"Bruce L. Bergman" wrote:
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:53:26 GMT, (Rex B) wrote:
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:22:40 GMT, "Jerry Martes" wrote:
||I have built several conversions of old flashlights to accept LEDs. They
||all work. But, the light I carry in my pocket is a Coast LEDLenser V^2.
[...] Coast lights are jewels. Nice just to look at.
No Coast lights for me, thanks - I want something that takes AA, AAA
or another commonly available anywhere and for cheap battery.

All the Coast flashlights I've seen take proprietary (odd)
batteries. Fry's Electronics sells Coast lights, but not the special
batteries they require - I take that as a bad omen.

For work, I have a Black Diamond 4-white-LED headband light that
takes three AAA's. And a three AA hand LED flashlight from REI, not
sure who made it - CMG, I think. The Pelican four AA at Costco looks
good, I'll probably grab one for the toolbag because it's a plastic
case.

At http://www.tranquilityimages.com/ccs/ll7462-63.shtml is a Coast with
1 AAA, but I see that several Coasts use "AG13 Micro-Alkaline Cells" and
"Super Alkaline 1.5V LR1 (N)" and AG5's, etc. These aren't actually
proprietary, and a web page say these "can be purchased at any Photo store,
Wal-Mart, or Jeweler". But I agree they aren't cheap, and they probably
sit on the shelves a long time and have low turnover.

http://flashlightreviews.home.att.ne...index_leds.htm
shows battery complements of various LED flashlights and has links to
reviews, some with pictures of beam output patterns.

Several LED flashlights use CR123 lithium batteries, which retail at KMart
for $5-$6 each, but are available on ebay for about $1 each. The seller
(theshorelinemarket) tells me "The cells are not date coded however they
were just specially manufactured for us 3 months ago so you can expect a
shelf life of 9+ years". I'll probably try some in LED-light I'm making.

-jiw