Friend is after a budget light. What’s good?

Anything from Deal Extreme

A 501b XM-L2 torch from Lightmalls – £8. You’ll need a mount (£1.50) a charger for 18650s (£5) and some cells (anything from £2.50 to £10… or free if you have access to an old laptop battery).

The best thing about 18650 torches is that additional lights or an upgrade to the latest LED is about £10.

Great stuff! I might get one of those as a lid light, nice one.

Good link above – has anyone actually ordered from them though?

Yep. Ordered about 2 weeks ago. Site said 2-4 weeks. Arrived this morning and it is very good quality with an orange peel reflector. The new led is certainly an upgrade on last year’s too.

Yes, I have that light as my new head torch – arrived very quickly. On my bars I’ve an C8 XML-U3 which I also got from Lightmalls, and which is excellent – I’m very impressed with Lightmalls. Dealextreme are also good – I have several lights from them as well as mounts and chargers.

Oooo. Thats a nice looking wee torch- er, how many lumens????

Just taken a punt on one of these from Lightmalls (already got batteries and chargers that should work hopefully).

http://www.lightmalls.com/solarstorm-x2-2u2-2000lm-led-bike-light-head-red-head-lamp-only

Search for Cree lights on Amazon. Impressed with a friends one.

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Never believe the lumen claims you see on websites selling lights…

Usually they quote the theoretical max for the emitter if driven at the max ‘safe’ current – but your driver won’t deliver that current, the cells probably won’t deliver that current, and without more thermal management everything would probably just fry anyway.

For a rough estimate you can check flashlightwiki.com, but you will still need a multimeter to see what amps your driver is drawing at each mode… and this I think will change as the voltage drops, especially on HI mode.

Anyway, I’m impressed with the XM-L2… much brighter than my XML-T6s, but some of that is down to higher current, especially in MID mode. For £8 it’s a real bargain.

just received solarstorm x2 from hk via ebay – vg indeed – so far

dti – what seller did you get your solarstorm from?

Any customs charges?

bought mine from manafont.com direct from china, took 2 wks and no charges. None of my previous china purchases have ever been subject to duty either. Only had chance to test it quickly, but the out put looks great, battery is suspect though.

If you do get one of these torches from Hong Kong (and they are very good – been using them for years) I suggest getting the cells and charger from mtbbatteries.co.uk for a little peace of mind – both in output whilst out riding and that they won’t burn your house down.