I just replaced my trusty but annoying 3AA Maglite with the incandescent bulb and twist-on lens. I’ve never been too much of a Maglite fan, but it’s hard to argue with the sheer number of them out there. They work, but now there’s a new hotness in my roll cab’s top drawer.
It’s Dorcy’s 160-lumen, 3AA K2, model number 41-4297. I’ve had it for about six hours, and I have no idea why the switch took me so bloody long. It’s a pocket rocket; I’d swear it’s brighter than a lot of car headlights. At about 5″ long, it’s pretty compact, though the flared lens housing makes it a little uncomfortable in one’s pocket. It’s a small price to pay, though, for swapping my peashooter for a tactical nuke. The switch on the rear is translucent, showing a battery status light that stays green until the battery life drops below 20%, then it switches to red.
Dorcy has the 3AAA K2 on sale for $35 before shipping, which is annoying since I just laid down $40 at Craftsman for it. Better yet, Amazon stocks it for $25, also before shipping. Serves me right for getting it out of the package before I got home. At $25, this one strikes me as a no-brainer if you need a light. And, if the K2 isn’t quite up your strasse, Dorcy makes a huge variety of intensities and sizes.
Dorcy Flashlights [Dorcy]
Dorcy 160-lumen, 3AA K2 LED Via Amazon [What’s This?]
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11 Responses to A Light Saber’s Little Brother
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I have been using Coast light for a few years now. Great battery life, blind you bright and Lowes carries them. I have 3 of them!
I’ve got one of those. It’s so bright it’s not even funny. Think poor-man’s surefire.
I use the Coast LED lenser daily, and I am amazed at how long a single AA will last in such a bright light. The 3 LEDs are plenty for working under appliances. I own enough of these little lights (kind of a fetish) to know that all LED bulbs are not created equal. This light is as bright as some with 9 bulbs. I recently found a local lumber yard was closing out their stock of Coast products, and they had the 2 AA version for $25. I had forgotten about that until this post, & hope they still have one!
I own both Dorcy and Coast lights. I like them equally. This Dorcy does sound nice though. But my favorite brand is Inova. I carry an Inova X5 daily. I also like D cell Maglites that have been converted to LED. I tend to use the Nite-Ize conversion bulbs. I have two in my house with wall mounts. One in the kitchen and one within arms reach of my bed. I like LED flashlights. 🙂
Poor man’s surefire is right, I’ve seen them both in action and there’s not any difference!
my surefire gets hot really quick and it seems to go thru batteries fairly quickly, i do not use it often but i have had to replace the batteries 3 times this year
jeffrey immer: That’s because (most) Surefires use an incandescent bulb, which converts electricity to heat at about 90-95% efficiency :-p (That’s probably also why your battery life isn’t too great.)
This flashlight is LED-based, so its battery life ought to be a lot better than any incandescent-based flashlight. I don’t have personal experience with this or any of the Surefires, but I’d imagine the LED-based Surefire lights have comparable battery life.
cl
I use a Surefire with the lithium cells and a 60 lumen LED. Bright as heck, and it also has semi-sharp crenelations around the lens for self protection use – hard to choose between that and the 6 D-cell Maglite for checking out that middle-of-the-night noise. The batteries last forever, and it just feels “right”. But darn expensive!
That looks and sounds just like the Dorcy lights I’ve been paying $10 for at Big Lots. They’ve got an AA Dorcy like this there for $10, too.
Though I was planning to pick up the 2 AA Led Lenser, today I found a comparable light made by Great Neck tools(or at least imported by them). Called the Great Lite, it was $10.00 at the local Sears parts store. Came with a nice leather loop-style sheath. Seems sturdy as any Maglite I’ve seen.
Thanks to these comments I picked up 3 of these Dorcy lights at Big Lots for $10 each. I also picked up a Coast LED lenser v2 tactical at Lowes for $25. All nice lights for the money!