ahh the good ole days....

i was trying to remember the exact specs on my old jetbeam bc 40 the other night and stumbled up on this on a google search, from 2011.
i remember reading this review several times, gawking at the beamshots, and always wanting a catapult light, after i got my bc 40.
i remember seeing the throw specs on the sr-90, and wondering how 100,000 lux would look, if my jetbeam was only 24,000!
man have we come a long ways
now we have lights the size of your thumb putting out more than my jetbeam!
lights back then were pushing the 100,000 lux, now we are pushing the 1,000,000 lux mark!
just thought it was pretty wild how far we have come, and how spoiled we are these days with what we have
check out these top dog lights just a handful of years ago

Yep, I remember 30 years ago when my brother gave me a 3D Maglite for my birthday. Man, I felt like a top dog then..... and by the way.... I still have it and it still works perfectly, although it's been relegated to backup duty these days. We have certainly come a loooooong way.

Derek Dean said:

Yep, I remember 30 years ago when my brother gave me a 3D Maglite for my birthday. Man, I felt like a top dog then..... and by the way.... I still have it and it still works perfectly, although it's been relegated to backup duty these days. We have certainly come a loooooong way.

Click to expand...

That reminded me of an old metal tiger-head 2 C cell flashlight i bought in 1963. I used it mainly to read under the blankets and learned morse code to exchange messages with my friend who lived across the street where i lived. Yes they were the good old days allright!

I miss slider switches.

Can you imagine the possibilities with todays CNC machines and LED chip management?

bykfixer said:

I miss slider switches.

Can you imagine the possibilities with todays CNC machines and LED chip management?

Click to expand...

Me too! Lots of issues with pushbutton lights turning on in your pocket. There's a world of interface simplicity or complexity that could be built in to a sliding switch.
How about a clicking sliding switch?
And hahoo, I chuckle when I see newer flashoholics complaining about max output, "poor" tints or other perceived shortcomings. It hasn't been that long since 60 lumens with angry blue tint was all we got!

bansuri said:

Me too! Lots of issues with pushbutton lights turning on in your pocket. There's a world of interface simplicity or complexity that could be built in to a sliding switch.

Click to expand...

I seem to recall lots of issues with sliding switches not coming on at all unless you shook them and slapped them around. Though I am sure they could be vastly improved on today, if there was enough of a demand.

bykfixer said:

I miss slider switches.

Can you imagine the possibilities with todays CNC machines and LED chip management?

Click to expand...

Me three! I picked up some chrome/red plastic bezel Eveready 2Cs at a thrift store last year. A cheap LED drop-in and some Lee lighting filter (thanks Derek Dean) and voila! My son, who has his share of gifted lights from dad,picked it up and said "I kind of like this light" I just smiled,old things new!

i still love my Captains and Sportsmans.

I like where this thread is going.

A recent acquisition of a Pentagon L2 was a surprise in just how nice some of the early LED tech lights were.
At only 65 or so lumens it was surprisingly bright with a pretty nice tint.

I suppose back then the old guard here must've been thinking "man, this LED fad may actually catch on and become something someday."

Yes, I remember "back-in-the-day" there were still people saying incans were better, nicer tint, and all of that.

I posted then that, even if you thought incans could compete with LEDs at that point in time, if you projected out 2-3 years it would stop being a contest and LEDs would totally win out. And of course so it happened.

Then the issue became that LEDs had trouble generating strong throw and were much better at floody beams. Also if you wanted warmer tints, or even red light, it was not so easy for LEDs.

Well, that problem was overcome as well. Big throw is now available for LEDs (I don't know about a million lux, but say 100K lux is available through "normal" flashlights). You can get decent warmer tints with good lumen output, and strong red LED's are also available.

Actually, the problem nowadays is more the battery! To get all of these goodies we've been getting has been partly achieved by high current draws, but battery capacity (although improving) has not been getting better as fast as the LED's have.

It's easy to find some flashlight with astronomical lumen/lux numbers, but check out that runtime...sometimes less than 20 minutes or you have to go to more/larger batteries.

And for that it is not so easy to predict much better batteries in the near future.

This past decade has truly been the most amazing time for those of us who love portable lumens.

Every few months something bigger and better, smaller and brighter, or just awesomely different.

Our wallets have cried while our hearts have smiled...oh what a fun ride it's been!!!

bykfixer said:

I like where this thread is going.

A recent acquisition of a Pentagon L2 was a surprise in just how nice some of the early LED tech lights were.
At only 65 or so lumens it was surprisingly bright with a pretty nice tint.

I suppose back then the old guard here must've been thinking "man, this LED fad may actually catch on and become something someday."

Click to expand...

My first LED from back in the late 80's was a plastic ASP clip light with a red LED, red was the only color for LEDs then, soon to be followed by blue and other colors; this light ran on a coin cell battery that was glued inside the light, if the battery wore out you could send it in for a free replacement! I think I still have that light somewhere with the original battery that still works, though I can'tr say that I used it all that much.

When the "white" LEDs came out it was a big deal, even though they were really more purple than white.....I immediately got a bunch of Photon key chain lights with the "white" LEDs and may still have one of those, though I have replaced the batteries on these numerous times over the years.

Back then, if you wanted more light out of an LED, you needed multiple LEDs, which led to the shower head lights, some of which are still around. It was again a big deal when the Luxeon 1 came out and I got an early Streamlight tactical light with one of these, which had good battery life compared to incans but was not near bight enough (only around 30 lumens) - this caused me to go back to incan Surefire and Streamlight 2 CR123 tac lights for several years, even though the batteries didn't last long and the bulbs needed to be replaced periodically.

It wasn't until about 10-12 years ago that powerful single LED lights really started to come into their own.

2011? Laugh.

Try 2003. luxeon lottery..1w lights. That truly was the genesis of led. Elektrolumens 2d with 1w then 3w.
I had this streamlight 3aa with both xenon and these 5mm leds. Streamlight Jr. 1w light on 2aa. I would overdrive it with energizer lithiums. It felt bright but cannot even remotely remember how many lumens. Probably under 100.
Then got fenix in 2007 and it felt really bright maybe 200 lumens.

I still have my original "Bent-neck" military flashlight. At the time the FAA was still mandating 2D cell flashlights. I chose that design because it would not roll away in turbulence, which happened to me once. The shape also fit into my flight bag better than a straight design.

Eventually, I replaced the bulb with an "Everled".

I still have them both.

xxo said:

I seem to recall lots of issues with sliding switches not coming on at all unless you shook them and slapped them around. Though I am sure they could be vastly improved on today, if there was enough of a demand.

Click to expand...

Slide switches often got dirt and debris in them and quit working well and you had to use oil or contact cleaner on them. I'd rather have rocker switches than sliding switches myself.

My first LED light
Early Tekna flashlight

Probably a whopping 3-5 lumen of bluish light.
But it would run forever on 3 AA cells.
Direct drive vampire mode!



Still works

Last night while walking around I carried a modern light and a 1 watt luxeon lit one.
It was indeed interesting to use the modern one on battery sipping low vs the what was one ultra bright technology. The 20 lumen'd modern output appeared just about as bright as the 65 lumen'd one thanks to the ultra clear lense and ultra smooth reflector of the modern one.
But there was something about the 1 watt light that was more enjoyable... perhaps the nostalgia effect?

For me it's collecting those old lights from many years ago and the light they put out and the style of them, copper and brass ones. Yes the new ones of today are very nice but where do you stop buying them all just to see which one outshines the other and then the whole story on tint. It's like buying a old 55 Chev. just something about them that has class.

etc said:

2011? Laugh.

Try 2003. luxeon lottery..1w lights. That truly was the genesis of led. Elektrolumens 2d with 1w then 3w.
I had this streamlight 3aa with both xenon and these 5mm leds. Streamlight Jr. 1w light on 2aa. I would overdrive it with energizer lithiums. It felt bright but cannot even remotely remember how many lumens. Probably under 100.
Then got fenix in 2007 and it felt really bright maybe 200 lumens.

Click to expand...

That's my era
Got the 2AA Elektrolumens with a 3W - read LED musuem a lot
Ordered a sandwich for my minimag
Had a direct drive 3D mag with a S bin Lux III
Finally ponied up the cash for a Surefire L4, and ordered a 1x123 body for it to run it in the TW4 configuration - man I loved that light - remembered that I lost the Luxeon lottery hard on that one (was almost cyan in tint)

Sold all that stuff- and in my bag is a 900 lumen Olight S30 with the kind of fancy switch you previously needed to shell out $$$$ for, in the form of Novatac/Arc/HDS

irongate said:

For me it's collecting those old lights from many years ago and the light they put out and the style of them, copper and brass ones. Yes the new ones of today are very nice but where do you stop buying them all just to see which one outshines the other and then the whole story on tint. It's like buying a old 55 Chev. just something about them that has class.

Click to expand...

Only a 55 flashlights price tag has a lot less 0's...

Todays stuff is outdated before it arrives at your house it seems.


I received a seemingly plain vanilla plastic Energizer light as a gift from a member here. When I slid the spring operated locking slider switch I noticed it was pretty bright but really didn't think much of it. Not knowing how old it was I figured it was a recent version of an Energizer product you pick up at the local dollar store. I sent a "thanks" and found out why it was so bright.



Turns out it had a custom made LED from days when (if I recall correctly) 100 lumens was huge.
It's one of my favorite flashlights.

Look familiar GB?