Dumb flashlight designs?

LED/Incandescent on a 3-stage clicky. I mean, if you want to turn off the LED, you HAVE to turn ON the incandescent before switching it off. Talk about ruining the bulb. I think they should incorporate a twisty for light selection and a clicky on-off switch.

Feel free to comment or to add to the list of annoyances.

Yup, the SL TT switches are an annoyance and the lights are needlessly large.

Any adjustable focus light that uses the head for a switch. No more M^gs for this boy and for reasons beyond their heavy, large, loose, dumpy designs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsdown.gif

The very first Twin Task had two power switches. Bulky but slick.

The SL TL series gave a lanyard which can't be attached to the light, what are they doing?

I believe the lanyard was meant for the clip. I am not sure as I don't own one but do check it out.

Why are we talking about SL TT? I can't see any semblance of the SL TT to b2p's question.

Bad design: any accidental drop results in flashlight coming apart and the batteries, etc. spilling out. I am thinking of the common $1 Everready 2D flashlight. What a pain that was in the dark.

Or how about the headlamp, I think it is the Yukon HL, that has bright and dim settings, but the dim setting actually draws as much and sometimes even more power compared to the bright setting. What's that all about?

Or how about the "disposable flashlight." You buy a flashlight that has 3 AA batteries inside, but you can't change them when they run out? Hunh?

Dumb?

How about any of the lights with multiple 5mm LEDs that implement multiple levels by the number of LED powered rather than powering all LEDs with different levels of current. The first method fails to take advantage of the fact that white LEDs become more efficient at lower drive levels.

Any light with a single row of inline batteries that puts the nipple (+) towards the back of the light.

Flashlights that turn into loose parts when you need to open it up for battery replacement. (Think of an Expiditon 700 where the spacer and the LED board comes out to access the batteries after you screw the head off)

Maybe not a dumb design but stupid warning lable on my 500,000 candlepower spotlite "Warning: Light beam is extreamly bright! Do not shine at face or eyes."
Or on my neighbor's Streamlight Luxon Star Task Lite; there is a warning on the packageing that looks like a warning lable on a laser pointer but says "LED Radiation; Avoid Direct Exposure to Beam"

Lets see... First there was the boy scout flashlight that was not water proof. The contacts were copper and corroded at a moments notice. That was 30 years ago. Made it hard to be prepared.

I've had several that use multiple small batteries laid end to end.... except that most of those have strong springs so that the middle battery pops out before you get the lid on.


Clever usually leads to dumb. The Pelican LED Sabrelight (with recoil) has the batteries in a carrier that is counter intuitive. If you force the batteries in backwards you blow the buck circuit BUT when you follow that by inserting the batteries correctly it goes into direct drive and keeps running, except it eats batteries and kills the LED prematurely.

Some very clever ideas were used in the ARC 4. Unfortunately they decided to use the battery as a plunger for the on/off/mode select switch. Batteries need to have pressure applied to maintain good contact. They ended up with a balancing act (spring pressure VS switch pressure) that required the same length battery all the time. Note that it would work OK if it was a simple on/off switch where you woudld just press harder till it comes on.

Daniel

Second vote for the dumb Arc4 switch design, especially without a switch/button guard.. Just dropped mine from seat height (approx 2+ feet) and unfortunately it landed on the switch. Now, it's screwed up the micro-switch in front so that it is in the "on" position all the time.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsdown.gif

A minor quible, but lights (mostly electric lanterns) that follow the form factor of their pedecessors (kerosene or propane lanterns) even though they don't need to. In many cases they'd be more functional with a different shape but the manufacturers build them to look like what the consumer is used to seeing.

Cheap 2 D lights with that stupid lens that focuses the beam into a 1 inch spot

Lights that have recessed tail switches but the button still protrudes just enough to eliminate use in candlemode.

lights that dont have recessed tailswitches at all especially small edc type lights - arc4, SF l4,e2,e1 etc - its ok for larger lights that you would put in a belt pouch
i just hate having my l4 flash on and off in my pocket (it does happen)
also - lights with smooth reflectors and badly aligned bulbs - like the Maglite - horrible spots and rings
oh and lights that arent reliable out of the box - like the cheap luxeon light i bought recently - needed 5mm machining of the tube to make it work reliably

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Phaserburn said:
Lights that have recessed tail switches but the button still protrudes just enough to eliminate use in candlemode.

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Yeah, like the recent NQIII. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

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pjandyho said:
I believe the lanyard was meant for the clip. I am not sure as I don't own one but do check it out.

Why are we talking about SL TT? I can't see any semblance of the SL TT to b2p's question.

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You know the lanyard is endded with a rather long thin thread, like those type used to attach lanyard and linglinglonglongs to handphones. So when you attach the lanyard to the clip, there is still a rather long (1 inch but long enough) thin thread dangling around, not nice at all, the whole lanyard looks out of place.

what is a linglinglonglongs ?

We were offered a new range of LED lights this week, which on the face of it had the potential to rival some well-established makes. Solid metal construction, nice light output, reasonable throw, good runtimes, multi-mode with different brightness levels, flash and SOS flash, all very competitively priced.

BUT...

Only a few of them were semi-regulated, all the torches featured a chunky rubber button on the side (which I just knew would get swiped off in about five minutes), none of them were dunkable and you had to click through up to six remaining modes to switch them off each time (and again if you missed "off" the first time). The headlight they had took FOUR 123 batteries, so to fill it up would cost half what you paid for the light in the first place.

I felt quite sorry for the poor old sales chap in the end, he'd sounded so confident when he began his spiel. I tried to let him down gently by politely recommending a visit to CPF and offering our services as unpaid consultants (in return for a price break or two), the next time they wanted to introduce a new range of lights. Unfortunately for them, I think they've taken on a good few hundred units.

Oh well...

A xenon light that comes with a plastic lens that melts if you use it for ten minutes. (old style Wolf-Eyes)

A luxeon light that melts your hand if you use it for ten minutes. (L4)

A luxeon light that melts itself if you use it for ten minutes. (my burned out Lux3 BB750)

And lights that use 6V lantern batteries--what's that all about?