An Introduction to High-Performance Flashlights (2011) | Hacker News Reader

An Introduction to High-Performance Flashlights (2011)

asos1.com

127 pointsnkurz56 comments

If you are looking for a flashlight I maintain the largest and most complete databases of flashlight specifications:

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.

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.

another UI note... dim selections that are eliminated by previous choices. Example: type=headlamp. Then when I pick battery, don't let me pick 4xD because there aren't any results.

'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%...

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.

bookmarked great site. I was long searching for a slim light for 14500. Your site at least showed exactly one. I guess slim 14500 is an unusual wish. Nicely done!

Cool resource, thanks a lot!

Two suggestions from me:

a) Some kind of explanation (hover text?) for different options. To understand what all the options for the power switches meant I had to look at a few lights from each category.

b) allow different sites for prices (amazon from different countries might be an easy start?)

No dive lights over 1000 lumen? My friend, you are missing a HUGE range of lights. Light Monkey, Halcyon, L4M, FinnSub, MB, dozens more brands.

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.

UltraFire is definitely a crappy choice - the capacities are often highly overrated. There's also one or two instances you can find on the Internet where they've exploded, and amusingly enough even "fake" ones with slightly altered wording exist, like "UitraFlrc".

TrustFire is not so bad for a value brand, the only explosion report I can find comes from someone who massively overcharged one and the capacities are not quite as inflated.

Avoid Sony cells. Sony never sold to end customers.

That's the official story for all the major manufacturers if you ask them, but they do get out there; I find it very hard to believe that these are fake or used:

http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Sony%20US18650NC1%...

This guy has probably reviewed more 18650s than anyone else:

http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Common18650Individ...

http://lygte-info.dk/info/Batteries18650-2011%20UK.html

http://www.lygte-info.dk/info/Battery%2018650%20UK.html

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.

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.

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/

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.

http://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight is also a fairly active community.

I was reading the datasheet of the Cree XT-E [1] which is > 90 CRI at warm-white and still 130 lumens per watt. Perhaps when they start showing up in flashlights you'll get better at seeing the snakes. Although for rattlesnakes (which we looked for in the dark as kids) a UV light is much better since they (and scorpions) glow when exposed to UV spectrum.

[1] http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/Cree/LED%20Components%20an...

CPF is great. I originally found CPF when I was Googling the most powerful (flash)light ever and found this thread; http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?92396-1kW...

Click that link and tell me that doesn't make you chuckle. Now I just need a tank...

Edit: It has been a couple of years since I paid attention, but finding a Cree (flashlight) LED with a high-CRI is tough. My HDS has a Cree with 90+ CRI with a 3700k tint which is somewhat rare. Nichia made the best high-cri with more preferable 4400k+ tints.

I'll see your 1kW arc and raise you an 800 million candlepower arc light.[1]

I got to see it in action and talk to the owner, Bob, about it for quite a while a few years ago. Really nice guy and an incredible piece of history/machinery.

These lights were used as part of the coastal defense system to spot and highlight approaching enemy aircraft. One fascinating thing are the pre-radar trackers used to drive these lights. They used man-in-the-loop and automated stereo visual and aural systems to locate the incoming planes.[2]

[1] http://www.victorysearchlights.com/#see [2] http://www.victorysearchlights.com/victory2.html

Wow, thanks for that link. Gotta love old-school military tech. Trying to illuminate an airplane... I do not want that job.

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.

Fenix FL? I only find an HL 50?

Similiar to zebra and also great quality for price are armytek and spark-light.

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

That looks like a pretty bright idea. Would the schematics be considered illuminated manuscripts?

They would indeed. Once I polish off a couple of things on it, I'll post up the whole build.

I see you subscribe to Photonicinduction as well :)

His playlist of "extreme light bulbs" is fun:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSu13VtLjZsSMiTLdQlEa...

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

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

Reminds me of Julian Iletts extremely cheap 100W ghetto flashlight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIBIqaeiE2M

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.

Same here; my most expensive light is my HDS Systems light. The thing is so over-engineered, it will probably outlast me.

For those not initiated, HDS is often regarded as the best mass-produced (as opposed to hand-made) flashlight brand available. Another contender for this title is surefire.

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

Hmm... I had to go look this up, and you are partly right. Here is a snippet from 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."

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...

Which HDS do you have? I'd like to have a better flashlight for getting through the woods in the dark.

I think it is the EDC Executive with orange cerakote. The programmability of the thing is awesome. There is a locator beacon function that I would have loved to have on my lost Fenix P2D Q5. Honestly though, if you just want a good flashlight, Fenix and Zebralight are more than good enough. For the woods though, I definitely advise getting the highest CRI you can. The warmer tints usually have better CRI.

With standard CRI LEDs (~70 CRI) I experienced a strange effect. Standing in a field and shining the light (Fenix P2D) into the tree line, the treeline and much of the forest behind it would be illuminated enough to make out details, but I could not judge the distance of anything behind the treeline. It was like the treeline was a wall where my depth perception stopped. With my high-CRI LED, even though it is not as bright (120 vs 180 lumens) I am able to see "better".

It is all subjective though. There are some good threads on CPF showing picture comparisons between high and low-CRI. For me though, the differences at the conscious level are very subtle. Lots of vision comprehension is below the conscious level. OK, I am done babbling. :)

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

http://xkcd.com/1095/

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

wait till you hear about preppers

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

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.

The Coast HP1 seems to be a great value for $10 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IEMUOWU/

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...

You want value for money?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OLOQERE

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...

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

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.

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

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.

I'm not sure if it qualifies as "high-performance" -- but I'd just like to mention Hexbright: 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://www.hexbright.com/blogs/news/

Sold out

Hopefully there will be more. Adafruit claims to have 7 in stock: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1725

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.

You're doing better (or worse, depending on your perspective) than this guy. http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?309262-I-...

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

http://cygolite.com/products/index.html

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-...

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.

How do they compare to the Fenix lights?

I have a Fenix BT20 which is a great light but I have been looking for something a bit stronger. The Fenix BT30 is only ~ $100 for 1800 burst lumens.

http://www.fenix-store.com/fenix-bc30-led-bike-light/

I don't know about Fenix lights, but my experience with Cygolite has been excellent so far. I even broke the support on my bike and they sent a replacement free of charge.

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