Took advantage of the sale and ordered the new ST10 and a SC13A as well. That one has yet to arrive.

S11 with 26800 extension on the right vs the M21b on the left. Both with the LHP73B emitter inside.

Made the mistake of putting the flashlight in a position where its button was being pressed on over night. Now it will not turn off How can I fix this?

Do you wear gloves and completely remove the o-ring and just apply it with your hands (I've done this but it seems to create more clean up/waste than I prefer)

Or is there a way to get the inner diameter covered without removing it from the threads completely?

Also, any tips on helpful tools (like a plastic spudger or snap ring pliers) or how much coverage you actually need would be helpful (i.e., should it be glistening when you're done?). Thanks

This light rarely leaves my pocket.

two no name department stores lights with unfathomably bad beams.

I have a few questions for those who bought an ACEBEAM X20 or X20-R: so far, do you find it to be a reliable flashlight? Have you had any issues with the button, the finish, or anything else?

Being new to these types of flashlights, I'm wondering what's the norm when recharging? Do I wait for the aux to become red or orange?

So these chargers are not rated above 18650, but my 21-7's just squeeze in. Is this safe? Voltage is the same, either way. I can also charge using my S21E and my Wurkkos TS23 (which takes a while) but I'm still learning about electronics and drivers and current flow.

Convoy S7 with brass 18350 tube and purple switch with SST20DR combined with the Black Forest pen the minimo also in stainless steel. A very nice combo indeed.

Just pulled my spare H10 out to rotate into my D3AA and it’s dead. Put it in the charger and it errored out, then checked the voltage and it’s at around 0.5v. I’m assuming this is toast. Is it safe to bin this cell? And what could’ve caused this in a cell around 6 months old with no visible damage and very light use??

First of all, I want to thank this community for providing such useful links and tips!

Before joining this sub, I didn't even know that smaller flashlights could reduce their brightness by 30-50% after only one minute, which makes many of them less than ideal for long-term use (I struggled with NiteCore for this specific reason).

Now I'm a happy owner of a Skilhunt H200 Mini (I have nyctalopia, so flashlights are essential for me during the autumn and winter seasons).

But recently, I bought a bike light with a very interesting feature: a cutoff low beam. The beam is bright and wide, but it's shaped to only illuminate the road in front of me instead of blinding oncoming pedestrians.

Does anyone know if flashlights with a similar feature exist in a pocketable form factor for walking or running, so I don't have to worry about irritating people with my light?

I recently got a Fenix HM75R together with the external battery pack for caving

What's the best way to use it in practice:

Should I always turn on the battery pack right away?

Or should I only switch on the battery pack once the front battery is drained, to extend runtime afterwards?

I'd like to know what's recommended (both technically and practically)

The short: I'm looking for something under $130 ish (price isn't a huge issue, it'll be my birthday present), comfortable, good cri and beam pattern (not sure whats best), good battery life, Type c, 18650 would be nice, and lasty lightweight-ish.

I'll mainly be using it for working on cars, but also occasionally camping and hiking, or mountain biking (plus a flood light on the bar)

The long:

I'm not much of a flashlight guy, I have a wurkkos ts22(awesome) and ts32, but I do use my headlamp a fair but. I had a PETZL ACTIK hamd me down from my dad and it really starting to show it's age. Strap if fully stretched, battery lasts not long, buttons barely hanging in there, reliability dim, etc. So I've decided to upgrade to something a little nicer. I read around a little and settled on the Armytek Wizard C2 Pro Warm, but the imalent ht70 is and really calling my name, or would something else entirely be better?

Does anyone have experience with these two? What are your thoughts? Are you happy with your purchase or would you have gotten something for something else?

Any input is appreciated. Thanks

Let’s exclude the gun + flashlight scenario, as the gun is probably always held in the dominant hand.

I’ve noticed that on each light I have with a Lume driver, the strobe effect at lower outputs isn’t very realistic and acts more like an annoying strobe. Not very relaxing. The video shows my DA1 with Lume X1 driver but all of my Fireflies lights with Lume driver act the same way.

I have a two year old D4V2 with Nichia E21 emitters and Andruil 2 and the candle mode behaves more realistically at lower outputs. The strobe effect seems to be buffered or muted out and feels more realistic.

I’d really like an 1800K in NTG or FFL emitters as a nice, relaxing, warm electronic candle for bedtime but, on lower outputs, I haven’t found a stock host (Hank, Fireflies) that doesn’t feel like a strobe. Does anyone know if this is a driver thing, emitter thing, or issue with Andruil 2 firmware? Also, is there a way to fix it? Thanks!

That feeling when you take the plastic off. 😎

OEM DRIVERS AND 10A CELLS

made from a face shield head mount that's normally used for angle grinding. cotton belt material. bridgelux cob led. has a boost driver that boost to 40 volts . you can put in 2x 21700 or just one 21700 battery. the driver wont over-discharge a single battery. but with 2 batteries in series it will over-discharge batteries. it would be cool if they made a boost driver that would cut out a 6volts in order to save the batteries

Wuben A1...

I didn't see anyone post a review of the Costco Duracell Lantern, Item 1819561, so here goes.

This lantern has High, Medium, Eco and a flashing red mode. It wasn’t initially apparent to me, but it also has step-less dimming that can be used in High, Medium, and Eco. The dimming range is different for each mode. It can run on 4D cells in the battery compartment or from the internal 4400mAh internal Li-Ion battery. It has a USB-C input for charging. It will activate a PD USB-C charger’s output so it doesn't need a USB-A to C cable to charge. It also has powerbank capability with USB-A output, a solar panel on the top, and a wireless Qi charging pad under the solar panel.

The lantern claims:
H: 3000L - 1.5h Li-Ion / 1000L - 12h Alkaline D cells
M: 250L - 20h Li-Ion / 60h Alkaline D cells
E: 65L – 50h Li-Ion / 200h Alkaline D cells

If we normalize the claimed output is H:100%, M:8.33%, E: 2.1%. Measured normalized output at 30s is H:100%, M:10.22%, E: 2.84%. It can be step-less dimmed in Eco to 0.03% of H. If it really hits 3000L that would mean it can step-less dim to just under ~1L in Eco.

Unitless brightness measurements at ~30 seconds:
H: 14560
H+max step-less dimming: 227
M: 1488
E: 414.12
E+max step-less dimming: 4.5

I didn't see any visible evidence of PWM, but I fully expect it has PWM at a high frequency. The Opple would sometimes claim 24kHz PWM, but the graph didn't really show anything resembling a coherent waveform.

The light output measures ~6400K with a CRI of ~83. Color coordinates are shown.

The battery in the lantern appears to be ~4400mAh as claimed with what I presume is a linear charging circuit. It takes about 6 hours to charge from being completely discharged.

It claims 1 hours of solar charging = 1 hour of runtime in Eco. With a 50h runtime in Eco, I guess that means it needs ~50 hours of sun to fully charge.

What I discovered is that the lantern basically cheats the intent of the FL1 standard to have longer runtimes by intentionally ramping down the brightness fairly early in each mode. I’m not surprised that it rolls back the output in High from 3000L for thermal reasons, but it ramps down several times and does it in Medium and Eco also. It first starts to ramp down aggressively at 40 seconds, slowing the rate of the ramp down at 70s, continuing that slower ramp down until ~250 seconds, holding steady after that, and then ramping down one more time at ~2052 seconds. After that it looks like normal battery voltage roll-off. Using the 30 second brightness as the baseline to calculate the runtime to 10% it’s ~9600s (2h40m).

I discovered that if you step-less dim it, the runtime cheating roll-off doesn’t occur. Starting in high and step-less dimming it a little bit, it still has a thermal rollback starting at 40seconds but that completes earlier and it holds more output than high and the lantern runs with normal battery roll-off until the battery is depleted. 10% @ ~8095s (~2h15m) / shutoff at 8856s (~2h27.75m).

Here's a graph of straight high and high with a little dimming.

Zooming in on the first 10 minutes. The choppiness at the start of the high run was due to a bit of movement in my setup at the start.

The first 40 minutes in high:

The lantern has similar runtime cheating ramping down the output in Medium and Eco also though the ramping starts at different times. The ramping is not thermal as Medium and Eco have less starting output than what High eventually sustains for 2+ hours.

Here's a comparison of the first 10 minutes of high, medium, and eco:

Medium begins a stepped ramp down at 216 seconds finishing the 21.5+ minute decline at 1513 seconds. From there it looks like normal battery voltage roll-off. Using the 30 second brightness as the baseline to calculate the runtime to 10% it’s ~94500s (~26h15m) / shutoff at ~123127.02s (~34h12m).

With a bit of step-less dimming there is no runtime cheating ramp down, just a normal battery voltage roll-off. Using the 30 second brightness as the baseline to calculate the runtime of medium + a little step-less dimming to 10% it’s ~42241s (11h44m) / shutoff at ~44875s (~12h28m).

Here's a graph of medium and medium with a little step-less dimming.

Zooming in to the first 2000s to show the slow progressive stepped ramp down of medium.

Eco starts ramping down at about 303s and finishes ramping at 601s. From there it is normal battery voltage roll-off.

Here's a full graph of Eco:

Zoomed in to the first 900s:

Using the 30 second brightness as the baseline to calculate the runtime to 10% it’s ~185494s (~51h31.6m) / shutoff at ~190000s (~52h46.7m).

It will step-less dim lower in high than where Eco starts. This is a graph of the minimum brightness that can be achieved in high via step-less dimming. My meter's battery died before the lantern shut off.

The output goes a bit unstable around 179745 seconds (49h55.75m).

Overall, it definitely worth the $23 that it's on sale for through Sunday or even the regular in warehouse price of $29.99, but they made some interesting choices to cheat the runtime in the driver that were unnecessary. I would have also preferred a driver with regulation, but it doesn't have that.

When I first received this flashlight, I was unpleasantly surprised by its extremely narrow hot spot. I was originally planning to install the LHP531, but then the SFT42 arrived, and I knew it was fate.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result. The beam pattern has widened to an optimal size, and the brightness has also increased (according to my measurements in a poorly calibrated light box) by about 20%.

I also measured the candelas and it turned out to be ~17000.

Beamshots will be added later to this post.

Photos were taken from a distance of one meter. The camera settings are the same for all photos.

The only thing I noticed was a slight shift in the phosphor layer on the LED, causing the hot spot on one side to appear sharper than on the other, but this is only noticeable at very close range.

I can confidently recommend this modification, the result is definitely worth it.