
An Introduction to High-Performance Flashlights (2011) - nkurz
http://www.asos1.com/flashlight/flashlight01.htm?
======
parametrek
If you are looking for a flashlight I maintain the largest and most complete
databases of flashlight specifications:

[http://flashlights.parametrek.com/](http://flashlights.parametrek.com/)

Feedback appreciated if you think this has potential. UI is a little bit
designed for the power user who knows what they like in a light. Still trying
to make a gentle ramp-up mode for people with less of the jargon.

~~~
EarthLaunch
In this context of this thread, this is an awesome resource! Newbie here, but
I just learned about CRI. Your tool is very featureful for a tech/power user.

If you want a text wall of UI suggestions: Move the top buttons to a left side
menu that always-show their checkboxes (like newegg/amazon), so that the
button meaning can be learned from its options. Perhaps describe every item
with hover text (eg title attrib). Perhaps put CRI in the product description,
since everyone seems to care about it. Combine weather-
resistant/weatherproof/water-resistant to whatever degree possible. I couldn't
find any waterproof high-CRI, for what that's worth. Another idea is a
"purpose" category where you could decide what features would be ideal for
things like hiking, backpacking, swimming, home use, car use, etc.

~~~
parametrek
'Always show checkboxes' was something I tried early on. It simply doesn't
scale well. There are already more than 200 checkboxes and 10 double-ended
sliders.

Each single checkbox presented is the most important feature for someone. It
is interesting that the HN crowd is stressing high CRI but many feel the
reduced efficiency is not worth the trade off.

Here are all the waterproof high CRI lights:

[http://flashlights.parametrek.com/index.html?led_color=high%...](http://flashlights.parametrek.com/index.html?led_color=high%20CRI&environment=IP-X7+IP-X8)

Though generally if you are serious about nice CRI you will end up buying a
regular light and swapping out the LED.

It might be worthwhile for me to provide levels of detail. Like in your case,
you don't care if something is IP-X7 or IP-X8, you just want waterproof. And
no good manufacturer would say "waterproof" since the word doesn't mean
anything. Though that sort of modal configuration screens (advanced mode, etc)
are almost universally considered bad UI on HN, so who knows.

------
kephra
The battery part is extremely bad/dangerous, when it comes to rechargeable
Lithium batteries. First it shows an UltraFire. Please avoid UltraFire and
TrustFire cells. Those are refurbished used cells with a new shrink wrap and
an protection that likely does not work.

Please stick to proper brands: e.g. Samsung SDI is producing good affordable
high drain cells. AW and Efest are also well known for good Chinese cells.
Avoid Sony cells. Sony never sold to end customers. All so called Sony cells
are either completely fake, or used cells e.g. from Makita screw drivers.

Next about protected vs unprotected. Thats a question of maximum drain vs
maximum capacity. E.g. a good 18650 has a typical capacity around 2000mAh as a
high drain unprotected IMR cell, or 3000mAh as a low drain protected ICR cell.
IMR and ICR are different chemistries. And most important IMR only vents a
bit, while ICR explodes. A rule of thump is therefore: Use a protected ICR in
a lower power mechanical flashlight. The protection will kick in and save your
battery and hands, in case of a short or voltage drops under 3V under drain.
You can use unprotected IMR batteries in regulated devices because the
regulation will protect your batteries. And you need to use unprotected IMR
batteries for high power (>20 Watts) regulated devices, because protection
kicks in to early thinks you have a short, and you need the high drain of IMR.

~~~
CamperBob2
One of my life's guiding principles, applied equally in both professional and
personal endeavors, has always been this: _Don 't buy lithium batteries whose
brand names contain the word "Fire."_

So far, this ethos has served me well.

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
Same goes for chargers. Find a story about a fire from a battery charger and 9
times out of 10 you'll find it's a *fire.

------
clumsysmurf
This is really out of date (January 2011).

If you are interested, good website / forum to check from time to time is
[http://www.candlepowerforums.com/](http://www.candlepowerforums.com/)

My personal favorite LED lights are ZebraLight -- the tints are pretty
consistent, and the regulation is top notch. The SC600 is amazing - a nice
lighweight, floody, 1x18650 light awesome for trail-running at night in the
mountains - great to see all the eyeballs watching from the hills.

I'm hoping soon the CRI of these emitters will get better. It was hard seeing
rattlesnakes with CRI=65, but they blended in anyhow :( Warmer tints of the
XM-L had CRI 75 but that still isn't very good.

~~~
jedmeyers
I agree that in most applications, especially outdoor related, having higher
CRI is much more useful than having, say, +30% lumen output. That is why I try
to select flashlights with neutral / high CRI LEDs. My current go-to torches
which happen to be also latest acquisitions:

\- Surefire P6 body; bored to accept 18650 battery with McClicky upgrade and
P60 / Nichia NVSL219B drop-in from customlites.com. Very bright with a nice
hotspot. I use it to do a walk-around check of a small Cessna before flying at
night. You don't want to miss those missing rivets.

\- EAGTAC D25C Clicky Ti. Not a fan of a reverse-clicky but a moonlight mode
is very useful in low light situations when it's crucial to preserve night
vision. And it's also small and has a nice clip to carry around.

\- Fenix FL50 headlamp. Accepts CR123 and AA batteries and has a nice beam
pattern.

Two of those have Nichia 219 which I think is an awesome LED if you need good
color rendering.

~~~
detaro
Fenix FL? I only find an HL 50?

------
fasteddie31003
I've been developing a 40,000 lumen LED flashlight.
[http://i.imgur.com/rTMcSuh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/rTMcSuh.jpg)
[http://i.imgur.com/L97Aprg.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/L97Aprg.jpg)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaCD_hbVfso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaCD_hbVfso)

~~~
userbinator
That would make a great light source for a DIY projector.

~~~
Geee
A projector would need just about 1000 lumens. This is way brighter than that.

------
bcook
I was once a flashlight nerd. My (American-made except for LED) HDS with it's
high-CRI Cree LED is my best flashlight ($200). Not as bright as a non-high-
CRI LED, but in the forest the better color rendering gives me better depth
perception (lots of browns and reds). The official HDS website has some great
papers written by the guy who runs HDS. It was a one-man operation the last
time I checked.

~~~
jonah
Aren't some cree modules US made? Or even weren't they all until recently?

~~~
bcook
Hmm... I had to go look this up, and you are partly right. Here is a snippet
from
[http://hdssystems.com/Content/LightFaq/#Made](http://hdssystems.com/Content/LightFaq/#Made)

"Even though the wafers - the heart and sole of the LED and the part that
converts electricity into light - are manufactured in the USA, the wafers are
packaged into LED emitters outside the USA, so the LEDs are considered to be
of foreign origin."

~~~
jonah
To add a little more detail, through 2008 they were entirely made in Durham,
SC. At that time Cree purchased a factory in Shenzhen to do the packaging.[1]

[1]
[http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?185936-Wh...](http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?185936-Where-
are-Cree-LED-s-manufactured&p=2309971&viewfull=1#post2309971)

------
hnyc
> I discovered that there is a huge community of people that are interested in
> (or obsessed with) flashlights.

[http://xkcd.com/1095/](http://xkcd.com/1095/)

~~~
saryant
That was how I felt when I encountered an online community about bedbugs.
OTOH, immensely useful...

------
uptownJimmy
I suppose I was naive to assume that I was the only person who loves
flashlights. A lot.

------
Florin_Andrei
Go on Amazon and search for:

18650 flashlight

18650 battery

18650 charger

18650 bike adapter

Flashlights start at around $12. More expensive is usually better.

Batteries are like $5 ... $8. If you own N flashlights, get N+1 batteries.

Chargers are $15 ... $20 or so.

Bike adapters are like $2 ... $3.

The flashlights are very small, yet very powerful. The batteries are Li-Ion.

I ended up buying several flashlights: one for each bike, and one or two more
that I keep in the living room, kitchen, etc.

------
electriclove
The Coast HP1 seems to be a great value for $10
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IEMUOWU/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IEMUOWU/)

~~~
maxerickson
Deal Extreme has a bunch of $10 lights that are fine for when you just need
some illumination for a minute. The AA ones bypass some hassle:

[http://www.dx.com/c/lights-
lighting-1399/flashlights-1307/le...](http://www.dx.com/c/lights-
lighting-1399/flashlights-1307/led-flashlights-1360/aa-flashlights-1366)

------
darkmighty
I'm surprised no one mentioned cheap chinese lights. The LEDs are mostly the
same as far as I know, so it shouldn't matter too much.

I have one of those headlamps, and it's pretty good for the price:

[http://www.dx.com/p/focus-adjustable-cree-q3-3-mode-white-
le...](http://www.dx.com/p/focus-adjustable-cree-q3-3-mode-white-led-
headlamp-1-x-18650-94848#.VQjV3Y7F_QM)

There's a plethora of variations it's a lot of fun to pick the perfect feature
set.

~~~
rasz_pl
The leds might look the same, have same markings and be sold with same data
points, but they most certainly are not :) Cheap Chinese flashlight LEDs use
throwaway wafer offcuts encapsulated by fly by night operations/off the clock
in real factories or rebranded third parties (fakes). Its the same deal as
cheap SD cards using third grade defective NAND Flash with controllers taking
care to bypass bad regions.

They are good enough, but not nearly as good as the first grade stuff sold at
a premium.

~~~
gaius
Don't even get me started on knock-off fake dive torches.

------
anonu
My biggest takeaway from the site was the bit on batteries. In particular, the
repeated reminder that we should never leave charging batteries unattended. I
wonder how important this is to follow really... We have 100s of millions of
devices out there charging everyday (cellphones, laptops, etc...) and we don't
really worry too much about these batteries catching fire.

------
e12e
I'm not sure if it qualifies as "high-performance" \-- but I'd just like to
mention Hexbright: [http://hexbright.com/](http://hexbright.com/)

I bought the first edition as part of the initial Kickstarter, and it's been a
joy to use -- fun to play with. Bright light, programmable (standard is
bright, medium, low and strobe) and charges from a mini-usb port. Also, while
they've been remiss in updating their wiki, most of the schematics are
available:

[http://community.hexbright.com/Answers/View/155/Where+can+I+...](http://community.hexbright.com/Answers/View/155/Where+can+I+find+the+circuit+schematic)

[http://www.hexbright.com/blogs/news/](http://www.hexbright.com/blogs/news/)

~~~
joshgel
Sold out

~~~
e12e
Hopefully there will be more. Adafruit claims to have 7 in stock:
[http://www.adafruit.com/products/1725](http://www.adafruit.com/products/1725)

------
wyager
I did a tally a few weeks ago; turns out I've spent well over $1000 on my
collection of high-end flashlights.

I have no logical explanation for why I like collecting them. I suppose it's
probably the same thing that drives people to collect watches.

~~~
bcook
You're doing better (or worse, depending on your perspective) than this guy.
[http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?309262-I-...](http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?309262-I-spent-30-000-in-
my-first-6-Months)

------
cellover
For cyclists around here, I'd recommend Cygolite lights, they are amazing:

[http://cygolite.com/products/index.html](http://cygolite.com/products/index.html)

~~~
tomkinstinch
They look nice, though pricey.

On my bike I use a couple cheap silicone mounts[1] to hold my regular bright
LED hand flashlights. I like that the flashlights serve double duty on the
bike and that they can be easily removed at my destination.

1\. [http://www.dx.com/p/universal-bicycle-flashlight-lamp-
nylon-...](http://www.dx.com/p/universal-bicycle-flashlight-lamp-nylon-velcro-
clip-mount-holder-black-2-pcs-252680#.VQjHZYr3b7o)

~~~
cellover
I'm not so sure about the pricey impression. I bought the Metro 500 USB one
yeard ago for 65 USD on Amazon. It has 6 light modes that get you covered may
it be during the day, night, heavy rain or snow.

The Metro 500 comes with an easy to remove clip that allows you to keep the
mount on the bike while you get your light safe. Handy, but can break in cold
weather due to plastic resistance.

500 lumen is quite enough for my needs.

