Do All LED flashlights eat batteries so quickly they are basicly usless or just my cheap $20 Brunton?? I was thinking on investing in a Surefire or the like, but if this is common among these lights why bother.

The simple answer is that they don't.


It all depends on how many mA the LEDs draw (with some lights now using Luxeon Star super LEDs they can draw quite a bit more than a traditional LED does), how many of them there are, how many batteries your light holds, and how efficient the circuit is inside the unit.

Other factors like a 'low intensity' setting will help stretch life out too. There are many online calculators that can help you do the math on LED circuits. My favorite is here.

Higher-end LED lights have amazing run times, and let you switch between "blowtorch" and "penlite" modes. I have switched everything over to LEDs.

Some of the inexpensive LEDs come with 3-AAAs and eat them like crazy. Gives people the wrong impression about the technology, and reliability is sometimes dicey. Shame on the people who market this stuff.

There's a good discussion forum specializing in lighting:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/

Also check out the very excellent:
http://www.flashlightreviews.com/

How quick are you talking about?

In general, LED technology is much more efficient than an incandescent light of about equal output. Some LED lights also have circuitry that will extract as much power out of the battery as possible, whereas incandescent lights will often get down to point where the bulb is very dim, but the batteries still have quite a bit of capacity left.

However, as has been pointed out, there are some LED models that do "eat" batteries. If you crank up the power on a light, it's going to go through batteries quickly regardless of whether it is LED or not.

Surefire makes excellent lights, but most models are fairly high output and will also tend to use up batteries fairly quickly, too. So, keep that in mind before you purchase one so that you are not disappointed by the runtime.

OK, So maybe a better question is which LED flashlights have longer run times :ie variable output, that you guys like?

Get yourself one of these

https://www.fenix-store.com/product_info...84f615fd2ee8881

with one of these

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IV0...rd_i=B000WPJIME

you won't be disappointed

+1 on the Fenix L2D. Fenix is a popular brand among the flashaholic crowd that are reasonably priced. Unless you want a physically large flashlight, there's probably a Fenix model that would suit you just fine--and you'll be amazed at how bright and how long these little lights can last, if you've never used one before. Note that even with the models that use standard size batteries, like AAA or AA, you'll generally get better performance using rechargeable NiMh batteries in them instead of alkalines because they can stand up better to the sustained power drain of these lights.

My mainstays for longevity are:

• Standard Mini Maglite with LED conversion
• Gerber TriTac LED Light
• Gerber Infinity Ultra
• Petzl E+Lite headlight

I have a couple of others that use Luxeon Star LEDs and are ridiculously bright but these typically take at least 6 cells and aren't known for their battery life (though it's still better than incandescent)

I haven't been here long, but I have never seen a comment about the crank or shake flashlights that use no batteries at all. They are bulky, but not overly so, and never having to remember to replace or carry fresh batteries seems a real plus.

Does anyone have an opinion on them?

I have several wind-up flashlights, the Chinese versions, bought on a sale 1-1/2 years ago. I see the same models all over the place now, including Costco.

My experience with these has been mixed. The LEDs are bright (for close-up flood use), the winding mechanism is noisy yet functional, ... but the batteries are junk. A few months after purchase, one of them stopped holding a charge for more than a half hour or so. I opened one and discovered there is a tiny lithium-ion button battery inside. I guess I could replace it, but it seems like throwing good money after bad. That light became the "kid flashlight." The others are working, but I wouldn't trust them without a good backup. (One day I may convert it into a cell phone charger -- not hard to do.)

However: the Freeplay-powered crank lights are another thing entirely. They are heavy and very well made, with good NiMH sub-AA cells inside. I would trust one, though I'd need a Sherpa to carry it for me :-).

As to the shake lights: every one I've seen is garbage. Unless there are shakers that are much, much better, I would say "forget it."

When shopping for flashlights I consider what I am doing. IF I'm going to use the light for searching, reading distant addresses in the rain or may need to cut through smoke or fog I need power.

For emergency repairs, setting up camp at the end of a day or navigating out of a building I don't need anywhere near the power. All the fine work will be no farther away than arms length and at longer range I just need to avoid stepping into a hole or stumbling into obstacles.

Too strong a light can cause glare and it will needlessly consume more energy than necessary.

Companies sell higher power lights because it is a concept that is easy to sell. Americans are all about bigger and more powerful. A friend drives a car with something like 400 HP. He doesn't get there any faster than I do with my four-banger and he feels the pain when he fills up. I reminded him the old Willis Jeep, possibly the most well known vehicle in history, had only 50 to 60 HP.

With flashlights you pay for power with battery life. LEDs are many times more efficient than the old incandescent bulbs but they are not immune to the laws of physics.With LEDs you get more light for the power used but the batteries always have limited capacity. Lithium cells get you more power, endurance, in the same unit volume but they are not limitless.

I think LED lights are the way to go for everything but where I need a small searchlight. I keep a couple of large flashlights with xenon bulbs that really reach out handy for reading house numbers from the street on rainy nights.

For repair work a Mini-Mag with a Night-Ize LED conversion is good. A lot less light but the work is close. In some ways I like these more than the more refined and brighter Mini-Maglight LED. It is about half the cost, $9 for the Mini-Mag and $5 for the conversion kit versus $24 for the purpose built Mag unit, and the batteries seem to last longer.

Define quick. If it is draining faster than an incandescent of similiar output and size, you've either got really bad batteries or a really bad light.

How warm does it get? I'm asking becuase most electrical systems that are wasting power convert it into heat.

I use my Infinity about ten, fifteen mintutes a day, and I replace it's single AA about once every three months. The triple LED conversion for the MiniMag I use is brighter and I'm still on my first set of batteries in there after 18 months, and while it might only get used twenty minutes a month it is using a brighter LED and more of them.

+2 on the Fenix. I've had an L2D-CE for quite some time. Using the lower modes you get light for a long time. And the high mode is incredibly bright. There are even brighter models out since I bought mine. And it is nice that it uses common AA batteries of any type (rechargable, alkaline, lithium).

They aren't the build quality (or price) of a Surefire, but unless you are on the SWAT team, they will do the trick. I've dropped it in the water a couple of times and it is still going strong.

Lately I'm pretty much stopped using standard handheld flashlights in favor of using a headlamp. There are a number of fantastic AAA-powered LED headlamps out there, but the two favorites seem to be the Princeton Tec EOS and the Petzel Tikka XP (though you're not supposed to use lithiums with the Tikka XP).

I myself am delighted with my EOS, which gives out a stunning amount of light on high, but can still easily be set to low which gives sufficient light for my work area and lasts for well over 50 hours on a single set of three AAA batteries.

The ability to have both hands free while still having a light shining on your activity is fantastic - actually life-changing, plus it is easy enough to wrap the headband around the wrist and use it as a standard flashlight (with a safety lanyard built-in). Picture yourself in a life-threatening survival situation, with cold or injured hands, in the dark, and trying to hold a flashlight while trying to build a shelter or light a fire. A headlamp can make all the difference!

Ken K.