This little light is one of the smallest I have. But for it's size it throws a beam a good 200+ yds. It throws a nice tight beam. I really like it.
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCF0478_Small_.jpg)
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCF0481_Small_.jpg)
(http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/DSCF0477_Small_.jpg)
I took it out last night and it easily lights up the last street sign down the road approx 215yds.
Expensive ??
$13 shipped to my door. But I will say the $25 KEYGOS light I have is a lot better quality light and about 3 times as bright. Go check it out. For $25 shipped to your door, you can't beat that light.
Mike,
Here's the light that you need. This thing is a 10 for the money. You won't find a light as small that will beat it for brightness or quality for the money.
http://oldgobbler.com/Forum/index.php/topic,12301.0.html
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 16, 2011, 01:05:26 PM
$13 shipped to my door. But I will say the $25 KEYGOS light I have is a lot better quality light and about 3 times as bright. Go check it out. For $25 shipped to your door, you can't beat that light.
Brad,
I will soon see how bright that Keygos light is, as I pulled the trigger and bought it. I think it will come in very handy. Thanks for all the info.
Jason
Quote from: fallsflight on August 16, 2011, 02:26:42 PM
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 16, 2011, 01:05:26 PM
$13 shipped to my door. But I will say the $25 KEYGOS light I have is a lot better quality light and about 3 times as bright. Go check it out. For $25 shipped to your door, you can't beat that light.
Brad,
I will soon see how bright that Keygos light is, as I pulled the trigger and bought it. I think it will come in very handy. Thanks for all the info.
Jason
No problem Jason. I think you will be blown away when you click the switch for the first time. That's if you have a battery in it. LOL! Go shine that light down your street at nite when you get it. And make sure you get some good 18650 batteries like the ones I told you about. Good batteries can make a light a lot brighter and go a lot longer in between charges.
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 16, 2011, 05:25:54 PM
Quote from: fallsflight on August 16, 2011, 02:26:42 PM
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 16, 2011, 01:05:26 PM
$13 shipped to my door. But I will say the $25 KEYGOS light I have is a lot better quality light and about 3 times as bright. Go check it out. For $25 shipped to your door, you can't beat that light.
Brad,
I will soon see how bright that Keygos light is, as I pulled the trigger and bought it. I think it will come in very handy. Thanks for all the info.
Jason
No problem Jason. I think you will be blown away when you click the switch for the first time. That's if you have a battery in it. LOL! Go shine that light down your street at nite when you get it. And make sure you get some good 18650 batteries like the ones I told you about. Good batteries can make a light a lot brighter and go a lot longer in between charges.
Yup, I also purchased those batteries you told me to get. Hopefully they both arrive around the same time! I will let you know when it arrives and I try it.
Quote from: fallsflight on August 16, 2011, 08:57:32 PM
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 16, 2011, 05:25:54 PM
Quote from: fallsflight on August 16, 2011, 02:26:42 PM
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 16, 2011, 01:05:26 PM
$13 shipped to my door. But I will say the $25 KEYGOS light I have is a lot better quality light and about 3 times as bright. Go check it out. For $25 shipped to your door, you can't beat that light.
Brad,
I will soon see how bright that Keygos light is, as I pulled the trigger and bought it. I think it will come in very handy. Thanks for all the info.
Jason
No problem Jason. I think you will be blown away when you click the switch for the first time. That's if you have a battery in it. LOL! Go shine that light down your street at nite when you get it. And make sure you get some good 18650 batteries like the ones I told you about. Good batteries can make a light a lot brighter and go a lot longer in between charges.
Yup, I also purchased those batteries you told me to get. Hopefully they both arrive around the same time! I will let you know when it arrives and I try it.
Sounds good. I'm already wishing I had another. Super bright beam of light is all I can say about this little light. Around 850 lumens is a ton of light from such a little guy.
Thanks I have a few in the watch list already. Definitely cant beat that price.
I don't know what batteries and charger you are recommending but folks need to know they shouldn't take those Lithium Ion cells for granted.
Protected cells (overcharge, overdischarge and emergency venting) are worth it.
If you don't have a voltage meter then get one just for checking the charge on the batteries. Don't depend on the charger to tell you!
Lithium Ion cells are awesome for driving a light but trust me do yourself a favor and research them some.
Single cell lights are more forgiving. Multi-cell lights with bad charging practices or crummy batteries can go boom! Not all batteries are rated for stacking.
One major difference between the cheap lights and the more expensive ones is the heat-sinking built in. The cheap ones often have to be turned off to cool down long before the battery runs out.
I am not familiar with that particular light so I don't know if it has any issues.
If you are looking at new flashlights nowadays it's really a good idea to find out if it's compatible with a P60 style lamp. This is Surefire's standard and there are literally tons of third party options available. Surefire's P60's are limited to 6V so you can't use re-chargeables. Not too worry there are plenty of P60 lamps available that are rated for higher voltage. Make your own Surefire compatible or upgrade your old one ;)
Well the best charger from a flashlight expert on another forum has told me for $80 or less this is the best one you can get. I just bought one recently. But the XTAR WP2 charger is the ticket. You can also buy them off manofont.com.
http://cgi.ebay.com/XTAR-WP2-Battery-Charger-/170671437988?pt=US_Flashlights&hash=item27bccf78a4
That same guy told me the best battery to be had is the XTAR 18650 2600MAH.
http://cgi.ebay.com/2pcs-XTAR-18700-18650-2600mAh-Lithium-Battery-Fenix-/160633811171?pt=US_Batteries&hash=item25668570e3
He aslo told me the Trustfire red /blk flames battery to be a good one.
I bought a few of them from here.
http://cgi.ebay.com/2X-TrustFire-Protected-18650-Rechargeable-Battery-3-7V-/260750543965?pt=US_Batteries&hash=item3cb5f18c5d
These bright led bulb lights do warm up at the head. But I haven't seen any issues yet, but I will say that there are a plenty of good flashlights to be had other than Surefire.
Here's a great place to get some great buys from so I have been told.
http://manafont.com/
Here's a link on batery info that tells you what batteries are the best for % of claimed capacity.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d4S1zhNLJeQ/TfEPUfV1nBI/AAAAAAAAB1A/N1YIXOZg2uE/s1600/%2525.jpg
I will say this light I am originally talking about in my first post doesn't warm up at the head like some of my brighter lights do.
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 17, 2011, 09:04:19 PM
Here's a link on batery info that tells you what batteries are the best for % of claimed capacity.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d4S1zhNLJeQ/TfEPUfV1nBI/AAAAAAAAB1A/N1YIXOZg2uE/s1600/%2525.jpg
That's a pretty good list. Noticeably missing are Redilast and AW Power. Those would rank quite high in that bunch.
A pretty simple test to do on any charger is this. As soon as the charger indicates "Fully Charged" take out the battery and measure it's charge with a voltmeter. Stick the battery back in the charger and see if it tells you immediately if it's fully charged. Some chargers won't tell you it's fully charged immediately. Take the battery out and measure the voltage again. If it didn't indicate "Fully Charged" immediately it will probably read a little higher. This is one way how batteries sometimes get accidentally over-charged. It's good practice to take the cells out as soon as the charge is indicated as full and measure the voltage.
Be really aware of the shrink tubing around the battery on protected type batteries. The protection circuit has a thin ribbon just under the shrink wrap that shunts the voltage around the battery if the protection circuit is tripped. If you look hard enough you'll see where it is running under the shrink wrap. If that gets damaged you are no longer using a protected cell.
Side note: If the protection is tripped the battery will read 0 Volts on the voltmeter.
I only own one Surefire. The rest of my lights are other brands, and mods I've bought or built myself. I only mention Surefire because of the vast variety of P60 lamp assemblies that are now available. Surefire is supposed to be the originator of that standard.
Thanks for the info.
Here's a little review on the XTAR WP2 charger.
http://budgetlightforum.com/node/875
Here's what a guy I have been talking to told me about batteries.
___________________________________________________________
Don't underestimate the importance of the right battery. It can make some single cell lights over twice as bright to use a good quality cell. In reality both of those battery types come out with very inconsistent ratings but are around 2000-2200mah real capacity. They are generally old cells re-used from a battery pack however.
If you want some good batteries get some of the flame design 'True 2400' trustfire cells, or if you can some of the Xtar 2600's from a group buy deal on here. They are so much higher quality and a trustworthy reliable cell which can support high output too.
__________________________________________________________
He was talking in reference to the Ultrafire 18650 3000MAH 3200MAH and 3800MAH batteries I was asking him about. Do not buy these cells. They are junk.
The Ultrafire Protected 18650 2400MAH is said to be pretty good batteries I believe. I bought 14 of them from a guy off ebay.
Here's a good place to buy those buy those Trustfire batteries.
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/trustfire-protected-18650-3-7v-true-2400mah-rechargeable-lithium-batteries-2-pack-20392
I'm hoping the ones I bought off ebay are genuine.
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 17, 2011, 11:18:50 PM
Thanks for the info.
Here's a little review on the XTAR WP2 charger.
http://budgetlightforum.com/node/875
Thanks! I may have to get one of those. I really like the idea of it essentially cutting off except for a monitor current when finished.
Some of the Ultrafires are worrisome (junk). I've got a couple of UF 18500's. The ones I got seem decent. I use them to drive two Taskforce LED flashlights (originally 3aaa style I modded them and now they run on just one 18500 and are much brighter for longer).
BTW, what kind of runtime are you getting out of that light?
Your welcome. Those guys there are ate up on flashlights. And you guys thought I was bad. LOL! These guys are the experts. I'm just a rookie to these guys.
http://budgetlightforum.com/forum
Here's what Zack told me also in a pm from that site in reference to the XTAR 2600MAH batteries.
"If you don't want to bother with that then get the 'trustfire 2400 mah protected' cells from manafont and the 'xtar WP2 charger' too. You will recognise the batteries by their flame design on the wrapper, they are almost as good as the xtar 2600's, not as good quality/capacity but much better than any other ***fire brands. The WP2 charger is the safest and most reliable you can get for under $80 and it's only about $20 or so, so well worth it."
I really don't know on the run time since for one I don't have good batteries yet, and two, I haven't really tried to see how long it will run without charging them once the brightness starts dropping off. All I have is some of these cheaper unprotected Ultrafire batteries. You don't want them they are junk. But I did get around say 45-50 min off of them on one of my bigger lights. With good quality batteries you should get a lot more minutes than that. I'll have to let you know more when my better batteries get here.
And here's another graph on 18650 batteries.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PCc2VIhHRrw/TfEPZvt2WGI/AAAAAAAAB1E/sqEYIA2aK_U/s1600/Capacity.jpg
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 18, 2011, 05:09:34 AM
And here's another graph on 18650 batteries.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PCc2VIhHRrw/TfEPZvt2WGI/AAAAAAAAB1E/sqEYIA2aK_U/s1600/Capacity.jpg
I'll look at the budgetlightforums. I've never been a member of a light forum.
The thing you have to keep in mind with these "claimed" capacity charts is what current draw the test was run at. In that chart the capacity was tested at a 1 amp current draw. For a 3000mah battery to meet the capacity in that test it must produce 1 amp for 3 hours. If the current draw was 2 amps then the same battery should produce 2 amps for 1 1/2 hours to meet capacity. The thing is it doesn't always work that way. Some batterys are better at producing low current and some are better at producing a higher current.
In other words this chart is most appropriate if you are selecting a battery to drive a lamp assembly that only draws 1 amp. If your lamp assembly draws 3 amps another cell may rise to the top of the charts in a 3 amp test.
Quote from: TheTwistedOne on August 18, 2011, 11:12:39 AM
Quote from: ILIKEHEVI-13 on August 18, 2011, 05:09:34 AM
And here's another graph on 18650 batteries.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PCc2VIhHRrw/TfEPZvt2WGI/AAAAAAAAB1E/sqEYIA2aK_U/s1600/Capacity.jpg
I'll look at the budgetlightforums. I've never been a member of a light forum.
The thing you have to keep in mind with these "claimed" capacity charts is what current draw the test was run at. In that chart the capacity was tested at a 1 amp current draw. For a 3000mah battery to meet the capacity in that test it must produce 1 amp for 3 hours. If the current draw was 2 amps then the same battery should produce 2 amps for 1 1/2 hours to meet capacity. The thing is it doesn't always work that way. Some batterys are better at producing low current and some are better at producing a higher current.
In other words this chart is most appropriate if you are selecting a battery to drive a lamp assembly that only draws 1 amp. If your lamp assembly draws 3 amps another cell may rise to the top of the charts in a 3 amp test.
I think you will fit in quite well over there at that forum. There are some smart son of a guns over there that's for sure. These guys build their own flashlights. LOL!
RedForest UK is one of the smart ones there I have been talking to and has taught me some things about these lights and batteries.
I am going to goon a rant here for a minute. I bought one of the flashlights that was posted on here. It took about 2 weeks before it showed up and then didn't have any batteries with it. No big deal I've got extra batteries. Except for the fact that it doesn't take a normal C or D battery. It takes a 18650 battery. I've never even heard of a 18650 battery. No big deal I'll just pick one up today while I'm in town. OSH; No 18650, Wally world; No 18650, Radio Shack has everything right: No 18650, they even looked online and couldn't find anything. So I stop by our office and have one of the receptionists look up batteries 18650 and see where I can buy it.....NOWHERE. It is only sold online.
After it came in originally I figured out that it took a different battery and after a little searching I found some online so I ordered some with a battery charger. The only problem is it's coming from China, parcel post. So it will probably get here in a month or so.
So I leave for my deer hunt tomorrow and I have a really nice looking flashlight paper weight setting on my computer desk and I wont be able to see this weekend. Sorry I'm just frustrated with this whole process of flashlights.
TRKYHTR
Joe,
Sorry for the mix up. There are some places that sell the 18650 batteries here in the US. I want to add that I want to let you know that good batteries are what you want and not the cheap ones that won't hold a charge. I found that out the hardway by buying these cheaper Ultrafire unprotected batteries off ebay.
XTAR 2600MAH, or the Trustfire 2400MAH with the flames are some good batteries from what I have been told by Zack at the flashligh forum.
The XTAR WP2 charger is the way to go as well when buying a charger.
What light did you end up getting?
I ordered a monster flashlight myself. I just ordered yesterday so lets see when I get it. I went to there direct site to read a little before I bought they ship out of NJ so thats kind of nice. Also the I believe owner of the company seems to be a flashlight junkie himself so that also seems like a good thing. Ill keep you guys posted on my findings.
Mike
Quote from: mikejd on August 18, 2011, 08:17:25 PM
I ordered a monster flashlight myself. I just ordered yesterday so lets see when I get it. I went to there direct site to read a little before I bought they ship out of NJ so thats kind of nice. Also the I believe owner of the company seems to be a flashlight junkie himself so that also seems like a good thing. Ill keep you guys posted on my findings.
Mike
I have seen his lights and ads on ebay. He has some good ones. Let us know when you get it. Pictures if you would. I would like to see some beam shots. :toothy12:
Quote from: TRKYHTR on August 18, 2011, 05:15:56 PM
I am going to goon a rant here for a minute. I bought one of the flashlights that was posted on here. It took about 2 weeks before it showed up and then didn't have any batteries with it. No big deal I've got extra batteries. Except for the fact that it doesn't take a normal C or D battery. It takes a 18650 battery. I've never even heard of a 18650 battery. No big deal I'll just pick one up today while I'm in town. OSH; No 18650, Wally world; No 18650, Radio Shack has everything right: No 18650, they even looked online and couldn't find anything. So I stop by our office and have one of the receptionists look up batteries 18650 and see where I can buy it.....NOWHERE. It is only sold online.
After it came in originally I figured out that it took a different battery and after a little searching I found some online so I ordered some with a battery charger. The only problem is it's coming from China, parcel post. So it will probably get here in a month or so.
So I leave for my deer hunt tomorrow and I have a really nice looking flashlight paper weight setting on my computer desk and I wont be able to see this weekend. Sorry I'm just frustrated with this whole process of flashlights.
TRKYHTR
Buy a an AW power 18650 from Lighthound.com
http://www.lighthound.com/AW-18650-Protected-2200-mAh-Rechargeable-Lithium-Battery_p_105.html (http://www.lighthound.com/AW-18650-Protected-2200-mAh-Rechargeable-Lithium-Battery_p_105.html)
You need to buy the button top model. The high cap models don't have button tops and may not work with you light.
Read the instructions on the light. MAKE SURE THE FLASHLIGHT WILL TAKE THIS BEFORE YOU TRY IT! Some of the single cell 18650 (NOT ALL OF THEM) also will accept two CR123 batteries in place of one 18650. The CR123S are readily available at Walgreens, Walmart, Radioshack...
Some single cell 18650 flashlights use a voltage regulator circuit that maxes out at 4.7V. If you drop in two CR123s in one of those lights the 6Vs from the two cells will FRY the circuit!
If you can't find the lamp voltage range in the instructions sometimes it is printed on the lamp unit itself inside the flashlight.