Last fall Sam's Club (a national warehouse retail club chain associated with Wal-Mart) was selling a pair of 80 lumen flashlights that ran on AAAs for $28 a pair. The cases are aluminum and designed similar to other "tactical" type palm flashlights. They have a push-button on/off switch in the tail and have a run time of about 4 hours on three batteries. I bought a couple for home and a couple to give to the girls as Xmas stocking stuffers. 80 lumens seems pretty bright. The brand name was "Element", featuring a Luxeon LED.

Last night, I saw on display a pair of similar flashlights from the same mfr for the same price, but featuring the new K2 150 lumen LEDs, with the same 3 AAA power source with a 2 hour runtime. The new flashlights are a little more robust, and the pushbutton switch on the tail is now recessed, making it a bit more difficult to accidentally turn it on. I bought a pair, and when I got them home I fired them up. BIG DIFFERENCE!! from the older models. The light is whiter and the beam really reaches out. They claim a 300 foot spot, I figure at least 150 feet practical illumination. At $14 each, I am pleased. I will keep the older units, but will use the new ones as primary lights now.

Just thought I'd pass on the news. Element is an off brand I'd never heard of or seen before, but so far I figure I've got my money's worth. Probably on par with Dorcy brand I figure.

Note to self: Go To Sams Club this week.

Acording to the website, Element Flashlight, it has a 40 hour runtime. 2 hours seems correct, unless there is a low mode that gives you that 40 hours. Did you test the 2 hours, or is that what the packaging says?

Dave

Actually, looking at the packaging, the 40 hour claim is right there. Is that the flashlight you are talking about?

Dave

Them's the ones. I think 40 hours is the whole wind down time on a set of batteries, with 2 hours being about the limit for high brightness. The packaging on mine differs from what's shown on the website slightly, and only refers to the 2 hour interval, but I bet it'd still be making usable light out to 40 hours.

I will test them tonight for duration and let you know what I find out tomorrow.

BTW, I found a neat Survival manual at Costco this weekend. It is a compendium of various survival articles and publications from a new york publishing company (the name eludes me at present). The manual is nearly tabloid size and about an inch thick; there seems to be quite a bit in it. They want $12 for the book, and I got one. I saw the first article in it about tracking animals in the snow, and it looks like it will make for a good read. I'll keep mine in the throneroom so's I can read on it daily.

Very nice flashlights. I reccomend them to our SAR students taking our class as a decent light for an inexpensive sar pack.

I really like the fact it uses AAA's instead of cr123a's which is nice to not have to carry 3 diffrent types of batteries

Note from me, we gave up our Sam's Club, they screwed us on our membership app, our Discover Card, and on the prices they had compared to Costco...

My bad, I thought the packaging said "2 hours" but it says "20 hours run time". Still different from what the packaging on the website claims, but it's all relative to the light output threshold. I went ahead and ran my little test last night. After two hours of constant on, the light was probably down to 50 lumens output. I say this because it was slightly less bright than my older 80 lumen luxeon based flashlight with new batts, but not quite as dim as my older 30 lumen flashlight.

I went ahead and left it on overnight, and this morning it is still at least as bright as the 30 lumen flashlight with fresh batts, so I left it on for the day. I'll let you know what it looks like after I get home tonight, but I expect it will still be at least as bright as my little pocket photon style Nichia LED light.

Also, the name of the book at Costco is "Survival Wisdom and Know How", 'everything you need to know to subsist in the wilderness'. Like I said before, it is a compilation of articles from Stackpole Press.

It is a shame that Sam's Club didn't do write by you OBG. I guess any retailer can screw the pooch once in a while. I only shop there because they have stuff no one else in town carries and usually at a price that makes me take the hook. If they every treat me bad, I suspect I will forsake them just as I have any other store that gives me bad service. I'll go poke a few holes in their tomatoes next time just for you.

Okay, so after 30 hours, the K2 is not quite as bright as my photon-type keychain light. At 36 hours it was still usable, but you wouldn't want to read a book with it, and forget about anything out past 10 feet. So at 40 I gotta think those batteries are gone, and all you will get is a glow much like an ember.

I've starting thumbing through the survival book, so far the front end is all about animal and plant recognition and nice to know stuff. Down deeper it will get into the DIY stuff like snares and traps and signalling and how to make fire etc.

Our Sam's Club still only has the 80 lumen flashlight set.

I ended up by a mixed case of Mexican beers instead.

-Blast