HDS Systems #23

[AMRaider]

I probably should have snagged an 18500 when I had the chance; I think they were offered at the same time as the 18350 body now that I think about it.

I do like my 18350 a lot though as I can run an 18350, 16340, or CR123A in it. The 16340 and CR123A actually work alright; the pressure from the springs keeps them in place despite the smaller diameter and externally, the 18350 is almost the same size as the 16340 tube. I use an 18350 most of the time though both for capacity and for it's reusability.

Personally, I'm not terribly interested in a 14500, but I understand how some want the option, and an 18500 with a spacer would work, I think. If the 18500 tube ever re-materialized, I would probably use an 18500 cell in it for the greater capacity.

 

[AMRaider]

I'd like to know what the main reason for discontinuing the 18350 and 18500 bodies? It seems that's what people want. Why are they no longer offered?

I suppose demand is higher for the other body sizes, but unless Hogo and Henry chime in with data, it's only speculation on my part. Also, likely adds complexity and expense to the business to manufacture many different sizes of things, but maybe someone in the industry could confirm that for me.

I do recall Hogo mentioning the rotary as being much more popular than the clicky, but I don't recall him mentioning demand for various body sizes. Perhaps with production more in-house, small runs of "custom" sizes (and materials) will become available. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy what I have. Expensive yes, but really solid lights.

 

[jon_slider]

Why are they no longer offered?

this post on page 4 will explain

 

[AMRaider]

That helps a lot. Ty Jon. Also "The current driver won't allow a single AA to run the light... but we are working on that as well." I suspected this was the case, but I hesitated to say so without being sure. I just missed it, or forgot.

 

[desert.snake]

Surefire has been cutting corners for a long time. The same Wurkkos and Convoy already use copper boards under the diode. Fury still has aluminum, I think that's why they continue to burn out periodically. Those with a built-in lithium battery also have problems - they refuse to charge. Water protection is also at a poor level

Henry certainly doesn't skimp, so I hope the AA/14500 comes along someday and serves me well

As Schokokeks has pointed out, HDS lights are approaching -- and for some have surpassed -- the point where the price exceeds the value. $200 to $300 is, in my opinion, good value for what HDS offers and puts them in direct competition with the major brands. Pushing that price beyond $400 puts them into competition with the one-off boutique brands that are prized by "collectors" but not so much by the average Joe who just wants a reliable, high quality light that he can depend on, and for that kind of money, there are more sensible alternatives.

I also recognize that we average Joe's are actually not Henry's target market, and he prices his lights according to what professional organizations like police departments and the military are willing to pay for a delivery of a few hundred flashlights, which is where he makes his real money.

A Spy007 is still more expensive :grin2:

 

[WarriorOfLight]

Why are they no longer offered?

Basically the 18350 and 18500 tubes were done because they were some forum People always annoying Hogo again and again. If I remember correctly it took years until this tubes were done...

But due to the explanations done by hogo they went never into the regular accessory set.

 

[JohnTz]

After reading the back and forth in the last few pages of this thread I simply wanted to add my layman’s view of why I have two HDS lights.

I bought a RA twisty in 2008. Used it EVERY single day since new ( I do not have a talking job ) and the low output failed to work at the beginning of this year. That is 16 years of daily on off and hundreds of batteries before it had an issue. It was still 100% useable just the low output failed but the med and high was still as bright as day one. It was dropped many times. I even dropped it off a 3 story building while working on a power tower. It barely had a scratch on it and a small dent in the back of the light. Worked perfectly for years after that.

I contacted Henry and he said send it in. I did and he had it repaired and returned to me in less than a couple of weeks. Most of that was shipping time.

I still use this Twisty every day. It will outlive me.

Now after that service and all the talk about the Rotary I had to order one as well. I even had Hogo make a holster for me. It is perfect and I use it in the weekends off work and at home. I suspect it will last as long as my RA. I still prefer the Twisty.

I am not qualified to comment on what things like in house production of these lights costs or should cost. It’s not my business honestly. I simply know that HDS makes a bulletproof product with awesome customer service and I can count on it to be there when I need it. I spend my money on quality tools and I know from experience that quality tools cost more. I don’t pretend to be smarter than the person who is producing such products. I think it is always much simpler to criticize but it is much harder to actually produce something. So I just research the best I can and put my money where I decide is best. HDS will always be my light of choice for me when it comes to daily use. I have other brands that all share the same characteristics of being USA made and reliable and I love those as well.

Just sharing a users view of the flashlight world.

And by the way. I think the worries of Henry passing and HDS ending is probably unrealistic. I am sure Henry has plans for the continuation of his company and it is his strategy to share when and if he wants to.

 

[Fuchshp]

After reading the back and forth in the last few pages of this thread I simply wanted to add my layman's view of why I have two HDS lights.

I bought a RA twisty in 2008. Used it EVERY single day since new ( I do not have a talking job ) and the low output failed to work at the beginning of this year. That is 16 years of daily on off and hundreds of batteries before it had an issue. It was still 100% useable just the low output failed but the med and high was still as bright as day one. It was dropped many times. I even dropped it off a 3 story building while working on a power tower. It barely had a scratch on it and a small dent in the back of the light. Worked perfectly for years after that.

I contacted Henry and he said send it in. I did and he had it repaired and returned to me in less than a couple of weeks. Most of that was shipping time.

I still use this Twisty every day. It will outlive me.

Now after that service and all the talk about the Rotary I had to order one as well. I even had Hogo make a holster for me. It is perfect and I use it in the weekends off work and at home. I suspect it will last as long as my RA. I still prefer the Twisty.

I am not qualified to comment on what things like in house production of these lights costs or should cost. It's not my business honestly. I simply know that HDS makes a bulletproof product with awesome customer service and I can count on it to be there when I need it. I spend my money on quality tools and I know from experience that quality tools cost more. I don't pretend to be smarter than the person who is producing such products. I think it is always much simpler to criticize but it is much harder to actually produce something. So I just research the best I can and put my money where I decide is best. HDS will always be my light of choice for me when it comes to daily use. I have other brands that all share the same characteristics of being USA made and reliable and I love those as well.

Just sharing a users view of the flashlight world.

And by the way. I think the worries of Henry passing and HDS ending is probably unrealistic. I am sure Henry has plans for the continuation of his company and it is his strategy to share when and if he wants to.

Please post a picture of your Ra Twisty

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Thing is, this kind of schokokeeks verbal gift to humanity has been done on the HDS threads so many times. Spending three times as many words that are needed is kind of embarrassing.

The priority is that Henry makes lights the way he uses them. To say they are not tactical flashlights is so… revealing.

Discussion is good. Guess I got triggered because of the ignorance and waste of time reading all the self important words.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

Thing is, this kind of schokokeeks verbal gift to humanity has been done on the HDS threads so many times. Spending three times as many words that are needed is kind of embarrassing.

The priority is that Henry makes lights the way he uses them. To say they are not tactical flashlights is so… revealing.

Discussion is good. Guess I got triggered because of the ignorance and waste of time reading all the self important words.

The point is, what is Henry's target market? The lights are becoming too expensive to appeal to the average Joe but are not premium enough for the collector who has more money than sense and a shelf full of barely used flashlights worth thousands of dollars.

I'm just hoping that if/when a next generation Rotary is released using all in-house production, the price will be reasonable rather than shocking.

 

[lion504]

Anyone know if the clicky tail cap is now stainless steel, like the rotary tail cap?

 

[JohnTz]

Please post a picture of your Ra Twisty

It’s my profile picture.

 

[WarriorOfLight]

Anyone know if the clicky tail cap is now stainless steel, like the rotary tail cap?

I would say no. Hogo would have been communicating such kind of Information. My guess is HDS is using the old stock from years since most Lights are rotaries.

 

[AMRaider]

Anyone know if the clicky tail cap is now stainless steel, like the rotary tail cap?

My clicky tailcaps are Aluminum, and I don't think this has changed on new clickies. I do have one older rotary (purchased used) that has an Aluminum tailcap, but to the best of my knowledge, the newer rotary tailcaps are all stainless steel now. I wonder when the change was made for the rotary tailcap to stainless..

 

[jon_slider]

I am sure Henry has plans for the continuation of his company

agree

from my perspective Henry is positioning the company to survive him. Here are some of the steps he is taking, to achieve that goal:

1. Bring production in house, for better control of parts batch size and timing. Atm HDS relies on multiple subcontractors with minimum order quantities that may be inconveniently large, and whose delivery may not be timely.

2. Redesign the Rotary to be 2mm larger in diameter. This positions the light to work with 18mm diameter batteries, and smaller, by use of an insert. That extra 2mm eliminates special assembly processes, currently needed to embed the signal wire in body tubes meant to fit larger than 16mm diameter CR123a. More battery options, less difficult installation of signal wires. The larger battery size also allows for potentially higher maximum output. While maintaining a minimum runtime of 1 hour, which is one of the HDS design requirements, which until now has been capped by the capability of CR123a battery capacity.

3. Eliminate the Clicky, which has been superseded by the Rotary, in both sales volume and functionality. (flamesuit On, lol)

4. As part of the redesign, incorporate a user replaceable tailbutton.

5. Partner with Hogo, who first worked with Henry during the Novatac days (over 15 years ago). imo Hogo knows almost as much as Henry, about production, assembly, and sales. Hogo will inherit the company.

Note I dont expect Hogo to be the Machinist.. he just has to hire someone. And if at some point there is a need for an engineer to run Solid Works for any redesign, Hogo will be able to hire qualified staff. I dont expect Hogo to get an Engineering degree, nor do I think he needs to.

I do not expect costs to go down, and therefore I dont expect the cost of the Rotary to go down. The business model will still rely on paying USA labor rates for qualified staff. USA labor rates are not going down.

 

[AMRaider]

I will miss the clicky, but I have grown to like the rotary the more I use as I use it. And I agree that's it's unlikely costs (and the price) will go down. I'm no expert, but my feeling is that vertical integration usually gives a company greater control and independence while not neccessarily reducing costs. Reduced costs always a nice thing of course, but I think HDS was experiencing issues with supply of certain components (like reflectors) which resulted in delays. Having machining in house should reduce the chances of this happening long term. Also, given the size of the company, having more in house would make it easier for smaller runs of "custom" products since most companies (that HDS was likely contracting) have large minimum requirements for production. Anyway, heres hoping.

 

[Schokokeks]

I do not expect costs to go down, and therefore I dont expect the cost of the Rotary to go down. The business model will still rely on paying USA labor rates for qualified staff. USA labor rates are not going down.

Depending on how they move things in-house, you can wildly cut "handle time" in manufacturing.

I get the impression HDS currently is using a LOT of labor for manufacture and assembly (hard emphasis on the latter). If they redesign the new bodies to ease manufacturing and assembly, there absolutely can be massive cost reductions.

If anyone has been around a company that moved from a bank of mills and jigs to a (or pair of) CNC machine(s), or redesigned a product with consulting a (or a group of) production engineer(s), the productivity gains can be absolutely jaw dropping; orders of magnitude.

If Henry is thinking about the company after his tenure, now would be a good time to redesign the next model to not require highly skilled hands to assemble it (and, again, this can be a massive savings), or highly skilled machinists (and/or lots of waste products). If a company moves to an easier-to-manufacture, standardized parts list that can be assembled quicker and/or without technical knowledge, that's cutting costs on both ends, and it doesn't make for a worse product (often the opposite, as there is less to go wrong). This also WAY cuts down on QC, which is a MASSIVE driver of costs (far more than actual manufacturing and assemble for most places).

I'm in the Midwest, so...manufacturing. Re-shoring had been going on before the political pressure simply because the U.S. tends to be really productive. People are generally surprised to see how little the labor cost differences can be manufacturing in the U.S. versus China (some companies make enough products that the cost matters that much, or, alternatively, they're just that greedy). I think people conceptualize things as of more historical manufacturing (very labor intensive) than what is the norm these days (highly automated and technical), and are often shocked to find a "household name" might be a single factory with more people in the warehouse or front office than running machines.

I don't know what HDS looks like today, but again, if they really are looking to redo things to keep the company moving forward after Henry retires, setting things up to be more automated would definitely fit into that plan nicely, and they might incidentally find a leap forward in productivity.

I know many people think, "Prices never go down" on things, but that's actually not true for most items, adjusting for inflation. If you get bored and read into inflation data over the last few decades, you can find all sorts of interesting costs that have dramatically declined - spoiler alert; good tend to decline in costs, while services tend to peg to inflation (which is why "costs always go up"). I mean, just look at computers, TVs, phones, etc. I haven't bought a new monitor in a decade, and I recently looked. Wow. You can get AMAZING monitors for what I paid 10 years ago. That's actually true for a lot of goods.

Whether or not HDS will be doing that is up in the air.

My other impression is they're maybe taking a new direction with a completely different product, so maybe the flashlights will literally become a boutique product they make just for legacy/fun, and this entire conversation was mostly for naught, haha.

I guess we'll see how it all shakes out over the next few years.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

I would think if Henry was planning on going the boutique route, then he wouldn't have any reason to change the production process like he has. If boutique lights were his plan, he could have much more easily transitioned his business to a handful of "limited edition" lights a year and sold them for a huge markup.

 

[Schokokeks]

I would think if Henry was planning on going the boutique route, then he wouldn't have any reason to change the production process like he has. If boutique lights were his plan, he could have much more easily transitioned his business to a handful of "limited edition" lights a year and sold for them for a huge markup.

Well, if he wants to set up the business to keep running, a more simplified assembly/manufacturing process would go a long way, especially if it ends up being not-the-primary-focus of the business (e.g. I think flashlights are a side business for Robyn at Peak).

 

[aznsx]

This thread just keeps getting amazinger and amazinger. I think I hear a few chuckles coming from right down I-10 from here;-)