This past year there have been big breakthroughs in LED efficency, and one product on the market that is taking advantage of this are flashlights! While LED's aren't there yet for home lighting because of their lack of full spectrum lighting, they are fine for things like flashlights, street lights, etc. For now many flashlight manufacturers have been taking advantage of their improved output. These days an LED can easily be brighter than standard flashlight bulbs, and use a fraction of the power! This mean a tiny pocket sized flashlight can put a big 3 D-cell Maglite to shame. The new LED's on the market competing to be the brightest and most efficient are the CREE X-RE, Lumiled's Rebel, and Seoul Semiconducter's P4's. As of now very few lights you would find in your local stores wouldn't have these LED's in them. However, Rayovac has a 4W 3-C cell light using a CREE X-RE, as well as the Taskforce 2-C cell. These are only available in some stores, in certain areas of the country. Over time these new LED's will become more common.
However, there are many Chinese manufacturers making lights with these LED's, including US companies such as Surefire and Novatac. These are more specialty brands and sell to a more niche market, except Surefire which sells to the general public, but specializes in selling to the Military, Police, Fire fighters, etc.
So anyway, just like everything else, there are people out there that are very into flashlights, they call themselves flashaholics. Just like somene that would collect coins, stamps, baseball cards, or whatever, some people collect flashlights, some people collect flashlights and tinker with them to make them better. I find myself falling into this niche group lately as I've always been into gadgets and it's fun to watch the technology evolve. LED's will eventually replace all our lighting needs, and will be cheaper and use far less poewr. Maybe LED's will save the world by reducing global energy use!
Anyway, post pics of your flashlights, LED, or regular incan bulbs, show NG what you've got!
To give people an idea of what an LED flashlight can do, here is a model designed to throw the light a long distance, such as lighting things up at 1,000 feet, from a single LED!
