Sometimes durability makes you feel...bad.

Can we all pause for just a moment to honor one of the early pioneers in higher powered LED lighting, the SureFire L2 Digital LumaMax



As you can see, mine has held up astoundingly well considering it has done some extensive traveling, camping, hiking, and also spent a lot of it's life as the "knockaround" flashlight in my vehicle glovebox. Sadly seven years worth of technological advancements has left it severely wanting in the performance department. Compared to new stuff it simply EATS CR123 primaries only producing a "floody" 100 lumens for 50 minutes [High] or 15 lumens for 10 hours [Low] which simply doesn't cut it anymore.

But jeez, I paid a lot of cash for it and it still -looks- brand freaking new and that is making me feel pretty badly about replacing it.

Ah, the tyranny of durability

So, does anyone have suggestions for what I should do with this (other than let it gather dust in the drawer-o-lights?

Stash it in a BOB!

My L2 is my family's kitchen drawer light. I also have an Milky modded L2. It sports a SSC P4 to double the battery life.

kelmo

Find someone to mod the driver and LED to something more efficient. I'd throw a 219 or XPG2 in that bad boy with a driver update.

Sell it in the Marketplace and pick up something newer. Surefires hold their value really well, but modded ones generally do not sell for as much as all original ones (even if modding means better performance.)

I had a couple of those, but the whine on low drove me batty. I must have sensitive hearing.

with a newer LED it should perform as well as any modern light.
i have a first generation L1 with a modern LED. and it surpasses most lights of today in efficiency. better than zebralight, fenix, or HDS when comparing output/runtime ratio.

As others have said, vintage SureFire are indeed collectible, particularly when in excellent cosmetic condition (& especially those older 4-flats styles).

For some reason, though, the L2 has never seemed to be as popular as many other models of that era.

I do have a couple of L2, and find that they may outperform their advertised specifications

I just upgraded my old 2 C cell maglite with a Cree XP-E led (180 lumen), makes a hell of a difference, giving a good 150 yards throw and still plenty of life left in it yet.