Have you ever bought a flashlight that ended up as a dud?

I mean, you spent perfectly hard earned good money for it and it was a name brand, but the operating procedure was not very user friendly? ... or the light modes were too close together? :sigh: ... or it was too spotty or floody? ... or the tint was way out of wack? :green:... or it just didn't work right?


I have a few that will probably end up as dust collectors ......

Most of my light purchases have been satisfying and without unpleasant surprises, but there were a couple of exceptions.

My Fenix LD01 stainless steel has an ugly greenish tint and requires too much torque for single handed operation. I carry it only as a backup light.

Didn't like the UI on the LRI Proton Pro 1AAA flashlight. The beam was too yellow and full of artifacts so I gave it away to a non-flashaholic.

Didn't like the UI on many lights. Few bad tints. Most of these were gifted.

I do a maelstrom light that died from being dropped at about 3 or 4 feet. Worthless now. I used it about 10 times.

Not duds, but I have gotten rid of a few lights right away due to noticeable PWM.

LED Lenser L7 has lots of artifacts and rings, each ring a different tint. I keep it only in case I need to lend a flashlight to someone I wouldn't trust with one of my good ones.

I probably only have 1/3 of the lights ever purchased. 2/3's were sold. I never keep anything I don't like or isn't any better than what I already have.

I didn't like those AAA 12 / 16 LED in one flash-lights. each led fainted one by one or in pairs. ALAS, I found CREE!

Itp a1 eos. Great little light...for about 1 month. Also, got these solar charging flashlights 10 years ago or so. In principle seemed like a novel idea--leave them in the van to charge during the day and use when pulling tools from the van during commercial site jobs at night. Just never earned their keep. Junky light, junky power.

A browning flashlight, 200 lumens, great throw, 2 AA. In fact the throw was so good that it was outperforming incandescent spotlights that plugged into ATVs for midnight rabbit hunting...
The low in practice is not very low and features very slow PWM not to mention having to cycle through strobe. The battery life was poor, maybe 1 hour before getting very dim (ANSI runtimes down to 10% brightness) and I had no spares on that trip.

I gave it to my dad when I got a Coast PX45 I paid about ~$20 for them at the local sporting goods store.
When I get another dedicated thrower I would probably use 1 x 18650 or better for long runtime on high.
It is still on browning's website: http://www.browning.com/products/catalog/flashlights/detail.asp?fid=029H&cid=371&tid=3310
For that price I cannot recommend.

Bought the nitecore hc50 and it lasted 2 weeks

$2.97 rayovac I bought today was doa.
I bought to try the $8 Nite Ize drop in.

Eh, I'll dig up an old incan somewhere and try it out.

The Nitecore D20 was my first "high end" flashlight and the first and last Nitecore I've owned. The D20 was the 2xAA version of the highly popular D10, but the piston switch system was sticky and unreliable, it required small tools to disassemble the light for cleaning and lubrication, and it had this nasty habit of spontaneously switching itself on high as I carried it around, and half the time I didn't even notice until it got hot enough to burn my leg. Just a terrible experience all around, which is why I've never owned another Nitecore.

MrJino said:

I do a maelstrom light that died from being dropped at about 3 or 4 feet. Worthless now. I used it about 10 times.

Click to expand...

That's a 4sevens light, right? Did you ever take advantage of their 10-year warranty? 4sevens has outstanding customer service and would have certainly put things right.

Bought a Jetbeam Jet3M about six years ago. Fine flashlight, it lived in my left slash pocket for the last six years. I finally decided to replace it.

I bought the new upgrade -- the Jet-3 Pro.

It works. It does everything it's supposed to do, but something about it absolutely rubs me the wrong way. I'm looking for something else so I can chuck this thing in a drawer.

Not duds as such, but I don't keep lights I end up not liking preferring to gift or sell them. I guess several cheap lights could be considered duds but nothing I paid more than say $20 for.

I have killed many lead acid incandescent flashlights. some broke the glass when they were dropped, some developed a short after changing a bulb and burned out switches, some developed a short in the battery and burned out all my chargers, it is a comedy of errors.