[AT] [Bulk] Re: Todays flashlights

[David Rotigel]

Thank you SO! I have several MiniMags and will be looking for conversion kits at Home Depot in the near future!
	Dave

On Nov 20, 2014, at 10:04 AM, Stephen Offiler <soffiler at gmail.com> wrote:

> Candlepower is not the best way to evaluate a flashlight.  It is a value
> that can be manipulated very easily by your typical unscrupulous
> marketing/sales people.  The American National Standards Institute
> recognized there was a lot of monkey business going on, and stepped in with
> a new standard just a couple years ago, called ANSI/NEMA FL-1.
> 
> One of the FL-1 ratings is lumens, which is an unambiguous measurement of
> total light output, but it does not describe how tight (spot) or wide
> (flood) the beam is.  Same lumens in a spot beam will seem very bright (but
> over a much smaller area) vs. a flood beam.  FL-1 also rates by distance,
> how far the beam of light will travel until it peters out to a given
> (fairly low) intensity. Knowing both lumens and distance on flashlights
> that are legitimately rated to FL-1 will allow you to compare and choose.
> High lumens with short distance means you're looking at a flood beam, for
> example.  A very tight beam that travels far is only good if you typically
> need to see something a long way off.  It's not very good at all if you
> are, say, changing a tire or something.  The spot is small and terribly
> bright when used upclose.
> 
> By the way, FL-1 also rates runtime, which is how long it runs until the
> batteries peter out to 10% of the intial lumen output.
> 
> On to Maglites.  The owner, Anthony Maglica, is a steadfast, diehard MADE
> IN USA kind of guy. Check:
> 
> http://maglite.com/about/history
> 
> I am seeing some Maglite discussion here, on the mutiple D-cell lights,
> C-cell, and the ones taking 2 AA's which are called MiniMags.  If you have
> older ones around, you can convert to LED using kits supplied by third
> parties.  For the MiniMags, an outfit called NiteIze has some
> cost-effective kits.  You can get these all over the Internet, and I've
> seen them in camping stores like REI.
> 
> http://www.niteize.com/collection/LED-Upgrades.asp
> 
> 
> For the C- and D-cell lights, there are a bunch of LED conversion kits out
> there, sometimes replacing the whole head and requiring fancier power
> sources. The cost-effective ones are called "drop-ins" because it's really
> just an LED built into the shape of the incandescent bulb that normally
> fits.  I have a couple of TerraLux that I'm pretty happy with:
> 
> http://terraluxportable.com/products/led-conversion-kits/
> 
> 
> SO
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Dan Glass <dglass at numail.org> wrote:
> 
>> I never heard of a flashlight that was too bright.  My biggest one is
>> six million candlepower and I would still buy a brighter one if I could
>> find it.
>> 
>> 
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