300 Lumens Mini CREE LED Flashlight. $6.62 FS

[LurkingInNC]

. . . The differences in brightness are more likely due to the LED driver than the inherent capabilities of the batteries.

I was thinking that the 3 AAAs were likely configured in series and therefore delivering in the range of 3.6 - 4.5 volts as compared to 1.2 - 1.5 volts from a single A, and therefore more power (brighter), but at the expense of run time. Now I'm wondering if I was missing something. Does the led driver 'manipulate' the voltage arriving at the led regardless of the battery configuration? Is that how a light can get more power out of a single A battery despite it's relatively low voltage?

Am I even in the right neighborhood, or completely ignorant on this matter, lol?

 

[Stas]

Got mine in a couple of days ago and the batteries came in yesterday (Trustfire 14500 @ 3.7V, 900mAH). Amazing flashlights! Extremely bright and very dirable. On the widest setting I was able to light up the trees in a pitch black forest from 150ft away relatively well. I wanted these mostly for getting under the desk and working inside computers. However, I find these to bee a little too bright for that, as they create much glare and reflections that blind you. One small con - the light is too cool for my liking, it has obvious blue tint to it (but not purple like some el-cheapo LED lights). I prefer pure white around 4300K.
Perfect for emergency lights around the house, and probably good for camping, too (stick one in the car, tent, backpack, etc.)

 

[Childs]

I think they sell these in Costco now...a 3 pack for like $15-20. Maybe not 300l, but they looked like heavy duty tact lights.

 

[lokiju]

Got mine yesterday. Ordered the day I created the OP.

I ordered some batteries off eBay that others were ordering and should of done my due dillegence to make sure they'd fit, they do not. Not a knock on this flash light or deal but just make sure you get the right rechargable batteries if you go that route.

The flashlight itself is very bright. I have a Fenix light and this is actually brighter if I'm not mistaken.

For the money, it's well worth getting if you want a crazy bright light for dirt cheap.

I'm just using a single AA battery in it for now and it's bright enough with that.

 

[BadThad]

I finally got my lights yesterday too. All 3 of them tested and working. This turned out to be an awesome deal in the end! I have to admit I was getting concerned for awhile. LOL

 

[lokiju]

I finally got my lights yesterday too. All 3 of them tested and working. This turned out to be an awesome deal in the end! I have to admit I was getting concerned for awhile. LOL

Yeah, same here. Was about to the point where I figured it wasn't going to show.

To anyone else doing this deal, keep that in mind. It will come it will just take FOREVER!

 

[jor8888]

got mine yesterday, way brighter than the 9LED. Bought another one from fleebay for 6.20 ship from Hong Kong this time so should be faster.

 

[PliotronX]

Received mine yesterday and waited all frickin day to play with it at night. Also received TrustFire 14500's and a TR-001 charger. Working out very well, I call this torch my portable daylight because the wide setting covers a rather substantial amount of area. Its optical quality is nothing really to write home about but what you get in return is the ability to focus the beam as a maglite which might come in handy for blinding unsuspecting friends at a distance. I am surprised that it doesn't seem, at least subjectively, that much brighter than my oldie Ultrafire C3 (XRE-P4) on the same 14500 or my keychain light the Tank007 E08 with a 10440 cell. Can't really beat it for the price though. Thanks OP for the new toy :wub:

 

[BlueWeasel]

Could someone who bought off Ebay and would recommend their particular light PM me with the link?

I'm confused by all the Cree offerings in the $8-$10 range. I see different battery configurations and not sure which one to get.

 

[shortylickens]

Thats way too cheap for a CREE LED. I already got two nice tactical lights and some decent low end LED's like the ITP A3 and Gerber firecracker and such.

 

[jor8888]

seach for : 7W 300LM cree

 

[markrb38]

I got mine yesterday and took them to work. We measured them for brightness. I work for a company that makes lights for aircraft. They measured at just under 3000 candela. I haven't measured any other flashlights so I don't know how they compare. Our landing lights are well over 50,000 candela, but those are for small aircraft.
Overall pretty happy for less then $7 and guys at work are asking me to get some for them.

 

[LurkingInNC]

I got mine yesterday and took them to work. We measured them for brightness. I work for a company that makes lights for aircraft. They measured at just under 3000 candela. . . .

A) What battery did you use?
B) Can you convert that to lumens for us neophytes?

 

[jor8888]

I use this web to convert assuming 30 degree angle I got 64 lum.

http://led.linear1.org/lumen.wiz

 

[markrb38]

According to the design engineers at my work Lumens is actually a very poor way to describe brightness. It is extremely inaccurate unless you know the angles and distances involved. Way over my head. I am a simple manufacturing engineer. I can build it and troubleshoot it, but don't design or spec it out.
The readout I saw stated 25 lum, but again that is a number the guys ignore.

I used a regular AA battery.

 

[Jarhead]

Lumens describe the total amount of light comming out of a source of light, and it is very, very precise and is usually measured in an Integrating Sphere.

Here is an example of an Integrating Sphere:
http://www.labsphere.com/products/s.../light-measurement-spheres/3Meter-Sphere.aspx

The unit that one would used to measure light striking a surface is called Lux or FootCandles and can be measured with very cheap instrumentation. One also needs to know the distance for it to have any real meaning.
http://www.newark.com/tenma/72-9195/compact-light-meter-40000lux/dp/57T6868

Here is an example of a light source:
http://www.newark.com/cree/xmlezw-00-0000-0000s630f/led-white-1200lm/dp/27T9496

If you open a datasheet of an LED, they will have the iso-polar or iso-candela plots of the light emission distribution, sometimes they will call it spatial distribution, see page 9 here:
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXM-L_EZW.pdf

Once you have the spatial distribution, and other items, you can design reflectors, optics, lenses and control the light output distribution, and spread it out, or focus it (like in a flashlight) into an emission pattern you want, say, even light a streetlamp and shape it into required patterns specified by customers or various standards.

You also have light emitted from a surface, such as footLamberts, nits, or candela per meter ^2, and it tells you how much light is emitted from the surface, such as the monitor you are reading this on. However this tells you nothing about the distribtution. Companies like 3M make films called BEF, which control the light emission pattern (these are placed between the light guide/diffuser and the LCD. This can be made very narrow to make it peak at an intended direction, and give a monitor very high nits or footLambert values. However with BEF films, off-angle, the amount of light is drastically reduced- often the total value of light drops significantly- but is useful if you want the display to look good in the specifications, or if you need to overcome ambient lighting, and the item the display is put in can be easily repositioned, or if the user can move their head to another angle.

 

[LurkingInNC]

The coupon is dead, now $7.10 each (still a great price).

Today (might be today only) you can get a 3 pack of what looks like the same thing over at Meritline for $19.99 ($6.66 each, free shipping). States that it has a Cree Q5 emitter and puts out 280 lumens, but as we've heard, that's not a dependable comparator.

I noticed that the light sold at Meritline (and other sites like DealExtreme) is branded as 'Sipik' while the one at TomTop doesn't appear to be branded at all. Now I know that Sipik is a chinese knockoff, but I wonder if there is a difference in quality between a branded chinese knockoff and a generic chinese knockoff, lol?

http://www.meritline.com/cree-led-flash-light-xp-g-q5-convex-zoom---p-69326.aspx?strcoup=&dealid=33332

 

[MrTeal]

Try LED331 or LED430. The TT LED coupon is just the last day of the current month.

From comparisons I've seen most people seem to prefer the TT flashlights to the Meritline Sipiks, but that could be entirely match dependent.

 

[LurkingInNC]

. . .
From comparisons I've seen most people seem to prefer the TT flashlights to the Meritline Sipiks, but that could be entirely match dependent.

One thing I noticed is that the Meritline Sipiks used to have Cree Q3 emitters. Seems that they've recently switched to Cree Q5 emitters, which are what's used in the TT lights. Wonder if the differences you noted were due to comparisons of lights with two different emmitters?

One other note on the current Meritline deal: the 3 pack appears to be one each in red, green, and blue. This might be a plus or a minus depending on how you feel about the traditional black case.

 

[MrTeal]

One thing I noticed is that the Meritline Sipiks used to have Cree Q3 emitters. Seems that they've recently switched to Cree Q5 emitters, which are what's used in the TT lights. Wonder if the differences you noted were due to comparisons of lights with two different emmitters?

One other note on the current Meritline deal: the 3 pack appears to be one each in red, green, and blue. This might be a plus or a minus depending on how you feel about the traditional black case.

Quite possibly. I would actually be quite surprised if the two weren't made at the same factory with the same tooling and parts. I prefer the black with no logo myself, but I can see why people would like the colors.

I have this T6 beast on the way (2x 18650), I can't wait to compare it to the smaller OP lights.
http://www.meritline.com/zoom-cree-t6-5-mode-white-led-flashlight---p-78962.aspx

 

[The0ne]

I tried many of these small flashlights before and this is my favorite. It's bright, has consistent area coverage and doesn't drain the single battery it uses much. People, you can't go wrong with this flashlight. Oh and the construction is good, not your cheap plastic. Buy several for when power is out, that's what I did. I even have one in the car and one in my backpack at all times

It beats any of flashlights my sister has in her house including the so called heavy duty ones hahaha

Edit: Wanted to add that I would recommend going through meritline as I have no clue about this website.

 

[jor8888]

I have 2 diff version, 1 with just on/off. the other one has 3 modes, on/high on/low, flashing. I dont like the 3 mode one b/c sometime I go turn it off and it just ends up changing to diff mode.

 

[jhansman]

Can't seem to fine the one I got from eBay there anymore, so it looks like your best source is TT and wait for the boat

 

[LurkingInNC]

. . .
I have this T6 beast on the way (2x 18650), I can't wait to compare it to the smaller OP lights.
http://www.meritline.com/zoom-cree-t6-5-mode-white-led-flashlight---p-78962.aspx

Compare lol? One is a flashlight, the other is gonna be a car headlight. Did you ever run the OP light on a 14500 battery?

 

[MrTeal]

Compare lol? One is a flashlight, the other is gonna be a car headlight. Did you ever run the OP light on a 14500 battery?

No, but I have bench tested it @ 3.7V using a lab supply. It's a huge change vs running on a single AA.