Whilst knee deep in you know what last night rodding my drains I now realise that all of my keyring, LED, cheapo, tiny Maglite torches are utterly useless when i really need them! So I'm going to buy myself a decent large good old-fashioned torch, and have no idea where to start and how much to pay. Was thinking of around £20. Is this laughable? Also was thinking of good old fashioned non-rechargeable batteries, as mine are always flat when I need them, just like my cordless drills.
Advice based on ownership experience required please!
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Make it £30 - LED Lenser
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001OXC4DS
Read the reviews.
Last edited by: Manatee on Thu 24 Nov 11 at 20:01
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"Make it £30 - LED Lenser www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001OXC4DS
Read the reviews."
Thoroughly agree. (One of those reviews will be mine) The T7 and P7 are virtually identical........buy whichever you can get a deal on. I usually use Amazon - always very pleased with the service and very often they have 'Used - Like New' products (my P7 was) ..... and they always are just that. The 'Police Tech Focus' is good - but these beasties are loads better - great battery life too - normal AAA battery size - rechargeable or alkaline both fine. Knocks Maglite in to a cocked hat.
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Head torch - Alpkit Gamma £12.50. Mine is a couple of years old - not the brightest but quite cheap and reliable! Had an LED Lenser from Amazon but sent it back - poor lens:) My expensive headtorch is the Princeton Tec which is about £70....
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Thu 24 Nov 11 at 20:06
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aldi £2.99 base ball cap with 5 led light fixed in to peak. one of my favourite ever things
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Aldi are doing a stunning 5W Cree LED torch for ten quid at the moment. Comes with batteries, solid aluminium construction, and runs for 14 hours. Insanely bright, in fact warning label lists it as risk group two for light emission so potential to cause permanent eye damage. Have it helmet mounted for night riding on roads, useful for stopping car drivers pulling out without looking when they get 400 lumens in the eye.
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I'm of the opinion now that cheap torches are a waste of money. I bought half a dozen £2 ones from Go Outdoors this year and all are now defunct.
My bestest ever torches are a pair of handlamps I have in the workshop. I don't know who made them and I've had them a long time. They are black rubber. Square body and round glass. Take 4 of the big fat batteries..' U ' I think. Indestructible.
I recently bought a handlamp from B&Q Yellow, rechargable, about £15 to keep in the boot of my car for work. It charges off a socket on the boot wall.
I've been getting a bit of plumbing stuff there recently......with each purchase I've bought a torch, about 6 inches long, rubber finish. 2 AA batteries, 3 LEDs. Gives a very good beam and seems sturdy. A tad under £6 each.
I've got 3. One for each of our cars and one for the kitchen to look at things like the pressure gauge on the boiler or help me out to the garage after dark. They have wrist loops so hang nicely on the gear levers in the cars.
Ted
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As Manatee said. LED Lenser are very good, we sell a wide selection where I work and have not had a single one returned.
With regard to headtorches. I have used Petzl for 30+ years. The local Harriers use their top of the range for fell running at night, but the Tikka at the bottom of the range should last for years, and I carry one in my car and one in my map case for emergencies.
A useful tip is to invert a battery so that it cannot be switched on by mistake. Not good in an emergency on the fells with night approaching!
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I've been wearing a head torch for night time dog walking along the towpath. Works well enough but it's definitely not a good look.
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>> I've been wearing a head torch for night time dog walking along the towpath. Works
>> well enough but it's definitely not a good look.
>>
A bit of coal dust on your face and you'll get a free pint in the Miner's Arms ...
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>> >> I've been wearing a head torch for night time dog walking along the towpath.
>> Works
>> >> well enough but it's definitely not a good look.
>> >>
>>
>> A bit of coal dust on your face and you'll get a free pint in
>> the Miner's Arms ...
Ewww just got a mental picture of Humph, Cheddar and the dog, all int pit ed bath!
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 25 Nov 11 at 18:23
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LL, I seriously admire your ' fell ' capability, not without some jealousy that I can't get out there myself.......not running, of course but just fellwalking. Angina stopped me some years ago.
However I would say that ' with night approaching ' I can usually be found in an armchair in the lounge !
Good man !
Ted
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>>I'm of the opinion now that cheap torches are a waste of money. I bought half a dozen £2 ones from Go Outdoors this year and all are now defunct.
>>
I have about a a dozen LED torches and yet to have one fail.
Most are very cheap small ones. A couple have built in clips so can attach to a book etc.
99p shop had some of the head strap types last week.
I have a couple of LIDL torches a 24LED and a smaller dual light version.
Also a couple of larger 60LED rechargeable inspection types.
An Ebay search for LED torches gave 37K items so lots of choices :-)
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>> I have about a a dozen LED torches and yet to have one fail.
>> Most are very cheap small ones.
>> An Ebay search for LED torches gave 37K items so lots of choices :-)
You have enough torches now :-)
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>> You have enough torches now :-)
>>
I hope Santa knows too
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My £3 Asda LED head torch has come in handy since I've been on crutches.
For more illumination, I could tape a cheap torch to each stick.
Get the alignment right and it would pass an MoT.
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You wouldn't, though. Rob !
Ted
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...You wouldn't, though. Rob !...
I still pull to the left a bit.
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I used to use a Maglite at work but changed to an LED Lenser - it's a gazillion times better.
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>> Aldi are doing a stunning 5W Cree LED torch for ten quid
Thanks for that FF - picked one up this morning. You can't have too many torches ;-)
For once I resolved to RTFM, so I was annoyed to find no destructions as to how to operate it (3 modes - 2 more than necessary).
After half an hour of seemingly random high power, low power and SOS flashing modes, I absent-mindedly picked up the little holster that had fallen out of the packaging and found the book of words therein. You can't win.
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www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/SID-BBC18C4A-60FCE664/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/index_25044.htm?offerdate=7510&ERR=noservice
You've just missed these. Nice long beam; heavy enough to use as a weapon. Ideal for finding next door's escapee guinea pig/dog in the garden.
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Have a look at Cluson on the net.
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>>Have a look at Cluson on the net<<
Have you got a clue son??
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Big chunky rechargeable from the farmer's co-op. It gives a beam like a car headlight and you can set it down while rodding drains etc confident that it isn't going to run out or cost the earth in batteries.
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Cheers all, learnt a lot from all that. I've never heard of CREE before and will investigate some of those mentioned. Things have moved on since my Dad's black Ever Ready!
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I remember when my old man was first issued with one, it was silver with a BR logo on the side. . Didnt have the signal shield tho.
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I have a Tesco, single LED one that I bought last year for just under £7. It uses two AA batteries. Unfortunately, there is only the Tesco name on it.
It is a super small torch with a beam far brighter than filament lamps. And the multi-LED ones are carp in comparison.
The LED is part of a special sub circuit that supplies it with a controlled voltage. It does not use the mass produced type of LED as seen in cheap torches. It still gives a reasonable light at about half previous brightness when both cells are nearly flat.
I have been looking for them to come in again but no such luck so far. It has a good, black, aluminium, case 150mm long and mostly 22mm diameter except the lens end that is 30mm.
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You could try the Active Products range sold by Tesco Direct. LED from 75 lumens to 750!! I've got one, I think around 120 lumens, but I don't know whether it's a regulated circuit.
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Had a right bargain I didn't need today - An LED multimode Maglite AA. Ticketed at 35 quid (22 on Amazon) got it for 17.50 - 15% in Blacks when buying some other sale items. Shiny, shiny kit.
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"You could try the Active Products range sold by Tesco Direct"
Thanks. I did have a look but my existing one was not amongst them, or one
looking like its equal.
Many such torch offerings use larger batteries than two AA ones.
I usually don't need the bigger size. The AA size rechargeable
also packs a good charge for its size.
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Maglite is your friend then - still made (with pride) in the USA - not Chinese crap like most things these days.
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So the Chinese don't make 'things' with pride then Pugley?
Both my computers and the Lumix G2 are Made in China, and I'm well pleased with them.
Last edited by: Dog on Wed 7 Dec 11 at 08:32
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Only quoting the packaging Dog !
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I've had 2 maglites. A very small one that took an AAA battery and had a twist barrel switch. I didn't rate it. The switch got dirty and it got very erratic - chucked it in the end. The other one was the model with 4 D cells - a good torch but heavy and shown up by smaller and lighter offerings. I just keep it handy as a truncheon these days. The aluminium construction means they are freezing in the hand in winter when you're more likely to use them.
I like Petzl headtorches. I either use one as a handtorch or put it on the head if I need both hands. Keep one in the car glovebox in case I need to change a wheel. I also have a Ring Micro Cyber-Lite keyring LED torch. It's tiny but amazingly bright, easily enough to walk with in the pitch black.
The LED lenser looks good. Don't like threads like this. It reawakens my torch fetish!
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>>Don't like threads like this. It reawakens my torch fetish!<<
Why not bring a few along to the orgy me n' Focal Point are 'throwing' in the Spring.
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>> Why not bring a few along to the orgy me n' Focal Point are 'throwing'
>> in the Spring.
:-D
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You need a real good torch for when you go Dogging..............:-)
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And an infra-red camera :D
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Went to Lidl to get some milk and bananas last night and came away with one of these:
www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/index_26585.htm
£2.99 well spent - lights up the shed at the bottom of the garden very nicely.
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Hawekeye - found one today in my local Lidl, they had several more. Will probably go back this evening for a couple more for children to keep in their cars.
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I bought one of these for walking my son home from school on dark winters nights along an unlit bridleway in the countryside:
www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=110&storeId=10151&partNumber=717220&Trail=searchtext%3ETORCH
Great light in Xenon mode, and incredible battery life (and still very good light) in LED mode.
This torch sits in pride of place on the "most frequently used" shelf in the garage. 'Nuff said.
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"You could try the Active Products range sold by Tesco Direct"
Update
Gatwick (Hookwood) Tesco store now has a 2xAA, single special LED circuit torch like what I was after. £10. Made by Creed. Looks the business. Before you buy I suggest you go along armed with two AAs and fit them and try it. They are not in any packaging.
Arrived too late for me. I settled for a LIDL one £8 or so. It has nearly as good a light as my existing Tesco one. Odd arrangement. 4 settings. Full light, reduced light, flash SOS, flash on and off regularly. Each setting needs switching off and on again to get to next option. Looked like being a pain until I discovered that after being off for more than 13 seconds it switches on to full light the next time the switch is pressed.
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Need a decent torch- recommendations? - Manatee
