Spec me an LED Torch
- Thread starter support_bae
- Start date
If those warm ones are too much trouble to easily get hold of then what would you say is a good torch to go for if im just looking for something bright but useful with a nice light?
Ideally i would like to avoid ordering from another country or using ebay etc.
Ideally i would like to avoid ordering from another country or using ebay etc.
if you want to buy it from the UK you're going to face a 200 to 400% price increase to buying direct from Hong Kong/Ebay 
there are many many lights i can advise, how much do you want to spend, how big do you want the light to be, and What batteries do you want the right to run off? AA's, CR123A's, 18650-Rechargeables? there's a lot of data I need from you before i can give you a recommendation you'd be happy with
Also, what colour do you want it?
there are many many lights i can advise, how much do you want to spend, how big do you want the light to be, and What batteries do you want the right to run off? AA's, CR123A's, 18650-Rechargeables? there's a lot of data I need from you before i can give you a recommendation you'd be happy with
Also, what colour do you want it?
Maybe you know a few i should take a look at then, i would like a reasonably good cheap small AA torch for under £15 and/or a really good torch for under £40 using any of those other battery's, either a nice white or warm, don't mind if they come in bits but it would be easier if they didn't.
I don't see why they're all either tricky to get hold of or expensive, surely quality led touches should be getting common place by now, even cheap ones should, yet you still see them selling those silly old plastic leds here.
I don't see why they're all either tricky to get hold of or expensive, surely quality led touches should be getting common place by now, even cheap ones should, yet you still see them selling those silly old plastic leds here.
Soldato
Now look what we have here 
http://www.manafont.com/product_inf...en-3led-5mode-memory-flashlight-218650-p-7016
Newly released.
Will be nowhere near 3800 lumens but if those XM-L emitters are being driven well (+2amps.. hoping for 3amps probably wishful thinking though!) then I can see this light being very interesting. Have lots of questions about this light, mainly about the driver which is used.
Needless to say I have ordered one to find out
http://www.manafont.com/product_inf...en-3led-5mode-memory-flashlight-218650-p-7016
Newly released.
Will be nowhere near 3800 lumens but if those XM-L emitters are being driven well (+2amps.. hoping for 3amps probably wishful thinking though!) then I can see this light being very interesting. Have lots of questions about this light, mainly about the driver which is used.
Needless to say I have ordered one to find out
Last edited:
that just seems like such a wasted opportunity with a big reflector like that you could focus the 800 lumens from a single well driven XM-L into a realistically useful spotlight beam that's plenty bright for anything but lighting up clouds/mountain ranges etc.
on the other hand, three (possibly weakly) driven XM-L's with piddly little reflectors will just give you a blobby wide pool of light which is too bright for close up work and useless for long-distance stuff
with a big reflector like that you could focus the 800 lumens from a single well driven XM-L into a realistically useful spotlight beam that's plenty bright for anything but lighting up clouds/mountain ranges etc.on the other hand, three (possibly weakly) driven XM-L's with piddly little reflectors will just give you a blobby wide pool of light which is too bright for close up work and useless for long-distance stuff
Soldato
All depends how well they those XM-L's are being driven, if they are being driven hard then the fact the reflectors are small won't be much of a problem as it will provide a very tasty OTF lumen figure especially from this price prospective.
Will take caution with this light though when it arrives, as if it is driving those emitters at anything near 3amps each.. then you could have yourself a nice pipe bomb if using cells that don't like to be tested for high current draw.
Will take caution with this light though when it arrives, as if it is driving those emitters at anything near 3amps each.. then you could have yourself a nice pipe bomb if using cells that don't like to be tested for high current draw.
So no recommendations then?
Should i just go for anything with one of those XM-L leds?
oh, I'm sorry to say that i completely missed that post of yours, but i'd still like to know what sort of battery you'd prefer to go with.
if you choose to use AA's, you can use Alkalines (but you'll never get really really good brightness) Lithium AA's (which are very expensive) or rechargeable AAs (NiMh low self discharge are in vogue at the moment).
Some AA lights can use 14500 lithium-ion cells (~3.7V instead of regular 1.2 or 1.5V) which give you the possibility of incredible brightness from a tiny light.
CR123A lights aren't very popular these days, since there was a spree of cheap CR123A cells exploding a couple of years ago. the flashlight community tends to prefer 18650 li-ions these days.
18650's are fairly expensive but give you running costs that are close to zero, but you can easily spend £40 on a charger alone (although you don't need to).
If you want a light that runs for a long time and with capability for a lot of light, then a 18650 light is pretty much the way to go.
A Solarforce L2P body combined with a 18650 cell'n'charger and the dropin of your choice, such as a custom built warm/neutral white one from Nailbender on CPF.
I'm afraid that there aren't many cheap/china dropins/lights that use warm/neutral white LEDs yet.
re. your question about why you still only see cheap plastic lights with crummy 5mm LEDs when these high-tech lights are available is simply because the public doesn't know any better, and they're perfectly content with lights that suck and are completely unprepared to pay just a couple of pounds more to receive a better device.
Last edited:
Well this dropin from solarforce is one of the few "factory made" modules that uses a warm LED: http://solarforce-sales.com/product_detail.php?t=RB&s=29&id=42
I have no idea how bright it will be, solarforce dropins are usually quite... conservative.
there's a very cool guy on CandlePowerForums who makes custom P60 dropin modules, i have one and it's outstanding, and I paid a mere $45 for it, but it's thermally potted making it virtually indestructible, and it's very bright (much brighter than most chinese dropins).
i can say that if you're looking for a plain Alkaline AA-light, I can't think of anything better than my EDC light, an iTP EOS A2, which is three modes, (1.5 lumens low for 80 hours, medium of 20 lumens for 7 hours or high of 85 lumens for 2 hours)
85 lumens is about twice as bright as a 3 D-cell maglite by the way.
Retails for around £20 ish on ebay from HongKong or about £25 from here in the UK.
Not available in anything but cool-white i'm afraid though.
I have no idea how bright it will be, solarforce dropins are usually quite... conservative.
there's a very cool guy on CandlePowerForums who makes custom P60 dropin modules, i have one and it's outstanding, and I paid a mere $45 for it, but it's thermally potted making it virtually indestructible, and it's very bright (much brighter than most chinese dropins).
i can say that if you're looking for a plain Alkaline AA-light, I can't think of anything better than my EDC light, an iTP EOS A2, which is three modes, (1.5 lumens low for 80 hours, medium of 20 lumens for 7 hours or high of 85 lumens for 2 hours)
85 lumens is about twice as bright as a 3 D-cell maglite by the way.
Retails for around £20 ish on ebay from HongKong or about £25 from here in the UK.
Not available in anything but cool-white i'm afraid though.
Soldato
That warm P60 drop-in sounds really good. What is the runtime like?
If I was to join CPF, do you think the guy would be a bit hesitant to sell one to me with 0 posts?
If I was to join CPF, do you think the guy would be a bit hesitant to sell one to me with 0 posts?
he should be okay with it, like i said, he's a good guy.
it draws 1.4 amps, so gets around an hour on a pair of CR123A's and about two hours on a nice 18650.
i'm running mine in a Surefire C2 host so i'm going to use it with 17670 rechargeables with CR123A's as backup
it draws 1.4 amps, so gets around an hour on a pair of CR123A's and about two hours on a nice 18650.
i'm running mine in a Surefire C2 host so i'm going to use it with 17670 rechargeables with CR123A's as backup
Soldato
Why have only one XM-L emitter when you can have three?
My Sky Ray 3xT6 arrived today. I must say very quick shipping from Manafont this time around.
Straight out the box it feels pretty solid for a budget light. Nice clickie, strong body with a decent enough finish, lubed threads which are quite well machined. It feels more expensive than a $50 light. The 3800 lumen claim which is printed on the side is quite laughable however!
The body obviously isn't HA-III but seems pretty decent, I have seen far worse in this price bracket.
The body is in a strange form which is in two sections, you might think that taking the smaller half of the body out would then accommodate a single 18650 - however it just rattles around in there. The lens is of quite a poor quality and I found the bezel to be an absolute pig to get back on; the only place that poor quality threads can be seen.
Now this is where it gets fun.
You remember a few posts ago that I was wondering about the current draw at the tail cap that this light would achieve? Well some guy at Manafont recently reviewed this light and got a very lame 1.45A at the tailcap. After reading that I thought I had a less than great light heading my way.
But looks like he got a dud as check this out!
This light is insanely bright!
There have been mention of the phrase 'face burners' here in this thread with some XM-L lights. I think this ever so slightly takes the crown.
It is worth pointing out that with this kind of current draw with 2x18650's in series it is very important to have cells which have an equal voltage or you could be looking at holding a potential pipe bomb in your hands.
The beam is a great mix of flood and wide hotspot with enough lumen grunt to throw very well. Aod you mentioned this light as a missed opportunity to be a thrower with a large reflector. But remember the XM-L is not a thrower by nature due to it's large dye size. The XR-E R2 despite being an old emitter still ranks very well in terms of throw due to it's small dye size. Small dye size means more concentrated light.
Now to a very hastily taken beam shot (excuse the over exposure & my dog taking a wee in the first beamshot).
P60 Manafont XM-L Drop-in
Sky Ray 3xT6
From a price prospective at £32 this light is an absolute steal. Alright, it isn't going to have a regulated output. But for sheer lumen output per £ it is absolutely unbeatable!
My Sky Ray 3xT6 arrived today. I must say very quick shipping from Manafont this time around.
Straight out the box it feels pretty solid for a budget light. Nice clickie, strong body with a decent enough finish, lubed threads which are quite well machined. It feels more expensive than a $50 light. The 3800 lumen claim which is printed on the side is quite laughable however!
The body obviously isn't HA-III but seems pretty decent, I have seen far worse in this price bracket.
The body is in a strange form which is in two sections, you might think that taking the smaller half of the body out would then accommodate a single 18650 - however it just rattles around in there. The lens is of quite a poor quality and I found the bezel to be an absolute pig to get back on; the only place that poor quality threads can be seen.
Now this is where it gets fun.
You remember a few posts ago that I was wondering about the current draw at the tail cap that this light would achieve? Well some guy at Manafont recently reviewed this light and got a very lame 1.45A at the tailcap. After reading that I thought I had a less than great light heading my way.
But looks like he got a dud as check this out!
This light is insanely bright!
There have been mention of the phrase 'face burners' here in this thread with some XM-L lights. I think this ever so slightly takes the crown.
It is worth pointing out that with this kind of current draw with 2x18650's in series it is very important to have cells which have an equal voltage or you could be looking at holding a potential pipe bomb in your hands.
The beam is a great mix of flood and wide hotspot with enough lumen grunt to throw very well. Aod you mentioned this light as a missed opportunity to be a thrower with a large reflector. But remember the XM-L is not a thrower by nature due to it's large dye size. The XR-E R2 despite being an old emitter still ranks very well in terms of throw due to it's small dye size. Small dye size means more concentrated light.
Now to a very hastily taken beam shot (excuse the over exposure & my dog taking a wee in the first beamshot
).
P60 Manafont XM-L Drop-in
Sky Ray 3xT6
From a price prospective at £32 this light is an absolute steal. Alright, it isn't going to have a regulated output. But for sheer lumen output per £ it is absolutely unbeatable!
Last edited:
looks very impressive!
by the looks of it each LED is being fed at around 890mA, which by Cree's datasheet would put that at 359lm per emitter, for a total of about 1,068 lumens for all three, at the emitter.
the reflectors look relatively efficient, so i'd say that you're probably looking at an out-the-front lumen rating of (very roughly estimated) 800 or so.
you're right, the XM-L with it's comparatively large die is not an LED for throw... in the P60 format. but on the other hand, lights such as the Olight SR90 uses the SST-90 LED which has an enormous emitter and is a veritable spotlight of a torch.
the XM-L can very easily deliver arseloads of throw if combined with a large reflector. a good example of this would be the Jetbeam M1Xm, which uses an XM-L driven at 3A and a large reflector to deliver 750 lumens out the front with enough throw to light objects up at 300 meters.
Either way, it's certainly a lot of light (in both ways! haha...) for the money
by the looks of it each LED is being fed at around 890mA, which by Cree's datasheet would put that at 359lm per emitter, for a total of about 1,068 lumens for all three, at the emitter.
the reflectors look relatively efficient, so i'd say that you're probably looking at an out-the-front lumen rating of (very roughly estimated) 800 or so.
you're right, the XM-L with it's comparatively large die is not an LED for throw... in the P60 format. but on the other hand, lights such as the Olight SR90 uses the SST-90 LED which has an enormous emitter and is a veritable spotlight of a torch.
the XM-L can very easily deliver arseloads of throw if combined with a large reflector. a good example of this would be the Jetbeam M1Xm, which uses an XM-L driven at 3A and a large reflector to deliver 750 lumens out the front with enough throw to light objects up at 300 meters.
Either way, it's certainly a lot of light (in both ways! haha...) for the money
Looks good! Anywhere in the UK that sells this? I'm looking for a decent budget torch with as long a throw as possible, any guess at the throw this has?
it won't have much throw due to it's little wee reflectors.
look for lights in the same form factor but with only a single XM-L if you're looking for throw.