Re: Wow, this Solitaire really kicks a.... (with the help of a MJLED)
2:40 from a single alkaline. I am very, very impressed. belyo, thank you for the graph!
I obtained mine from Lighthound.com, and if he says these came from Arcmania, that's good enough for me. Arcmania is a very well known and trusted name here on CPF
This is a particularly small MJLED, not the normal 2AA Maglite stuff. There was a lot of talk about adapting it for the Solitaire but nothing has the finish and polish of this solution. It was a pleasure to review, simply change bulbs and life goes on, bright n beautiful.
Recently I've taken an interest in such mods for non-flashaholics. We have an uphill task getting people to purchase $200 lights, and even as a seasoned flashaholic, I am balking at the price some of these lights command. On the other hand, for $13, you can shovel these things down people's throat for less than the cost of a high performance incan bulb. Heck, for certain good folks, I would simply buy it and GIVE it to them.
I just received a MagLED and even as a veteran, I am very impressed. Especially considering it's under $30. Two years ago one would be buying a Surefire KL1 and E1e to get this kind of performance (they didn't even sell them TOGETHER!!)
I've climbed every mountain I have to climb in the lighting world, including construction of my own 35W HID from scratch based on automotive HID bulbs and ignitors. I have a >1K lumen incan mod that took on the name I gave it. Now I look towards real VALUE, rather than exotica or outrageous lumen output. Interestingly, my famous incan mod is also good value for money. I would be hard pressed to get >500 lumens out of anything else at that price/performance ratio (calculated for the lithium-ion version). Even the charger can be had for less than $15, so the total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) is very low. And not that long ago I was dealing in cheap keychain lights. Judging by their popularity I imagine they represented some fairly good value..
As for value for money, expect to see more of such reviews on my site in the near future....