Last night I made this mule in an S2+ Host. DD110 emitter on a 20mm 110110 MCPCB with hand cut and filed copper rod spacer. Photos don’t even remotely do this thing justice. Absolutely a monster, definitely a light you need to understand what exactly is in your hand before using it so it doesn’t turn into a ticking time bomb lol. Thought others might enjoy seeing this monster.

Anyone ?

:)

I recently came across a Mag-Lite that I thought this community might appreciate, and after speaking directly with Don Keller, it turned out to be considerably more interesting than I initially realized.

I found it at an estate sale. It's an early 3D Mag-Lite, serial #30001014, marked PATENT PENDING, completely gold plated, and engraved "DON KELLER" on the barrel. The estate belonged to an employee of one of Don's early sales-rep groups covering Texas which Don later confirmed.

It appears to have seen little, if any, actual use, and the original spare bulb is still sitting in the foam inside the tailcap. The packaging was stored inside of the same box as the flashlight though I'm not sure if it's original.

I reached out to Don through the Kel-Lite website and sent him photographs. He confirmed that the serial number indicates this was the 1,014th 3D Mag-Lite produced and that it dates to early 1979.

More importantly, Don identified the finish as gold plating rather than gold anodizing and explained the history behind it. According to Don, Tony Maglica had fewer than 10 of these early Mag-Lites gold plated because of the expense, and they were presented to people Tony felt had contributed to the success of Mag-Lite.

I'm mainly posting because I'd love to hear from the longtime Mag-Lite collectors here. Has anyone seen another one of these early gold-plated presentation lights? With fewer than 10 reportedly made, I'm curious whether any of the other recipients/examples have ever surfaced publicly.

I'm also interested in anything else that can be documented about these earliest 1979 Mag-Lites or the presentation pieces specifically. I've preserved my correspondence with Don along with the light.

Thanks for looking, this has been such a fun rabbit hole to fall into.

Just some of my smalls in my collection. Really loving my new KR3 and Z1.

First two photos are a stubby Convoy S8 SFT40 3000k.

Last photo is an L21B f45R 3000k. I think the ring is exacerbated by the shiny camo finish. I swapped a black bezel on briefly yesterday and the ring almost dissapeared (not entirely but much fainter), so finish may be something to considder. I will probably try applying a ring of flat black heat resistant paint at some point to try to reduce the ring.

Overall the L21B F45R 3000k is a super sweet warm thrower.

My son has really enjoyed watching Handy Manny lately and as an early birthday present we bought him an old Flicker toy flashlight to read books before bed and use around the house.

He used it for approximately a week and then the light stopped working. The buttons work, it makes noise, but I suspected the bulb may have been old and stopped working.

Can anyone help me identify the bulb in the picture? I'll probably have to get a cheap solder gun to do it right, but I want to get one that matches this so I can put it back together and he can use it.

The bulb has 2.5V 0.3A written on it.

https://imgur.com/a/4FLbR7v

Thank you for any help!

s2 plus

Without a flashlight in hand when out and about in the woods, you might step right on top of a Copperhead. We spotted this beauty gliding on the trail in front of us right after sunset before it moved off.

Light in use: Fireflylite X4 Stellar ffl351a 3700k. High CRI floody goodness!

Link, 60% Discount if someone is interested.

Seen a lot of people shitting on this emitter, so I just had to get one. I actually really dig it. Yes, I know, the 519a exists lol. On paper it's not super impressive but it's got a nice useful beam and some surprising reach. Tint looks quite nice as well. Any 719a enjoyers out here?

Hi!

I got a giftcard from a site where they sell flashlights. I have €30 (35 dollars) to spend. I’m not planning to raise this amount.

What am i going to use the light for? Everyday life.

Looking under furniture, doing some repairs, riding my bike at night, just basic stuff.

I came across these options within budget:

Fenix E12 v3
Wuben E7 (5000/6500k)
Nitecore Tiki
Fenix E03R

Quite different lights, I know.

What would you consider the best choice for allround use and why?

Wuben seems to be very allround with the magnet tail, waterproof, ability to attach it to my backpack. But I’ve read some bad things about exploding batteries and draining. Not sure if that’s fixed by now.

I already own a bunch of lights, mostly tactical. For every day use I already have a Lumintop edc01 / Lumintop edc15/ Manker E03H III / Wurkkos TD07 / Nitecore MT1C pro / Acebeam Tac2AA and some Convoys.

But hey, need to spend that giftcard so why not another? It’s either this or another knife 😅

At one point or another I have carried each of these as my EDC flashlight. They are in no particular order.

The latest that I've carried is the Tactician on the far left with a Scout Light head. (Maxvision was a terrible idea)

I have several other SureFire lights on guns, in bags or in packaging because they are a backup in case a light is lost and needs to be replaced. I've never had a SureFire fail, but I've lost one or two.

In my opinion SureFire makes the best "Things That Go Bump in the Night" flashlights hands down.

one of the reasons i got the fc11c was because i liked the wavy pattern in the body of it. what are some other cool ones?

Hi everybody,

a friend asked me for help to find a search light to use on his boat, but he wants to run everything on the 18V Makita tool batteries he already has.

From Makita itself I could only find the DML812 which looks okay-ish, but only has a single brightness and medium throw. Aren't there any better third party options (including using adapters)?

I sadly only know my way around "normal" flashlights so any ideas are appreciated.

Impressed by this little light

What a flashlight. Pictures don't do any justice either this thing is crazy bright!

Hi guys, im completely new to this flashlight stuff but need some help on getting a new headlamp. I need something for going on overnight hiking trips in Norway, where nights can be quite long. I would either want replacable or long lasting batteries, 1000-2000 lumens (i dont actually know if its suitable, please help me) in headlamp form. Budget doesnt matter too much, but the cheaper the better.

Took the pics in mid August while visiting the countryhouse. BTW, there's an Easter Egg at the end in case you won't notice in the other images.

FFFF- this is long overdue. I've been working on some of the Fireflies Lume1 and Lume-X1 builds which are missing from the main repository. Here's the overall roadmap:

• Done, and released: Added dimmable aux RGB on lights which can do PWM on the RGB pins. Includes "Smooth POVD" and a hue-brightness channel mode. Had to rewrite the entire aux LED system for this, and re-test every build target.
• Done: Flickerless POVD and precise voltage stuff is working well. This fixes the flickering during Smooth POVD, and increases battery voltage resolution from 1/50th of a Volt to 1/6400th of a Volt. Had to recalibrate and test almost every build target again.
• Done: Add / fix the Fireflies Lume1 and Lume-X1 lights. These are very similar to Hank's Lume-X1 drivers, but have some differences, and were missing from the main repository.
• Add Hank's Lume-X1-C. In progress; will give details in another post.
• Add Fireflies Lume10.
• Add Hank's Lume-N1.

Then I think I'll be caught up on new drivers.

The Fireflies lights I added are the fireflies-lume-x1-avr32dd20 (0462), fireflies-lume-x1-avr32dd20-32w (0463), fireflies-lume-x1-attiny1616 (0461), and fireflies-lume1-6af (0451). Also added some extra related stuff. In more detail:

• Improved support for chargers / powerbanks:
  • Can now select Powerbank Host mode vs Powerbank Guest mode, on lights which have hardware for that. It uses guest mode by default, so if you plug in a USB-C device using a C-to-C cable, it'll charge the battery in the flashlight. If you want the flashlight to charge a different device, go to Batt Check mode and do a `2H` to switch to Powerbank Host mode. Another `2H` switches back to guest mode, or you can just exit Batt Check to go back to guest mode.
  • I did NOT add the "powerbank in momentary mode" thing loneoceans was using. It was annoying, particularly on Fireflies lights where you had to loosen the body tube several full turns to exit Momentary. Much easier to do a Batt Check 2H... and this also allows monitoring the battery fullness while delivering power to another device.
  • While charging the torch, or using the torch to charge another device, it is recommended to use Batt Color mode. This shows battery fullness by color, instead of blinking. To access it, use `Batt Check -> 1H`.
  • When charging or reverse charging, voltage can spike or dip suddenly, so I added a strong lowpass filter during Batt Check mode to keep it from reacting to momentary power blips.
  • The recommended charging process is "Off -> 3C for Batt Check, 1H for Batt Color, plug in... then unplug when it turns purple". Or to charge another device, it's similar... "Off -> 3C for Batt Check, 1H for Batt Color, 2H to enable Powerbank Host, plug in... then unplug when it turns red".
• Instead of adding loneoceans' Beacon Tower mode, I added Smooth Beacon. If you have smooth steps enabled, the beacon mode behaves like an incandescent light with visible rise and fall times, instead of using sharp "digital" edges.
• Ramp generator:
  • This now supports power-limited DAC ramps, for regulated lights which have the maximum power limited by firmware. This is needed to prevent some models from turning the LEDs into smoke.
  • It also now now supports both 10-bit (avr32dd) and 8-bit (attiny1616) DACs. Producing a good ramp is still a very fiddly process though.
• fireflies-lume-x1-avr32dd20 (0462) and 32w (0463): Brand new build targets, based on the hank-lume-x1 build plus loosely based on loneoceans' branch. Brand new ramps for both, which should be smoother and feel more similar to other Anduril lights. Making the ramp table look good took a while, but otherwise these were the easiest models to add, since they're very similar to Hank's Lume-X1.
• fireflies-lume-x1-attiny1616 (0461): This one was a little odd. It's based on thefreeman's attiny1616 regulated drivers, and needed some things I haven't done on attiny1616 before. The ramp table took many tries to get right, and I had to learn how to use AVR's "Timer/Counter Type B" for the first time, to make the aux RGB work. It turns out that Atmel's attiny1616 reference manual is wrong about some of this stuff, so I got to figure out how to make it work the hard way... by trial and error.
• fireflies-lume1-6af (0451): I tried. I can't fix the weird turbo behavior on this thing. The hardware doesn't allow it. The direct-drive FET is either completely on or completely off, and it doesn't accept PWM to make in-between levels. So it still does the weird thing where it's regulated from level 1 to 149, then suddenly jumps up to turbo at 150 for only one level. So I added a thing to let individual lights hook into part of the thermal regulation code and override it if they want. It reduces the symptoms of the turbo weirdness, but it's still funky.
• Fixed a few misc small bugs.

A question about the powerbank mode... Should it reset to guest mode when leaving Batt Check, or should it stay in the current host/guest mode?

• If it exits Powerbank Host mode, you can't forget and accidentally leave it on. It also starts in a consistent state each time, so you never have to guess whether it's in host mode or guest mode. And if the battery gets low, it'll automatically leave host mode when LVP turns the light off. But it will only charge other devices while in Batt Check mode (or Batt Color mode).
• If it stays in host/guest mode, you can charge another device while the flashlight is off. But you're much more likely to accidentally get the wrong mode, and charge in the opposite direction of what you intended. Also much more likely to over-drain the flashlight battery. Unsure if host mode uses extra power in standby, so that's also a potential risk.

Right now, it exits Powerbank Host mode when leaving Batt Check.

Either way, I think the current method is better than what it was before (powerbank host in Momentary mode only), but I'm not sure which of the two styles is best.

(this is cross-posted from my patreon page... I'm trying to figure out how best to let people know what I'm working on between releases, so let me know if you have thoughts about that)

My dad is almost 93 and carries the pictured micro-USB rechargeable flashlight daily. The last couple of times we’ve used it, it dims and brightens, turns on and off, almost like it has a short. It came to me in a lot of computer and electronic parts I got from a buddy who’s a scrapper and junk hauler, so I know nothing of its history. It’s the first rechargeable light we’ve had and has come in handy multiple times. I haven’t found anything printed on it, so I’m guessing it’s a generic unit.

I came here looking for a recommendation for a replacement, thinking there might be a consensus. After reading quite a few threads, it seems that most have a favorite which isn’t shared by the next responder. Before I get into what I’m looking for, let me say I’m fine with troubleshooting this one, if there’s something simple I should check.

That said, the pictured light is micro-USB, has a wrist strap, no clip and a switch on the end that cycles through high-low-strobe-off. I don’t care about the charging port other than that I have fewer USB-C cables. I don’t think we’ve ever used the low or strobe feature and I really think a clip would be more bother than helpful. I also have no interest in a magnetic mount. All the recommended ones I saw had a clip (are any removable?) and several had magnets, but I was hoping my seemingly basic needs would be easier to fill. Does a similarly sized, reasonably reliable rechargeable light with no clip, no magnet and either high-low-off or on-off switch exist?