TEKNA Splash-Lite

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I'll have to admit that it's taken a while but I'm really taken with this light! The TEKNA Splash-Lite is about as simple and unsexy as it gets. It takes one CR123a battery and is a twisty. TEKNA claims it to be dive rated to 100 feet. It's 3" x 7/8" and weighs only 1.3 oz. The output is pretty low by modern standards at a rated 40 lumens, biased a little cool (but not terribly so). The rated run time is 10 hours, which I can't verify but it does seem to go forever.

I picked up my first one last year for $25 or so, but over the last few months the price has declined to around $13 from Amazon with free Prime shipping.

At first I was kind of meh about it; not super bright and biased towards the cool end of the color spectrum. But over time I've really come to appreciate it. The tint isn't too bad, not like the older Chinese lights. Certainly not as bad as my Fenix EO1 that's legit purple! I appreciate that it's very small, and seems utterly reliable. Not much to go wrong with a twisty. It's super lightweight and has a split ring on the tail. So I guess it won't tail stand if that's important to you, although I suppose at the price it could be modded pretty easily.

To me the light has two killer apps; first is as a bedside light for general utility, the second is for camping/hiking use. In a woods light the very long run time is superb! 40 lumens isn't a lot but let's be honest- for daily tasks it's plenty, and for night safety (watching for branches in your eye line, illuminating the path ahead of you, gathering wood, etc) it's plenty. And I generally keep a Thyrm CellVault on each of my bags/packs. The CellVault holds three x CR123a (or various combinations of other batteries, natch) and is strong and watertight. With a fresh battery in the Splash-Lite and the Thyrm case you have 40 hours of very dependable illumination.

Today I just got my 4th one in the mail! That's the highest recommendation I can give, I suppose.
 
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bykfixer

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A California based company, the owner is a member here from the early days.

Way back in the morph period where police began carrying small backup flashlights the Tekna products were chosen. Simple, durable and inexpensive little lights that put out about as much light as the minimag did later on. They had a tiny CR123 light long before anyone else tried it.
 

JAS

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I have owned two different Tekna Lights many years ago. If I recall correctly, they were designed as a diving light. The first one I had was plastic and used four AA batteries. The second one was similar design, but used 8 AA batteries. The head just twisted to turn it on and off. I used it as a college campus security officer from 1978 to 1981. It was incandescent, of course, but very bright for its size at the time.

I haven't or heard anything about that company for so long, that I almost forgot about them!
 

carrot

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I'm a really big fan of simple lights and after seeing the flashlight industry cram more and more features into flashlights all I (still) want is simplicity and long runtimes. The one (small) bummer as far as I can see is that these little guys don't tail stand.

The Splash-Lite has always been on my radar but at $25 it just felt like too much for too little, just like the Pak-Lites. I don't feel that way any more -- I'm willing to pay for cool things that have stood the test of time, regardless of what the competition is offering.
 
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Yeah, at $25 it was a bit much for what you got. But the price seems to have been cut recently. I bought the last three for around $13 each. At that price it's a pretty good deal IMO. A good reliable light to leave in spots where you occasionally need a light but don't want to leave one of your expensive ones (eg glove box, backpack, etc).
 
Joined
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I'm a really big fan of simple lights and after seeing the flashlight industry cram more and more features into flashlights all I (still) want is simplicity and long runtimes. The one (small) bummer as far as I can see is that these little guys don't tail stand.

I think it would be very easy to mod it to tail stand. There's a semi-circle molded onto the tail that would be pretty easy to cut off and sand down. I can appreciate the utility of being able to stand it up but to me if I could choose that or having a lanyard ring I'll take the ring, at least for the application I bought them for. Still, since I have four of 'em maybe I'll mod one just to see how it works.:)
 

ZMZ67

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You have me convinced Rob! I looked at the Splash-lite in the past but never pulled the trigger but with the $13 price what is not to like? I have to agree with Carrot. Simple reliable lights that have long run time are very appealing. I like all the different lights and advances in LED flashlight design are impressive but I find that for actual use one or two modes is generally sufficient and often I don't need that much output.I have always wanted something similar to a CMG Infinity in CR123 and the Splash-lite looks like a good fit.
 
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IIRC the first one I may have bought from em-mgt.com (ie RMSK, Inc) but the other three were from Amazon. I can't recall the price at the former but the latter is selling them for around $13/$14 right now. No wait, I bought my TREK light at RMSK and the others at Amazon.

Not sure what the emitter is, I might have to look and see if I can tell. Certainly not the current S.O.T.A. or anything nor does it need to be.
 

carrot

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I plunked down and bought one.

I like the smooth turning action of the plastic threads. I can turn it on and off with one hand.

I like clear plastic of the bezel.

The light is longer than it needs to be, probably due to retrofitting an LED and simple circuit in place of a bulb. A modern designed version of this would be much shorter, using a molded plastic lens instead of a reflector! But the size makes it nice to hold.

It's using a SSC P4 (wow, they still make those?) and due to the unfortunate reflector design the beam is kinda ringy.

In a way, I'm reminded of the straightforward simplicity of Arc, and then Peak, but in a nice simple plastic housing.

Overall, I like it. This is a solid light that uses the best battery format for long storage and I can see storing away these lights in all sorts of places.
 

ZMZ67

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I thought that LED looked familiar! I purchased several as well and while it is a bit large I am quite pleased. One of my lights had the LED off center so I started to investigate. The P4 is actually attached to a E10 screw base,score! I recently purchased some LED miniature screw base bulbs in neutral warm(supposedly 4300K but I suspect they are a bit warmer).Sure enough they fit and now I have a warm LED option for my Splash-lights. Output is significantly reduced from the original P4 bulb but I am still pretty happy! One word of warning if anyone intends to try this you must get the miniature screw base bulbs the standard size screw base will be too large.
 
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It does look like it could be modded a bit! However, I did break one of them dinking around with it.:eek: I was messing around with the emitter and wound up dislodging it. Got it put back together but then I accidentally dropped it and the spring inside the body went flying, and for the life of me I can't find all the parts! Hopefully I can eventually find them and get it fixed. But I still have three of them.:p

But yeah, that's one of my few complaints- it's bigger than it should be for just being a one CR123a light. In contrast my little Olight is barely larger than the AAA it contains. Still, for $13 it's a pretty handy little tool.
 

ZMZ67

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All I did was replace the "bulb" and it probably won't excite a lot of folks since the output of the LED bulbs I am talking about is nearly the same as what you would expect from an incan penlight. The original LED is likely to satisfy many since I suspect most buyers now will want it for a BOB or something similar.

The large size is probably a result of being developed long before current LED lights as an Incandescent back-up. I am not sure since I don't have the original but I suspect it uses the same body and head just with an LED bulb. The larger size does offer ease of use IMHO and it really isn't all that big of a light. The design (size wise)just can't compete with the diminutive size of many modern single cell LED lights.

The Splash-lite seems solid for a plastic light when it is all together but taken apart I don't think the individual pieces will take much abuse. Hope you find your lost part or at $13 you could just get a replacement......
 
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Tixx

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Ordered one since I came across this thread. Probably arrive later this week. Planning on keeping in my EDC bag.
 

Tixx

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For $13, this is a good buy for sure. Just as a backup toss in a glove box inexpensive one mode. Got mine this past Saturday.
 
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snakebite

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http://www.tek-tite.com/products.php?cat=TEKNA+Bulbs+%26+Parts
now just how many inexpensive lights have mfr support like this!

It does look like it could be modded a bit! However, I did break one of them dinking around with it.:eek: I was messing around with the emitter and wound up dislodging it. Got it put back together but then I accidentally dropped it and the spring inside the body went flying, and for the life of me I can't find all the parts! Hopefully I can eventually find them and get it fixed. But I still have three of them.:p

But yeah, that's one of my few complaints- it's bigger than it should be for just being a one CR123a light. In contrast my little Olight is barely larger than the AAA it contains. Still, for $13 it's a pretty handy little tool.
 
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