up? Because there are several threads on inexplicible blown SF bulbs. I'm waiting for mine. I have a P61 and an MN02 I want to use. But I can't bring myself to toss aside perfectly good LA's. Including a P60 I've had since '00.

The solution? New lights.

What's your long running SF LA story?

Good idea. Whenever the LA goes, just buy a new flashlight. That way you get a "free" LA!

David, so who is Member #1? I've never seen anyone post with a member #1 assigned.

Member # 1 is a member they used to setup the board I think. They did mention it somewhere you gotta go search.

It was deleted because once the administrative stuff is done, they have to "lock" the settings. So they deleted it and now there is no actual #1 member.

never replaced a la yet...

i believe member 1 was a profile that was used to create cpf and then deleted.

Originally posted by Nerd:
Member # 1 is a member they used to setup the board I think. They did mention it somewhere you gotta go search.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Mr Bulk is now member #1

Ah UBB classic...as much "character" as a Sweedish car.

Well I don't have any long lamp life stories but I do have some short life stories.
MN30 about 6 seconds blown.
MN20 less than two hours went yellow and frosted up.
MN20 less than two minutes same thing.
MN03 less than ten minutes blown.
P60 bad dark spot out of the package.

I have a long life lamp story, P60 LOLA, been in use since 1999, the original P60 on the 6P blew within 6 months of use, cos i dropped it onto a concrete floor bezel first. The second one has been surprisingly good. I just wonder what has happened to the quality control of the MN series ? the old P series LA were pretty good but now i have read lots of stories of inconsistent light? Didnt surefire used to say they tested everyone of their LA before sending it out to customers?
Cheers
Des

my only dud lamp was a P60 that ceased to work after a few minutes of use. i don't think the bulb itself blew though.

I've still got the majority of my original SureFire lamps working. I recall only a few of the ones I've broken have been what I consider to be dead before their time. Most of the blow lamps are due to abusive field-testing. The FM15 isn't the most stable compare to the N2 and MN16.
Also, the P60 isn't as stable as the P61 in my experience of trying to break/deform them.

I killed an N62 through old age. I must have put about 40 sets of Ultras through it. As my first SureFire, it was used loads and I spent a fortune feeding it. Money well spent.

Al

I had an inexplicable short life on an N2, and I flashedbulbed a P61 by driving it with 4 freshly charged 4/3 A NiMHs without waiting for the surface charge to dissipate.

I've yet to burn out a R30, P60, P90, P91, MN61 or N62.

I even sold my 8X with the original X80 still putting out noticeably less light than my P90's.

I didn't discover CPF, or the existence of SF, until March 2002, however.

I have been using a P60 since 1999 that has yet to blow.
on the other hand my P90 died b4 i could expend a set of batts
anyone knows of SF dealers that have SF bulbs mfg in 1999-2000

I've had many P60's and P61's over the years that had perfect beams and lasted a really long time. I've also had a few that were bad right out of the package...misfocused..bad dark spots...damaged during shipping etc. I've also had one blow upon inserting new batteries after running the first set of batteries too far down. Overall, my 10 yr old 6P has had a very good track record with lamps.

When I recently bought some lights including an 8X and 9P with extra P91 from the ASPI closeout, the 8X lamp was defective with dark rings. The P91, which was from new stock, was also bad, with very dark areas in the beam. The P90 lamp was/is perfect.

My 9 year old 6P still has its original P60 lamp in it and works great!

Hmmm....if someone is getting multiple years of life out of their SF lamps, I suspect its because they don't venture very far away from the latte' stand. (Kidding...sheesh, city folk have no sense of humor!)

I've had my 6P for about 5 years now. It's a SHTF light, and as a result it gets used very infrequently. However, it's carried on my belt every single day; it gets knocked around, dinged, hit, and generally treated as a *tool*. The bezel is scratched up and the anodizing is completely gone in several areas. I don't intentionally mistreat it, but I also expect it to survive what I do.

In this period of time, I've gone through 2 sets of batteries and 2 lamps. The lamps failed, no doubt, from "abuse". Sorry, but at the price of the lamps (let alone the light) I expect them to be substantially more robust.

I now carry a Scorpion. Have yet to blow a bulb, and if I do a) it's got a spare on board, and b) it's 1/3 the cost!

I don't see how can a filiment be made more rugged. The weakest part of any flashlight is usually the filament, in order to protect it it needs something like Surefire's Shock Isolation System. I've gone through more Scorpion bulbs than SF bulbs and I use to use the scorpion about 1/10th of the time. The bulb turned black on me a few times too with the scorpion.

My M*gcharger bulb use to blow all the time too, almost every time I dropped it. The E2e I have has been dropped many times and it's yet to blow a bulb.

I think cost is one of the main reasons we hear so much about the SF bulbs blowing. I've never thought twice about it when replacing a M*g bulb because it's so cheap and I've done it dozens of times. But if a SF bulb blows, it's $25 and I'll raise holly H**L about it!