why do some still by incan lights?

they just seem so outdated to me

Nice clean white artifact free incan light is still a beauty to behold. I rarely light up my ROP Mag 2D anymore but when I do, it's lovely. Some of the other guys have been talking up Lumens Factory builds lately and I intend to put a little E1 style light together soon for some warm fun since the cooold Is a comin'.

some good points for sure

I've seen a lot more discussion about Incans lately. Kinda makes me want one.

Discussions in the incan section tend to pick up in late summer it seems. Perhaps it's the primal instinct of campfires leading to fire on a stick to the electric candle. Something LED cannot duplicate (yet).

Finding new models of incan lights is pretty unusual as those are all but extinct. Buying new old stock or replacement parts for classics is still a thing though.

I only buy incans to have as an example in my collection of how poor lights were that we had to use in the past! :thumbsup:

I`v got about 20 of them and another on it`s way sometime this week, I use them mainly for reading, they`re a cozy light and wont keep you awake at night. I also love messing about with different batteries and bulbs (takes me back to when I was a little girl), and all the different colors and varieties out there is just amazing! though I tend to focus mainly on those that take a No.8 battery or 2 C cells mainly from the 60`s and 70`s.
They`re a joy to own and use and look after, Plus it`s better for the environment to repair and re-use old things rather than just dump them

I think there is a similarity with incandescents and LP vinyl records. In both cases they provide a warmth and comfortability the newer technology still not manages to offer.
Yes, to a certain part I think it's a bit nostalgia as well. But it's not always efficiency is very important. For example an 80lumen incandescent was sufficient for many tasks earlier. And 80 lumen is still 80 lumen. Today there are good recheargeable batteries so it does not need to be that expensive to use despite much shorter runtime than LED at the same output.

Because when new school meets old school it's awesome.

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I just like them and they take me back to a simpler time.

Except for some of the larger bulbs that had a corresponding larger filament, an incan bulb was about as close as one could get to the ideal point source, and as such usually didn't have any artifacts in the beam, and there was a smooth transition from the center of the beam to the edge

Also, it was kinda neat to focus a maglight so you could get an image of the filament to shine on wherever you were aiming at.

My incan preferences lean toward Surefire for their beam quality. A P90 driven by a pair of 18650's is a thing of beauty.

Oh yeah! and they`ll survive an EMP

+1 for the Surefire incans. I converted my M3 with a Malkoff M91T, but my G2, C2, and Z2 are all staying incan. I carry the G2 in my pocket everyday as an EMT.

For me, the tint and beam just cannot be matched by even the highest CRI LEDs I've personally seen. Maybe there are others that are close. But something with LED lighting just seems off. I love the way that colors look with a natural incan beam, I love the way that the light has a slight delay when it comes on and turns off. I love melting snow with it. I love going out in the woods with basic tools made of wood, steel, and leather and not feeling that I have anything high tech on me because I have an incan light. Its kind of like driving a muscle car from the late 1960s vs. driving a super high tech import. Is the muscle car really a superior vehicle? Not in almost all cases or criteria. But there's just something about it. Something basic and natural. The way it looks and feels. And the performance that you can get is extremely respectable, even compared with the modern high tech stuff, with such simple components. Its just captivating. I use incans almost exclusively for all purposes except for the very rare occasion when my life is on the line. For those purposes, I use an LED.

I rely on LED lights these days, but prefer incan for times it absolutely positively does not have to work.
I really dig an old 2D Maglite or 1970's Eveready just for the nostalgia. Maglite was the undisputed king for a couple of decades. Yet the beam from an old tear drop head E2 brings a smile to my face every time. Or a stock 6P. That one still amazes me every time but I do prefer a clicky on it.

Thanks to Lumens Factory I can acquire new bulbs for my favorite old SureFires. Or Tads Customs whose inexpensive bipin bulbs make replacing the bulb fairly inexpensive after the initial adapter investment. With the availability of rechargeable cells it makes carrying old faithful that much more economical.

And then there's the thing that made CPF a great place to learn…… the old hotwire trick where the ordinary flashlight could become handheld electric sunshine.

Being a collector of vintage lights, growing up with wack-a-palm lights and being around when everybody was trying to out Maglite Maglite I don't really see the incan as irrelevant any more than my 1990's hot rod car or my moms old 1960's sewing machine. But I do understand the virtues of modern day options and choose those way more often these days.

Wack-a-palm lolol.. I'd forgotten about doing that

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Potential EMP resistance?

scout24 said:

My incan preferences lean toward Surefire for their beam quality. A P90 driven by a pair of 18650's is a thing of beauty.

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Having only seen a picture posted by Ampdude a long time ago, I'll vouch for that. Pretty sure he was using two 18650's.

Katherine Alicia said:

Oh yeah! and they`ll survive an EMP

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Some of mine won't... lol. Powered by JimmyM.

Another fan of the POTENTIAL EMP resistance as well. I have a few minimags and a few nib surefire 6Ps (in addition to using emp hardened storage containers for most of my lights)... just in case.

That said, the nextorch G2 clone with an incan p60 that runs off a 18650 it's a really nice working light...