Lights Doing Their Thing

I thought I would start a thread about lights working, playing or just fooling around. Pictures, stories, whatever.

I have a PO, AO and DQG and thought I would put the magnets to good use.

Edit: 1986 Porsche 911

Good looking engine!! What is it??

Note the nice floody beam from the PO

Sorry for the post without narrative- hit submit too quickly... Haiku helping to light a brake line fitting being heated to help loosen it. In keeping with the early automotive slant of the thread. Gotta love the big fan for the air cooling, yoyoman! :thumbsup: Disclaimer from me- this photo has been posted here on CPF before...

Some lights are meant to throw. It was nice today - sunny and clear. The ground dried up a little and had time for some pictures. Taking pictures of light is harder than it sounds. Malkoff Hound Dog N and Deft-X.

i like this thread idea!

that Deft-X beamshot is unreal

Custom lights do it with style. Enough pictures. Story time. I like custom lights because they reflect the goals, objectives and design values of the builders. Massed produced lights play the number games (more than 1,000 lumens!), and while doing an adequate job of providing light, don't give me any connection to the designer or builder. Custom lights (and a few stock lights) do their thing with style. A few commonly known examples will make my point.

Let me start with the McGizmo 3V XM-L Haiku. There are a few things about this light that make it special and make me think of Don every time I use it. The beam is gorgeous. Almost no hotspot, just useful spill that makes this light a pleasure to use for all general tasks. It isn't the brightest XM-L light I have. It is not over-driven. This means that it doesn't get hot, an important consideration in a titanium light. And it has good runtime – another important feature in an EDC light. The kicker for me is the UI. This is the first light I owned that I had to practice switching modes. You have to tap fast. Not too fast and not too slow. This is an intentional design feature to ensure you don't switch modes by mistake. I smile when I make a mistake switching modes and think of Don.

The next light is the Prometheus Ready-Made from Dark Sucks/Jason. The combination of the MCE and Ledil boom reflector is pure magic. It has a beautiful beam and wonderful tint. This light runs off of an 18650 li-ion. And it is not my smallest 18650 (or 2x16340/18350) light. The size and beautiful sculpting of the light reflects Jason's design criteria. The light also has very good runtime, especially on L or M. But it can also pump out lumens on H. Not for pocket carry, but a great, dependable light for my backpack. Technically, the Ready-Made is not a custom light. But it is beautiful, well made and reflects Jason's values of a great light.

The last light also isn't technically a custom light either. I purchased a Maratac copper 123 light and had it sent directly to Vinh for modding. An over-driven XP-G2 emitter makes this light special. It is very bright and is a real pocket rocket or pocket sun.Copper is a good heat conductor and the whole light heats up. Fast. The runtime is a joke on an IMR 16340 and this light is not for your bug out bag. But everytime I use this light, I think of that mad guy Vinh and the cool stuff he does for the community.
What custom or stock lights do you like and why?
Why do you like or long for a custom light?

Some lights do it walking. I'm talking about walking lights. The criteria for walking lights are different than for an EDC light. There is a lot of overlap and a few of the lights I want to look at are common EDC lights.

A superior beam is what makes a good walking light. Followed by tint and based on your preferences. Size and extended runtimes are less important. I grab a light before going for a walk and I don't need extended runtimes. One other thing that I need is multiple modes. This makes the walking light much more useful.

I've picked 6 lights to look at: Moddoolar H3 Nichia 219 Triple, Malkoff M361 N, McGizmo Haiku, HDS 200 Clickie, L3 Illumination L10 and Dereelight DA3. The L10 and DA3 are running on AA and AAA Eneloops and were on H mode. The other lights were on M modes.

Up against the wall.

The Oveready puts out a wall of light. This is M (1-cell) and there is a lot of light. Very useful on L. No moon mode, but L is fine.

The Malkoff has a hot spot with good spill Nice tint.

The Haiku has a wonderful beam. The tint is cool white without any blue.

The HDS is a little more throwy. The multiple modes are very useful.

The L10 has a nice floody beam and the Nichia 219 also provides a nice tint and hi cri.

The DA3 has a vey broad beam for an AAA. The greenish tint is not meant for white wall hunting.

More realistic use.
The Oveready puts out a lot of white, hi cri light. This is M in a 1-cell set up.

The Malkoff is a hot spot with a lot of spill. The eye handles the spill better than the camera.

I have checked this and the Haiku may not have been aimed correctly. Seems to be aimed a little to the left. Plenty of light and good spill - just as the white wall hunting showed. Like the Malkoff, the eye does a better job using the spill than the camera captures. I consider this the most useful beam for walking.

I checked this and the HDS is more throwy than the other lights. Still very useful, especially with the easily accessible multiple modes. Not to mention that some users prefer a light with more throw.

The L10 puts out a lot of light on an Eneloop on H. L and M are useful in real life.

No problem with the greenish tint in real life. This H on an Eneloop. Lots of light in a very broad and useful beam. L or M will work fine for most uses.


I had a few surprises. The usefulness of multiple modes was clear and the more modes the better - as long as the modes are easily accessible. The HDS 200 was more throwy than I thought. The beams from the smaller AA and AAA lights were better than I thought they would be. They are viable options with Eneloops with occasional use on H.

What other lights are good walking lights? What other features do you think are important to consider? I picked 6 lights to look at and I hope that doesn't end the discussion. There are other good lights for walking - what do you use and like?

The other night, we were working in a large garage, on the car of a friend, as part of his dream modification project. There was no shortage of beer and barbecue. Illumination, on the other hand, was quite short for the task at hand. The ceiling lamps were not sufficient for illuminating the engine bay properly and portable inspection lamps were causing lots of complaints. When I reached for my Nitecore TM26 as a solution, nobody took it seriously, most probably due to its small size. That is; until I burst it up at full power. Then, a silent shock filled-up the garage. :devil:

We suspended it up at about 3.5 meters high on the engine bay. I have the 3800 lumens, blue OLED version. Once I played with its output levels, the consensus was that 150 lumens provided the best illumination. The next level, 600 lumens, was too bright. I was asked how long "this thing" would last. When I proudly replied that it would run for more than 46 hours at this level; another wave of shock was, this time, accompanied by suspicion and comments of disbelief. About six hours later, a friend commented that "this thing" did not really get any dimmer. When we stopped well after midnight, the remaining runtime was still more than 36 hours.

I was insistently recommended for bringing the TM26 at our next session. I think the TM26 did its thing: it illuminated the engine bay and it impressed friends!

No pictures, maybe I can take some later, but I put my Dark Sucks Alpha to good use working on a 440 Six Pack that my dad had rebuilt again for one of his 1970 Dodge Challengers. While installing the carbs some metal shavings that were in the bolt holes were pushed down into the heads and deposited on top of the intake valves. (Yes, 3 of the bolt holes go straight through. ) Not wanting to risk installing and running the motor he just paid a couple grand to have rebuilt with metal shavings getting sucked into the cylinder, we had to dismantle the heads and use some creative methods along with a fair amount of carb cleaner and compressed air to clean all the metal bits out. The Alpha kept things illuminated for inspections to make sure that all the garbage was out of the there and everything was clean.

My car needs to be inspected every 2 years because it is old (1986). The Swiss don't outsource this to garages, they have special centers that do the inspections. I always pass because I let the mechanic do the first test. I use my poor French as an excuse to let the mechanic do the test. The test is accelerate and then brake hard. Gunning the engine and braking hard always puts a smile on the mechanic's face. Then they do all kinds of tests: pollution, bouncing, test the parking brake, check the illumination of the lights and fog lights. Finally, they put the car on a lift and inspect. The mechanic found something around the right front wheel that he didn't like. He kept looking, moving around and finally got a flashlight. The light was a joke - dim, ugly blue tint and not much of a beam. I had a small light in my pocket and a SF 6P with a nice dropin in the glove compartment - both lights were better than the one the mechanic was using. Not sure what he would have found, but I didn't offer him a light. Eventually, he gave up and I passed the inspection. I got under the car with a few lights when I got home. Everything was fine and I'm not sure what caught the mechanic's eye.

Some lights do it stubby. All lights compromise. These lights may compromise runtime, but they have full size heads so they can take a variety of dropins. Their beams don't compromise. They are much shorter than 2x123 or 1x18650 lights and are good alternatives when space is limited. When you need a full sized beam, they may be a better option than AA or AAA lights.

From the left: Oveready brass stubby, VME head on a FB1, MD1 and Ronac tailcap, SF Z41 on a FM 3P and RPM tailcap


Working end: Oveready H3 triple, Malkoff M361 N, another M361N and an XM-L2 mule from Vinh

^beautiful shot of some good looking lights, yoyoman!

I need to try out a stubby config some day!

Does anyone out there also like stubby lights?

Great idea for a thread.... let's not let it divert to normal beamshots!



My Avatar pic, taken in summer 2010 with my dad's camera and my TK45 test sample for the review. I was alone, waiting for my cousin to come over from another spot, after a series of face-to-face beamshots at a mile distance.



Re-take, last summer with my cousin behind the camera and my TK75 behind me. The sky was a lot darker and my camera has a much wider field, thus a bit of zoom was used, but it is in the exact same spot. I had the Ozie gear on and a cigar just for the shoot. Wasted a 6$ cigar, and took 64 pictures experimenting position and with/without front light... choked on my cigar a couple of times, too. I call this one flashaholic space cowboy (yes, that's a flashlight in the belt holster, what else?)

Cataract said:

I wish I could share the hi-rez version as I had an "ammo belt" of holstered flashlights and a flashlight holstered on my belt, ready to draw in a shoot-out.

Click to expand...

You can wrap your image tags with a link to the original picture and then the user can click on the pics to see the full image or, simple post a link to the full sized image.

Norm

Norm said:

You can wrap your image tags with a link to the original picture and then the user can click on the pics to see the full image or, simple post a link to the full sized image.

Norm

Click to expand...

Thanks, I just don't have the web space at the moment, plus there is a surprise that goes with that... keeping it secret at the moment

I like non-normal beamshots, as you can tell from my avatar. I took these tonight.

Cataract said:

?...let's not let it divert to normal beamshots!

Click to expand...

Moddoolar H3C XPE2 head on a TL130 tube. Great light. But I love my stubbies...

More non-normal beamshots.