Feed: Lithium Flashlight - AggScore: 48.4
Summary: Lithium Flashlight
Everything About The Lithium Flashlight
The CR123A Battery
So with all of this talk about lithium flashlights, in this blog post I’d like to explain a little bit about why the CR123A battery is the “fuel” of choice for great flashlights, and also explain a little about the CR123 batteries themselves, without getting too technical.
CR123A vs Alkaline
Probably the first a most obvious difference between CR123A batteries and alkaline batteries, is their voltage. Due to its chemistry (LiMnO2), it has a nominal voltage of 3.0v as compared to alkaline’s 1.5v in traditional sizes of AA, AAA, C, and D.
While a CR123a battery is roughly 1/3 the physical size of a traditional AA battery, it provides roughly 10% more energy capacity.
CR123A … 3.0v * 1.5Ah = 4.50Wh
AA .. 1.5v * 2.7Ah = 4.05Wh
Real Use in Flashlights
In actual use, there are four distinct advantages that a CR123 battery has over alkaline cells: capacity, discharge curve, operating temperature, and shelf life.
As seen above, the CR123A battery has greater capacity in a much smaller package. Obviously this can equate to greater runtimes and smaller flashlights.
If you’ve ever used a alkaline powered flashlight, you have probably noticed that unless you are using brand new batteries, the light just doesn’t seem as bright as you remember it to be. You are not imagining things, it really is dimmer. This is because alkaline cells cannot maintain their operating voltage very well over the life of the battery. Unlike alkaline cells, CR123A cells have a much “flatter” discharge curve. This means that over the life the battery, the lithium flashlight will maintain its brightness far better than an alkaline powered flashlight.
A lot of people like to keep a flashlight stored in his or her vehicle for emergency use. But you will be in for quite a surprise if you were to reach for your flashlight during an emergency in the dead of winter only to find it not working. This would be because alkaline cells can freeze with cold temperatures. Here are the typical operating temperatures of both alkaline cells and CR123A batteries:
CR123A: -40° – 140° F
AA alkaline: 0° – 130° F
If you live in a colder climate, you can see how the lithium flashlight would definitely have the advantage. In addition to operating temperature differences, a CR123A battery has a 10 year shelf life, unlike alkaline’s approximate 7 year shelf life.
Obviously a CR123A battery powered lithium flashlight would be the best bet to keep in a vehicle for emergency use.
While CR123A batteries tend to be more costly, below is a high quality, USA made CR123A battery option that is more affordable than most:
Stay safe out there and keep a good, quality, lithium flashlight on you.
7060 LED Pelican Flashlights Review
Pelican flashlights are used by professionals everyday in order to get the job done. For those who are looking for a bright, rechargeable, and versatile flashlight, you might not need to look much further that the Pelican 7060 LED. The Pelican 7060 LED was actually developed in joint effort between Pelican Products and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and is the standard flashlight issued to its officers.
These 7060 Pelican flashlights produce an amazing 130 lumens of blinding light and will run for up to 90 minutes on its rechargeable Li-Ion battery. One nice and unique features of the 7060, is it’s dual switches. Is has both a forward-click switch near the bezel for thumb activation and also a tail-cap click switch for tactical use. I personally prefer to us the rear, tail-cap switch as opposed to the body switch, but I’ve found that having both is convenient.
The battery appears to an 18650 size lithium-ion cell, but housed in a proprietary Pelican casing with proprietary contacts. If I were to have one gripe with this light, it would be that I can’t really purchased 18650 cells on my own and use them in the light. I would need Li-Ion cells from Pelican instead.
The flashlight is constructed primarily of a tough polymer with aluminum cooling fins for the LED. I personally like the feel of the polymer body as it doesn’t feel nearly as cold as all aluminum bodies in the cold winter months.
This Pelican 7060 is shorter than a 2-D cell light, considerably skinnier and lighter, but produces over 6 times the light output. It truly is impressive.
Be sure to checkout the these 7060 LED Pelican flashlights.
-Robert
Great Inexpensive Hiking Flashlight
When it comes to a hiking flashlight, just like with the rest of your outdoor gear, you generally don’t want to skimp on your equipment. Does this mean that you have to spend a forune? Not necessarily. I was recently able to checkout a relatively inexpensive SureFire flashlight that is great for hiking. In fact, by the end of this article, you will know of a great all around hiking flashlight for under $50
So your hiking backpack lacks a good, high quality hiking flashlight. Obviously you will want a waterproof flashlight that is rugged, dependable, and bright enough to see your immediate surrounding but also in the distance when you need it. Before you jump to an LED flashlight, I would strongly suggest an incandescent hiking flashlight due to its better color rendition. LED flashlights are great around the home, but out in the woods, your outdoor gear should really contain a quality incandescent (Xenon).
Based on the above considerations, I’d strongly recommend you give the SureFire G2 Nitrolon a good long look. It is powered by 2x CR123 lithium batteries and produces a bright 65 lumens of output with a 60 minute run time. In really dark situation such as out in the woods at night, 65 lumens is plenty sufficient. The beam it produces is a nice mixture of side spill, which allows you to see your immediate surroundings, with a bright center hot spot to see in the distance.
Be sure to pick up a SureFire G2 for a great hiking flashlight before you set out on your next hiking vacation. It will complement the rest of your quality outdoor gear that’s stashed in your hiking backpack.
Lithium Flashlight Reliability – SureFire G3 Experience
As one who loves the outdoors, I try to combine my lithium flashlight enthusiasm with Geocaching, which turns into “night caching.” After the recent blog post I wrote on here about lithium flashlight color rendition, I decided to pick up a SureFire incandescent flashlight to see if it would help with finding Geocaches during night hikes in wooded areas.
So on the way home from work this past Friday, I bought a SureFire G3 Nitrolon lithium flashlight from my local outdoors outfitter. Of course, being the flashlight enthusiast that I am, I immediately compared it to a family member’s SureFire G2 upon arriving home. The G2 is supposed to produce 65 lumens of light while my new G3 is supposed to provided 105 lumens. To my surprise, my new G3 was actually dimmer. Not exactly sure what to think of it, I decided to bring it along for our night caching adventure anyway.
Before continuing, I’ll come straight out and state that I’m a firm believer in the quality of SureFire flashlight and products and own a variety myself. But there is a reason that it is said on a flashlight discussion forum that I’m a member of that when it comes to flashlight, “two is one, and one is none,” regardless of what brand or type of light you may own. After around 10-20 minutes of total use with my new G3, the lamp began to dim rapidly and over the course of about 20-30 seconds, the lamp dimmed to nothing and died. Luckily, I did have my SureFire E1B LED flashlight in my pocket and used it to get back through the woods to my vehicle.
If a general consensus were to be take among the flashlight community, most would definitely agree that my experience Friday night with my new SureFire G3 was definitely a fluke and far from the norm for a SureFire. This morning a quick phone call to SureFire customer service and there is a new SureFire P90 replacement lamp en route. Normally, incandescent lamps are not covered by SureFire’s lifetime warranty on all its products, but this was obviously a unique case. In the rare event that something does go wrong with a SureFire lithium flashlight, SureFire’s customer service is great with taking care of the problem.
So as a reminder to everyone, it is very important to keep a spare flashlight on you!
If anyone has any similar experiences with his or her lithium flashlight or otherwise, I’d love to hear about it in the comment section.
Oh, and to any fellow Geocachers, hunting for Geocaches at night and navigating through the woods was much easier/better with the incandescent while it lasted. I’m hooked.
-Robert
Lithium Flashlight Color Rendering – Incan vs LED
If you are about to purchase your first lithium flashlight and you’ve done your research, you have probably decided on an LED lithium flashlight. I mean, why not? They tend to brighter, smaller, and run for much longer than their incandescent counterparts. So why should you still be considering an incandescent? Color rendition.
So you’re probably thinking, “What is the world is color rendition?” Color rendering is the light’s ability to render or portray the colors of an object as compared to its appearance under sunlight (or some other ideal light source). Because LED’s produce light in a narrower portion of the light spectrum, LED’s have a lower CRI (color rendering index) score compared to an incandescent lithium flashlight.
Depending on how you use your lithium flashlight, color rendering may or may not be an issue for you. For example, if you work in IT or around electronics and have to regularly determine which wire is red and which is orange, or which is blue and which is purple, having a flashlight with a high CRI may be very advantageous and could possible prevent a catastrophe if you couldn’t determine the wire color correctly.
Below are two digital photos where camera setting were kept constant for both shots. On the top, is a SureFire P60 lamp (Xenon incandescent) and on the bottom, a SureFire P60L LED. Notice the big differences in the color.
I won’t go further into any of the details of CRI and light (Wikipedia is a good place to start if you want to learn more though), but just wanted to bring the topic of color rendering to light for people and how LEDs and incandescents and be quite different.
In closing, LED technology is advancing rapidly and will most likely achieve a CRI score similar to an incandescent in the future, but for the time being, a good-old incandescent is hard to beat when accurate colors are a must from your lithium flashlight.
SureFire LED Lithium Flashlight – SureFire 6P LED
If you are looking for a great all-around SureFire LED lithium flashlight, you definitely
owe it to yourself to check out the SureFire 6P
LED (or sometimes referred to as the 6PL). I have
personally owned this light for almost a year now and have found
it to be a fantastic all-around LED flashlight.
Basically, the SureFire 6PL is an aluminum, 2-CR123 powered
lithium flashlight which produces 80 lumens of bright, blinding
LED light. The original SureFire 6P is SureFire’s best
selling flashlight and known for its unprecedented quality,
reliability, and durability. The 6PL is same as the
original 6P, but with the addition of SureFire’s “P60L” LED
module. The 6PL measures just over 5 inches long, and has a
rugged Type II, black anodized finish.
Why the SureFire 6P LED Is So
Great
As you probably know, there are a whole variety of LED
flashlights available on the market today. Some that offer
click style tailcaps, twisting heads, multiple modes of
operation, multiple light levels, etc., etc. The 6PL in
contrast, is simple. It has an ultra-reliable
push-for-momentary tailcap (hold the button in and it produces
light; let go and it turns off) that produces a single level of
80 lumens of light. Its simple user interface, rugged body
and design, makes the SureFire 6P LED an excellent everyday
“workhorse” of a lithium flashlight. There is no worrying
about what mode you left it in last, or hours spent learning a
complicated user interface (some flashlight require the user to
actually program features on the flashlight). In addition
to producing 80 lumens of bright light, it is capable of running
for up to 11 hours on the 2-CR123 lithium batteries. I’ve
seen independents test from fellow flashlight enthusiasts that
verify this number (~3-4 hours of constant 80 lumens, then
declining output to the 11+ hour mark).
If you are looking for a reliable, bright, and extremely rugged
flashlight, look no further than the SureFire 6P
LED (or the nearly identical but lighter weight Nitrolon
version, the SureFire G2 LED), you won’t be
disappointed.
If anyone else has used a SureFire 6P LED lithium flashlight on a
regular basis, I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments
below.
-Robert
SureFire LED Lithium Flashlight for Everyday Carry
Today’s discussion is about a small SureFire LED lithium
flashlight that I’ve found to be the best little
flashlight for everyday carry. This small flashlight was
released earlier this year by SureFire out of Fountain Valley, CA
and it has been carried daily, clipped to my pocket for over 6
months now. What is the name of this amazing light that I
speak of? The SureFire E1B Backup.
First up, this little Surefire LED lithium flashlight really is
small! The E1B is only 4 in. long (slightly longer than my
index finger) and weighs only 2.80 oz. It is made of
aluminum and has a HAIII hard anodized black finish
(mil-spec). It includes a forward-click tailcap (press for
momentary light, click to keep on) which activates it’s two modes
of light output. To change modes, you simply turn it off
and quickly turn it back on to cycle between high and low.
What’s truly amazing though, is the shear brightness of its LED
and its amazing runtime on low. On high, this SureFire LED
produces a near blinding 80 lumens of light–more light than a big
3 D-cell flashlight! It’s low mode produces 5 lumens of
light for an amazing 37 hours.
My Thoughts Over The Past 6 Months
As I mentioned above, this Surefire LED lithium flashlight has
been clipped to my pocket and used regularly for over 6 months
now. Here are my experiences and findings.
First, let’s get my only gripe out of the way…
Unlike most other SureFire LED flashlights, it’s aluminum body
lacks knurling in the finish which I’ve found makes the light a
bit slippery at times. On the other hand though, it’s lack
of knurling is easier on your clothing and other items in your
pocket. I’d say it is probably a fair trade off.
I really like that when I turn the light on, it always come on in
its high mode first, then I have the option to cycle to
low. This way, if I’m walking along and see or hear
something and need to light it up, I don’t waste time have to
cycle to high. This SureFire E1B utilizes what SureFire
calls its Total Internal Reflection (TIR) lens which allows this
lithium flashlight to more efficiently capture all the light from
the LED emitter and “throw” it further distances than a similar
sized flashlight. I’ve found that it is really is amazing
how far you can see with a flashlight of this size.
In addition, it’s TIR lens also makes the 5 lumen low actually
useful in my opinion. 5 lumens is really not a lot of
light, but when all the light is projected tightly together, I’ve
found that it’s actually useful enough to walk around in the dark
if you need to conserve battery life.
In closing, I have been extremely happy with my SureFire E1B
lithium flashlight over the past 6 months of use. If you
are looking for a great lithium flashlight for everyday use that
is compact enough to fit in your pocket, I strongly urge you to
look no further than this SureFire LED flashlight–the E1B
Backup.
If you own one yourself or have any questions, I would love you
hear about you experiences or try to answer some questions.
Please feel free to comment below. Here is a link to the
SureFire E1B Backup.
Buying a Lithium Flashlight: Incandescent or LED?
When purchasing a lithium flashlight, one of the very first things one needs to consider is whether he or she would prefer an LED (light-emitting diode) or incandescent flashlight. Both lights have a variety of pros and cons and different attributes one needs to consider before purchasing one.
For the sake of this discussion, a SureFire G2® and a SureFire G2® LED, both excellent, top-notch lithium flashlights that carry lifetime warranties, will be used as a comparison. They are identical with the exception of being LED vs. incandescent, the LED version having an aluminum head, and a slight difference in light output (80 lumens [LED] vs. 65 lumens [incan.]).
Initial Cost
When comparing two lithium flashlights of similar size, make,
quality, and brightness, the LED lights will most likely be more
expensive.
For example, the LED version of the SureFire G2 is 1.8x the price of the incandescent version. Before writing off LED lithium flashlights based on the steeper price, consider some of the other comparisons below.
Battery
Runtime
When it comes to battery runtime, the LED is king over an
incandescent. Below are the runtimes of the two example
flashlights:
SureFire G2® – 1 hr. (1 full hour of constant brightness
with almost no diminished output)
SureFire G2® LED – 12 hr. (~3 hrs. constant brightness with
diminishing output to 12 hrs.)
As you can see, the CR123 lithium batteries will need replaced far less frequently in the LED flashlight, thus saving money on battery replacements.
Beam Tint
When it comes to beam tint, neither options really have an
advantage over the other one. Beam tint is really more of a
personal preference. In general, incandescent flashlights
have a much warmer (yellow looking) beam color, whereas LED
flashlights have a much cooler beam (white with a hint of blue,
purple, or green is common).
Ruggedness and
Durability
When it comes to durability and overall ruggedness, LED lithium
flashlights tend to be the winner. Because the LED emitter
does not have a filament to break or burn out, an LED lithium
flashlight is much more resistant to drops, vibration, and
physical shock.
Bulb
Replacement
Over certain periods of time, both LED and incandescent lamps
will need replaced after its useful life as been expended.
How long they live for are significantly different though.
Surefire states that its LED emitters last for thousands of
hours, so, most likely, you won’t need to replace it—ever.
On the other hand, an incandescent bulb will likely not last past
50 or 100 hours of use, but it can vary widely.
Good luck in selecting a lithium flaslight. Below you will find links to both of the example flashlights from above–be sure to check them out.
Safety Tips for Purchasing and Using a Lithium Flashlight
You may or may not have heard some of the stories circulating about exploding CR123 batteries inside of a lithium flashlight.
Doug Ritter from Equipped.org has an excellent post about what to look for when selecting a lithium flashlight and purchasing lithium batteries, along with some simple precautions one can take to prevent lithium battery mishaps.
In short, there have been reports of battery explosions for a long time (not just the lithium variety). But CR123 lithium batteries are higher voltage and generate and contain more power than common alkaline cells and accordingly can build up more pressure and heat.
Keeping in mind that the number of occurrences of exploding lights is tiny compared to the number of lithium cells in use, here are some basic precautions that Doug recommends:
1. Never use Chinese manufactured lithium batteries! Most reports of exploding batteries seem to be centered around Chinese lithium cells rather than American or Japanese.
2. Do not mix batteries (by manufacture, type, age, or charge level). Doing so could be very dangerous. Mixing batteries of different charge levels seems to be the faster route to running into a problem than anything else.
3. Stick to high quality flashlights. This is especially important if the lithium flashlight uses multiple lithium cells. Be careful of Chinese knockoffs and low-cost look-a-likes.
4. A single-cell lithium flashlight tends to safer than multi-cell lights.
Enough emphasis can not be placed on the importance on buying a high quality lithium flashlight and American made lithium cells (such as the Surefire E1B and SF123A-cell pictured above)
If you would like to read more in-depth, be sure to check out Doug Ritter’s original article found here.
Why Buy a Lithium Flashlight?
If you have never experienced a lithium flashlight, you are probably wondering what the big differences are to the alkaline powered lights that you are used to. You probably have flashlights right now that are powered by AA, AAA, C, or D-cells–not a 123-lithium battery.
Why buy a lithium-powered flashlight? Here is why:
Most lithium flashlights run on somewhere between one and four 3.0v CR123A lithium batteries. The advantages to using these short and fat little batteries to power a light are numerous.
Unlike alkaline batteries, a 123 lithium battery has a 10 year shelf life and is capable of withstanding much colder temperatures. This is great for emergency use or flashlights that are stashed away in your vehicle.
Probably the single biggest advantage to a lithium flashlight though, is it’s ability to shine brighter (due to its higher voltage) and with greater consistency (due to it’s Li-Ion chemistry) over the life of the battery. As an added bonus, these benefits are often times in a smaller and lighter flashlight too.
Some popular brands of lithium flashlights include Surefire, Streamlight, and Fenix.
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