So I am watching the winter Olympics the last couple of weeks, entirely too much Olympics, and way more figure skating than I ever need to watch (though I only watch every four years). But I noticed that some of the songs sounded a little like The Ecstasy of Gold, but then would turn out to be something different. And I thought that would be a perfect figure skating song, and even better for the Olympics where everyone is after the Gold! So since I was looking around for music, I thought I would see if anyone else had made the connection and found a commercial on YouTube with American skater Sasha Cohen set to that music, although she has only recently restarted her career after winning silver in 2006 and is not in the Olympics. As I was looking this up, I also found a pretty good version by the heavy metal band, Metallica, if you're in to that sort of thing.

Now knowing about this pre-wash sale business, I went back to see if I had any of those on Suntrust shares that I had been playing around with. And sure enough, I had some shares that I showed as a $600 loss when I had bought shares less than 30 days prior. The only way to avoid a wash sale was to say I was selling the shares I had just bought and show a $200 gain. Ouch. I was able to counter that somewhat by selling some of those expensive shares at a loss later in the year when wash rules wouldn't apply, but I couldn't wipe out all of the difference. Because I was showing a loss on the year and offsetting income, that means I would have to pay taxes on 25% of the difference, so it was over $100. And then, as I was writing this, it occurred to me that I might have something similar on shares other than Suntrust, and once again, the same thing had happened with some Microsoft shares. I had no idea. Then I went back to 2008 and noticed I had declared a few losses that really should have been wash sales too, but don't tell anybody.

In the end, it all works out. If I can't declare losses now, then it just increases the cost basis of the shares I have left meaning I will have smaller gains later on. So it's all kind of a game. But I was trying to always sell the most expensive shares in order to show a loss now and then hope that when I sell the other shares at least they will be long term gains taxed at 15% instead of 25%. I guess the advantage of a wash sale for the taxpayer is that I could defer the loss but owe nothing in taxes (since it doesn't count as a gain or loss), whereas if I show a gain, I definitely have to pay right now. I'd still rather not worry about it and just bite the bullet on the gain right now. Unlike with the Janus shares where they know whether I have a wash sale or not, my broker has no idea since they don't know which shares I'm identifying as being sold. So it easy to mess this up.

But then some people said they were able to get a light on KaiDomain that advertised the 3 programmable modes and the light wasn't blue (there is also a similar PDC AK-16 which is a little fatter and is able to take a single CR123 battery or a single AA battery by using plastic rings in the top and bottom of the flashlight that the AA battery fits inside of, but that the wider and much shorter CR123 sits in between with springs filling the gaps at each end). So I thought maybe it was time to try it out. Also, since DX was selling people 6-mode lights, I feared that maybe supplies of the programmable light would be drying up. The advantage of the programmable light is that it has 3 modes but you can set the 3 modes to any brightness you want, including flashing modes and any strobe rate that you want. It would be nice to have one mode as the maximum brightness, then a low mode, and maybe a very low that could be used for reading close up in the dark.

However, I knew that Chinese New Year was approaching. It takes a few weeks to get a light from China under the best conditions, but China pretty much shuts down for the first couple of weeks of the new year. The date of the new year changes from year to year based on phases of the moon, so I made sure I looked up the date which is February 14. I also checked to see if they take time off before the holiday or after or both. They are supposed to take off after, so last week on the 5th, with a little more than a week to go, I ordered the light. It usually takes a few days for KD to actually get the light from their supplier, then a couple of days to package it. However, the next day KD posted a message on their home page saying they would be closing their shipping department from February 7 to 21. However, they must have worked hard to clear out their orders because on February 7 I got a notice that the light had shipped and they gave me a Hong Kong Post tracking number.

However, Hong Kong Post wasn't ackowledging the tracking number. And even though I had made it through KD barely, the package still had to make it through the post office and customs which would both be affected by the holiday as well. It wasn't until the 10th that HKP started tracking the light, which they said they had been "posted" on the 9th. On the 11th, they said the package was being processed for export. Then on the 12th they said they were processing it for shipping that day. However by this morning with the 12th essentially over in China, they were now saying that as of the 11th, the package was being processed for export. Soon after that however, the message was that it was being processed for shipment on the 13th. That is Saturday and the eve of the New Year. Now I wondered if it would really make it or if it would wait for the inauguration of the year of the tiger (probably a couple of week into the year, actually). But tonight, I was glad to see that they showed the light as shipped on the 13th. In the past I have gotten the light a week after it actually ships from China, so I hope that next weekend I will get one of the last flashlights to make it out of China in the year of the ox.

Flashlights

Trustfire XP-E F23 1xAAA flashlight, DX sku.24291

Ultrafire WF-504B 1x18650 flashlight with XR-E R2 drop-in, DX sku.24200

Uniquefire S10 1xAA flashlight, KD ID 10303

Other things

18650 Charger, DX sku.6105

Universal NiMH/Li-ion Charger, DX sku.14885

So I found this other charger for $7.92 shipped that has two independent charging bays, supposedly charges at 1000mA, and stops charging at 4.20V like it is supposed to.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.6105

This charger looks cheap and is cheap, but it works. The bays are long enough to charge even oversized 18650's. Mine are 67mm long and there are still a couple of more mm to spare. The cone-shaped springs are really weak so when you put a battery in, instead of getting pushed down, they just get pushed over.

The lights on the charger are bad, though you get used to them. For instance if you plug the charger in, the lights both light up green even without a battery. When you put a battery in, the light goes to red, indicating it is being charged. Once charging is complete, the lights will turn green. But if the battery somehow wasn't making contact, the light would also be green. Oddly, when the charger isn't plugged in and you insert a battery, both lights turn red. So if you weren't paying attention and put the batteries in the charger unplugged, the red lights might make you think you are charging the batteries, when, in fact, they are slowly being discharged by whatever voltage it takes to light up the lights. I'm not sure why it wouldn't have been set up so that the lights wouldn't be on unless a battery was inserted, like with any other charger.

The charger is smart in that it uses a higher charging rate on an empty battery and then lowers the charging rate as the battery gets full. The charge rate is supposed to be 1000mA, but because it varies depending on the voltage I measured a charging current of 850mA with a battery charged down to just below 3.6V and it varied to less than 100mA as the battery was being topped off. Here's a graph of time in minutes and the charging current and voltage.

This is a good thing, but this charger seems to take it to an extreme. I charged two batteries to 4.20V and let them sit. Two days later they measured 4.12V each. So I put them in the charger to top them off. One of the batteries took 30 minutes and the other took 50 minutes just to top off 0.08V. So this isn't real fast. However, the gentle rate at the end of the cycle means I can use it to safely top off even my 600mAh 10440 cells after the smaller charger cuts off at 4.10V.

Charging 18650 batteries from 3.6V took it about 6 hours. That isn't that bad except that you are supposed to keep an eye on li-ion batteries while they are charging in case they explode or catch on fire. So it shouldn't be used as an overnight charger or while you are out of the house.

More often than not, I measure 4.21V on charged batteries instead of 4.20V just as the light goes green, but that is probably within the error of my multimeter. After topping off, there may be a 10mA trickle charge for a little while, but I couldn't detect any current after 30 minutes.

The bottom line is that it is pretty cheap and charges li-ion batteries correctly. The fact that it has some quirks with the lights and takes a while is secondary.

• A bigger reflector to focus all the light


• A lot of battery power to drive the LED's to full power


• Good heatsinking to carry a lot of heat away from the LED

Build Quality

My first impression is that it is smaller than I thought, but also heavier. This is a serious hunk of metal! One nice thing about getting it second hand from a CPF member is the guy I bought it from treated it very well. There aren't any marks on it that I could see. Plus he made sure to lubricate the o-rings and actually modified the tail switch so that you can halfway press it and the light comes on momentarily (all of my other lights have reverse clickies that you have to click all the way on and then let go before the light comes on; this light has a forward clicky). One of the reasons I got this light is that it had very good heat sinking and comes completely apart. The LED is mounted to a large brass pill that screws into the throat of the flashlight. The brass carries the heat from the LED directly into the body of the flashlight near its heaviest part. People talk about the light getting fairly hot after using it for a while, and that is a good thing. What would be much worse is the body staying cool while the LED cooks itself. Still, I left the light on for about 15 minutes and it only got warm.

All of the pieces seem of high quality. The bezel seems like stainless and the reflector is aluminum (some lights have plastic reflectors). Reviewers on DX complain that the glass lens seems kind of thin, and I would agree with that. Because the lens is larger in area, it probably needs to be a little thicker as well. Another mm of thickness would be good. I was a little suprised that the body doesn't seem to screw off separtely from head. At the silver ring you would think there would be a threaded joint, but there doesn't seem to be (actually the pictures on DX showing it coming apart there, but I can't budge it and don't see any reason to force anything). Instead it is primarily three pieces: the tail, the tube with head, and the bezel. Actually, the tube has an extension in it so that it can take the two 18650's instead of 3 CR123A's. With a maximum of 18 volts allowable, the light should be able to use 4 16340's (reviews on DX say they won't fit; again I see no reason to try). I don't have any 16340's or enough CR123A's to do a test. So the extension tube adds an extra part. Still, nice o-rings everywhere. The modded tail switch has a rubber boot, but I don't know if it would be waterproof or not, though given the care the previous owner took with the light, I wouldn't be against it being fully dunkable. The tail piece itself feels like it might be made of plastic, though I don't know why it would be.

Here's the big brass pill next to a P60 drop-in:

A look into the throat where the pill screws in:

Battery Life

Some people on DX were claiming 1.5-2 hours, but on two gray 2400mAh protected Trustfire 18650's I only got one hour. Turning the light off to measure current and voltage every 15 minutes at the battery, I got 1.31A at 4.2V and pretty steadily to 1.51A at 3.58V when I stopped the test. Here are the results:

Repeating the test with 2 gray protected Ultrafire 2400mAh 18650's that I got with the light, I got another 15 minutes, so the Trustfires maybe aren't so great:

The light output seemed pretty constant the whole time. Based on Low being about a third of the draw of High, you could get 3 hours. At a 1.4A draw, 2400mAh batteries should yield an hour and 40 minutes, but I wasn't running the battery all the way down either. If the driver is supplying 2.8A, then it would be running pretty efficiently, but I doubt I'm getting that. While leaving it on for that time, most of the body became quite warm, but not too hot to hold. For the first 15 minutes it was only a little warm. Anyway, I'm a little disappointed in the runtime. I think with two batteries, it should last longer than an hour. But I am impressed that the brightness didn't seem to fade and the results seem to indicate it is well regulated, but with a buck converter that is a lot easier to do and should be more efficient as well.

Light Output

Turning it on, it didn't seem insanely bright inside the house. The sun was setting but it wasn't quite dark, so it wasn't all that impressive outdoors either. I did notice a slight greenish tint to the light. The sequence of modes is High, Low, and a killer Strobe. The mode memory seems to work fine. The momentary on of the modded forward clicky will change modes if you cycle quickly, but if you leave the light off for 1 second, you stay in the same mode. So no good for morse code, but fine for "tactical" use (whatever that is).

I waited a little longer for it to get dark and then took out my Ultrafire WF-504B that I just got last week to do a comparison. Now this isn't really fair. The 504B has a Cree XR-E R2 LED in it that can produce about 200 lumens. This light can produce 600 lumens (DX says 900 lumens, but I doubt it). The R2 has a 26.5mm diameter reflector head, this one has a 52.8mm one. The 504B has one 18650 battery, this one has two.

Here are some shots indoors of both beams. The big reflector does a good job of concentrating light into a very tight hotspot. If you get within a few inches of the wall, you can see a + in the middle of the P7 hotspot because of the separation of the 4 different LED dies. But at this distance of 50cm, you can see the + is gone (but there is still a small dark donut hole, even at much greater distances).

It isn't an enormous difference as I reduce the shutter time down to 1/100th and 1/1600th of a second.

Here is the 504b on medium and the 1200 on "low":

Outdoors in the dark, the differences really stand out. This light lights up everything around with some decent flood, but really has great throw. For reference, first is a control shot of the darkness:

Now a shot of the WF-504B on high with a Cree XR-E R2 LED. This is a good thrower so it does a decent job of lighting up the fence post 120' away and to the left of the upright forked stick 25' away.

But here is the WF-1200L and you can see it is lighting up areas past the fence that weren't even noticed before.

I had to turn it to low so the stick wouldn't burst into flames (just kidding). So here is another shot of the 1200L, but now on "low":

The Low isn't all that low and still almost as bright as the 504B on high and it still has a lot of throw. Really there should be the incredibly bright high at 600 lumens, a more reasonable Medium of about 200 lumens that would be like high on most lights, and then a true Low down around 20 lumens. It might even be worth having something around 80 lumens.

I don't have a light meter, so I can't measure the lumens. Nor do I have any experience with other 600-lumen lights. But somehow this doesn't quite look like 600 lumens to me. I know a lot of DX lights with P7's only get about 400 lumens or so. This is significantly brighter than the 200 lumens of the R2, but I was expecting a little more somehow.

Conclusion

I like having a bright light and it is nice that it has so much throw since some P7's are all flood. But, honestly, the light probably isn't going to be used that much because it is so big and heavy. I am impressed with the quality and weight of the light. I'm not sure what more money would buy from a more reputable manufacturer. A lot of DX lights need some tweaking when you get them, and because this light is second-hand by someone knowledgeable, that stuff has been done (or maybe wasn't needed).

The light retails for $73, which is still a bargain compared to non-budget brands with P7 or MC-E emitters. But there are 2x18650 lights like the Aurora for only $47 that look pretty similar. I feel like I got a really good deal getting a big discount on a well-maintained and probably lightly used light, but I would never pay $73.

Build Quality

I am very impressed. The threads are very smooth and the o-rings seem to work with a nice thick black one at the head and a skimpier one in the tail. Both seem to engage properly and should offer pretty good water resistance. There was some clear gunk on the tail threads that may be some kind of thick grease though it didn't seem slippery (maybe thread compound?). There was some oily grime on the inside of the lens which I was able to remove with a couple of applications of Windex (though I couldn't figure out how to remove the lens itself; I couldn't budge the inner bezel). There are a couple of little dings or machining marks in the exterior, but overall I really like the finish and detailing. Some of the tail threads look like they weren't formed all the way, but this is not a visible area and doesn't seem to affect anything.

The tail switch is black rubber which I think goes great with the silver finish. It has a very solid feel when clicking, but isn't hard to click. There are two lanyard holes so that the lanyard can be put on without affecting its ability to tailstand.

The drop-in fits fairly loosely in place and I didn't notice a lot of heat coming through. I wrapped the sides of the drop-in with some heavy duty aluminum foil folded several times and smoothed out as best I could in order to make it fit more snugly. I don't know if this helps or not. The XR-E LED probably doesn't get as hot as some brighter drop-ins.

Because this is a P60 host and drop-in, the drop-in probably needs to be reviewed as a separate entity. I've never had one of these, so I can't say anything about how it compares to others. It is an offbrand Super Bright R2 module (labelled that way at least). The LED is definitely a XR-E, but I can't tell what bin. There were a couple of tiny specks on the LED dome that I was not able to remove. I couldn't even see them without a magnifying lens. The reflector is aluminum with a mild orange peel. It has some spill and a pretty tight hotspot that throws quite well. The tint is definitely cool white, maybe a little violet.

The current runs high on a fresh protected gray 2400mAh Trustfire 18650 lithium ion battery, 1.1 Amps, but drops off quickly to 0.83A at 3.95V then declines steadily to 0.70A at 3.8V and 0.50A at 3.6V. I can't measure brightness, but there can't be a whole lot of regulation involved. On a battery charged to 4.2V, the light lasts about 90 minutes before getting down to 3.6V.

Repeating the test with a similar protected gray 2400mAh Ultrafire 18650, I got 15 additional minutes, for some reason not registering the high initial current draw from before:

Indoor Beam Shots

The 504B is always on the left and the lights are 50cm from the wall. ISO is 100 and aperture is f2.8.

On high vs. Fenix L2D Q5 with shutter speed of 1/25 second. The Fenix is powered by 2 freshly charged AA NiMH Eneloops and is on Turbo mode (180 lumens). The Fenix has a yellowish tint while the 502B is fairly cool:

Shutter speed dropped to 1/100 second:

Shutter now at 1/1600 second. The 504B has a more intense hotspot:

I recently got a Uniquefire S10 6-mode from KaiDomain, but I burned the driver out using a lithium-ion 14500. So I converted it to direct drive with a 14500 only. This light has the same LED, a Cree XR-E R2. The tints of these two are pretty similar. At 1/25:

Shutter speed dropped to 1/100 second:

Shutter now at 1/1600 second. The 504B again has a more intense hotspot:

Outdoor beam shots

The forked stick in the ground is 25' away. To the left of that stick are two fence posts where the hotspot is focused. These are 120' away. The shutter is left open for 4 seconds to get a picture that looks about what you see. Here is a control shot:

For comparison sake, here is a beam shot of the Fenix L2D on turbo:

And here is the Uniquefire S10 directly driven by a 14500:

Now the Ultrafire WF-504B on high. It has better throw and the fence posts are better defined:

With the battery run down to 3.6V, the beam isn't nearly as bright:

Back on a fresh battery, the 504B on medium:

On low:

Conclusion

I am very impressed by the quality of this $14.99 light and I really like the shiny aluminum finish. The design is excellent (it should be since it is a knockoff of the Surefire 6P and Solarforce L2) but everything seems like is very good quality for a DealExtreme light. The drop-in seems a little weak, not offering memory mode and with poor regulation, but the brightness is good and it throws better than any of my smaller lights. I can always change the driver or the whole drop-in.

I'm not sure if it is because I am using twice as much coffee, or if the thing really works, but it does seem like the coffee is better. If I followed their instructions they would have me using 4 times as much coffee as I use in my Mr. Coffee. So to make it stretch further, I am increasing the stirring time and adding more hot water. The water is probably a little hotter as well. I know if I used freshly ground beans, it would go way up in quality, but I don't have a grinder or any beans, so that is something I may do later.

I have made coffee with it three times now. The most time-consuming part is heating up the water in the microwave. It takes about 3.5 minutes to get 8 oz of water to the right temperature. While it is heating up I can load a small filter in the bottom of the maker and measure out the grounds. Then wait on the microwave. As a hungry Homer Simpson said on meatloaf night "Isn't there anything faster than a microwave?!" So then you pour most of the water into the maker, stir, and just set the plunger in to make a good seal, but don't press. Now add some milk to the rest of the hot water from the microwave and put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds or so. The reason you put the plunger in first is otherwise the water will all gravity feed through the filter. So then you press and you find out you press the water out pretty quickly and most of the time you're just pressing air through the filter. It seems kind of silly to press air, but it does help in the cleanup because the plunger is like a squeegee down the inside of the other chamber. Once you've done that, add the rest of the hot water to the cup (the coffee has drained directly into the mug).

One thing is you don't get that coffee smell in the kitchen, which I guess is good because maybe that lost flavor is going into the cup instead. Once you are done it seems like there are a lot of parts. There is the plunger, and then the container and the filter cap plus the stirrer and you have to have a second mug to heat the water in originally. With the Mr. Coffee there is just the basket and the coffee pot and they all go back together to air dry. So I don't think cleanup is as easy, but you can heat up water any way you want, so you aren't dependent on electricity. Some people have a special boiling hot water tap and that would really speed things up. In fact, this would be ideal for people like that. There are a ton of reviews on Amazon and some people take this to work with them because the community coffee isn't that good and they want to make their own.

1. fresh ground
2. good roast
3. good grinder
4. appropriate temperature
5. good water
6. good machine
7. barista skill set

This is interesting, because he says you're getting way ahead of yourself if you go looking for a good machine and you aren't going to, say, use the appropriate water temperature. Likewise, skill is no match for picking a good roast or using good water.

Well, I'll tell you right now that I have no intention of going hog wild on coffee beans and grinders. My deal right now is that I am able to sometimes get Publix preground coffee for a penny using their mystery coupon deal. And decaf is better for me than regular because I get headaches the day after drinking real coffee. And I'm not even talking strong coffee. I'm using 1 tablespoon of grounds to make about 8 oz. of coffee. So this bag of really cheap coffee lasts me months! So I'm already skipping the two most important things by not grinding the beans fresh and not choosing a good, fresh roast (some people roast their own beans in an air popcorn maker!).

But I'd still like to do the most with what I've got. Since I'm using preground coffee, it seems like the french press is out unless I want a lot of sediment. But then I read about people using an AeroPress, which was invented in 2005 and is made by the same people that make Aerobie flying rings. It is similar to a french press in that you add hot water directly to coffee grinds and then filter out the grinds, but has some key differences. Rather than a plunger with a strainer on it, there is a filter on the bottom. The plunger is more like the plunger of a hypodermic needle and it forces the water and coffee mixture through the bottom filter. In fact, you trap some air in the top, so the plunger doesn't even make contact with the coffee. And there is no sediment since a filter is being used. And because of the filter, you can use any size grind you want (a finer grind will make it harder to force coffee through the filter). Cleaning is easier because you are throwing away the messy part (the filter) instead of re-using it.

You aren't even supposed to use water that is boiling hot. But doing so means you need to use more coffee grounds. Unlike an automatic drip coffee maker, this method has a couple of variables that you can control, like the temperature of the water and how long the coffee steeps (you're not supposed to wait 4 minutes like with a french press, they say just to stir for 10 seconds and start pressing, but others say it is better to stir a little longer and use a little bit hotter water than the 175° recommended).

Lastly, the AeroPress makes concentrated coffee (they say you are making espresso) so you then add some more hot water when you are done. That might work for me because I could heat up some water and milk while pressing and then I wouldn't be adding cold milk like I do with my drip coffee maker.

Here are some instructions on the web.

Anyway, for $26 at Amazon I figured I should try it out.

They seem to take a little while to get to full brightness. It isn't just a few seconds, but maybe 30 seconds or more. The tint of the light is decent, but they aren't quite as bright as the old bulbs I had in there, which are labeled as 25 watt while these CF bulbs are labeled 15 watt (and actually use 3 watts). Here is a mix of the bulbs installed for comparison with the incandescent bulb on the left and the CF bulbs in the middle and on the right:

Here is a page of Time magazine opened up underneath the fan with all three of the original bulbs lit.

Now here is the same page with the same manual camera settings. ISO 400, F2.8, and shutter at 0.25 seconds. This is with the CF bulbs. This is definitely darker (though not green like this looks; eyes adjust better to the dimmer light than the camera). I didn't realize I was getting so many fewer watts when I was at the store. But 45 watts total compared to 75 watts is a big difference. I would rather have brighter bulbs.

Long story short, I got suspended from the flashlight discussion board. Not long, just for a day. Here's how it happened.

The other thing is you have this community of flashlight enthusiasts who spend a lot of money on flashlights. Crazy amounts of money. And they buy dozens of flashlights. This is their hobby and they don't mind spending a lot. There are a lot of titanium flashlights that are even more expensive than the regular expensive ones. If you ask which of two flashlights you should buy, the answer is usually "buy both!" They insist on very high quality and praise great customer service from the dealers (almost all of which is done online because stores typically don't carry these specialized items; some gun shops do because somehow guns and flashlights go together). They endlessly praise the most knowledgeable people on the board and steer people towards high quality expensive flashlights and accessories. If you ask for a suggestion for a $20 flashlight, they will suggest a $60 one.

They show great disdain for cheaper flashlights. Though a lot of people on the board love Maglites, there are also people who look down at them as too common. The cheap Chinese flashlights sold by direct-from-Hong-Kong dealers like KaiDomain and DealExtreme are constantly derided as garbage (but a lot of people still buy them).

One thing that bugs me is that if someone asks a question about a cheap light on a general forum where good lights are talked about, the moderators move the entire thread into another thread dedicated to reviews of cheap lights. This helps in some ways because if a newbie asks about some cheap brand of light they will just get a lot of disdain for that piece of junk and will be told to buy an expensive light, which doesn't necessarily help. A few people have asked for a sub-forum dedicated to cheap lights so there can be separate threads instead of one giant one and, of course, been told gruffly that it won't be done (while other people jump in with disdain for cheap flashlights; they can't stop themselves). Posts within the cheap flashlight thread about other threads being dumped there are deleted because they are considered off-topic in a flashlight-oriented thread. Instead you have to post in the suggestions forum where you will be abused (poignant example).

So a newbie writes his first post ever in the general forum about a cheap Chinese flashlight being sold on eBay, asks people if they think it is a good deal, and provides a link. Well, you can't post links to eBay because that is considered advertising. Even posting links to a DX light is not allowed, but is sometimes tolerated because DX carries a number of flashlights that look identical but have different LED's or features. And different companies make clones of the same light that all look just alike except for the logos. The links are the only way to find out what someone is really talking about. You can mention the items by catalog number (I think this may be done because they don't want Google giving the cheap lights higher page rank because there were links from an authoritative site like CPF).

Well, the moderator deletes the link and adds [eBay link deleted - DM51] where DM51 is the moderator. No explanation given. And the post has been moved too because it was asked on the general forum instead of the cheap lights thread, which isn't even called The Cheap Lights Thread or anything that would give you a clue that's the only place to ask that kind of question.

So it kind of bugs me this is how it works. I post a reply that says: "In other words, you are not wanted here. Please go away. Welcome to CPF." I knew this was inflammatory, but it bugs me these guys don't even clue people in about why the posts are being moderated. After I posted it, I realized it was kind of harsh, so I edited it to add "Maybe the moderators could provide a clue why the post was edited . . . ?" or something like that.

Well, not only was I off-topic by commenting about the edit, but now I had questioned the moderators, which is also not allowed. So less than an hour later, I visit again and I see that the contents of my post have been deleted by a (different) moderator. This isn't really that surprising. I knew I was provoking them.

Of course, I can't leave well enough alone, but I thought I would tone it down while still taking a poke at the moderators. When you write posts you can add different smiley icons from a list. Some are customized just for CPF and one in particular is a little animated smiley guy that holds up a sign that says "Welcome to CPF!" and he's waving. People use it when someone posts their first message. So I edited my post again, removed the comment from the moderator saying my contents had been deleted, and replaced it with the little smiley icon. That's all. I didn't post any words other than quoting the original newbie's post as edited by the moderator. Still, I thought it was kind of funny (the board administrator had posted the same smiley in the poignant example I posted earlier, which I didn't realize until I was writing this).

About an hour later, right before going to bed, I checked CPF again to see if I had gotten a reaction (one person had responded to the deletion of my previous comment by saying they were glad the forums were well-moderated; I was hoping for some support for more polite moderators though). Instead of seeing the usual screen, I had a message saying I had been banned from CPF for failing to yield to moderation. At least they gave me a reason . . .

Anyway, the ban was really more like a suspension because it was only for a day. And that day is almost up, so I have to get going . . .

You always want the yellow line (the current value) to be above the pink line (total of my contributions). If the yellow dips below the pink, I am losing money. It has happened twice, but is not happening right now. The neat thing that happened in June 2000 was the blue line (gain or loss) crossed the pink line. That meant that my gains exceeded my contributions, or, in other words, I had doubled my money! At the time I had an average annual return of 33%, which was clearly unsustainable. About two years later, I had lost every penny of my gains and was showing an average annual loss of 1.18%. Five years later, I was showing a lifetime average gain of 11.3% but nowhere close to doubling my money yet. 18 months later, I had lost all my gains again and had an average loss of 0.31% per year over the previous 16 years. Now I'm showing a gain again of 4%, which is pretty lousy, but I'll take it. Though the account value is back to where it was before the 2008 crash, you can see that today's gains are about half of what they were then.

The main high-end US flashlight company, Surefire, sells innards of a flashlight called a P60. It consists of three parts: a reflector, a bulb, and the electronics that drive it. Surefire uses this assembly in several different models of flashlights. It has become a standard part and now many off-brands offer P60 drop-ins that can be used in Surefire lights. And because there are so many P60 drop-ins and Surefires are so expensive, now people make P60-compatible bodies that will accept the drop-ins. So instead of spending $150 on Surefire's system, you can spend $18 for a generic.

The nice thing about the 18650 battery is it has a lot more oomph than smaller batteries so it will last longer or can drive a LED harder (brighter!) than a regular battery. I'm happy with my smaller lights, but I thought it would be good to have something a lot brighter that doesn't have to be as portable. The new Cree XP-G R5 LED should be at least 20% brighter than anything I have now. There are other LED's that are even brighter but they produce a lot of heat that can cause the LED to destroy itself and have really short runtimes, even on a 18650 (some lights use two 18650's). These LED's actually consist of 4 LED's sitting right next to each other. They advertise 900 lumens instead of the 180 of my brightest light, but realistically they are maybe 500. Still, pretty good. But too much heat for me to deal with right now.

So this company Solarforce is capitalizing on Surefire by offering a cheaper light and P60 drop-in. But we're talking about China, so there is another company that has totally stolen the look of Solarforce and cut the price in half again, down to about $18. This company is Ultrafire. They make several lights that look like various Solarforce lights and use the XP-G R5 LED (which Solarforce hasn't even adopted yet). These are the WF-501B, WF-502B, and WF-504B. Yes, there is a WF-503B, but nobody has put a R5 in there yet (only KaiDomain has a 504B with an R5, while BestOfferBuy.com has the drop-in, 501B, and 502B a little cheaper; DealExtreme doesn't have any R5's yet). I can get one of these for about $22. Just the drop-in itself is $16, so I'm only paying $6 for the body.

I almost bought one of these. I was liking the 504B which has a stainless steel front bezel, but the rest of the light has a glossy black finish that looks a little too slick. The 502B was very popular the last couple of years, so it has a large customer base. I think maybe the silver 504B would be the one I would get though it will show scratches like crazy.

But if I buy one, I also need an 18650 battery. And although my really cheap lithium ion charger will accept something up to 65 mm long, most of the protected batteries are actually 66-68 mm long and might not fit, so I would need a new charger. I found one I can get for $8 that people seem to think is okay. So a pair of batteries would be $8 plus the $8 charger (if I got the charger, I could get longer batteries with more protection, though I don't know for sure they would fit in the light). Plus $22 for the light, so now I'm up to $38. And this isn't even a light I would carry around that much. It absolutely won't work on regular old batteries, though other P60 drop-ins would work with two somewhat conventional CR123A batteries (drop-ins designed for the higher voltage of 2xCR123A aren't usually as bright since they have to regulate the voltage down to something the LED can handle), which will fit in the light.

So I think I will hold off. The only R5 drop-ins are either 1-mode (not enough) or 5-mode (too many) and the 5-mode doesn't remember the last mode. Some of the R2 drop-ins have 3 modes and remember the last setting, which would be a lot better I think. As the R5 LED's become more popular, some 3-mode versions might start showing up. So I'm thinking I will hold off for now.

I could also buy a pair of 18650 batteries now and a charger, so I would have those ready when I do eventually buy a flashlight that can use them.

Further thinking . . . Now I'm considering getting a flashlight with a P7 LED which is actually 4 LED's on a single chip and can be really bright. There are a few P60 drop-ins, but they're kind of expensive and plagued by heat-sinking problems (which some manufacturers get around by reducing the current which also reduces brightness, which is the whole point!). Another LED with 4 emitters is called a Cree MC-E. There is one recommended from DX that people seem to agree puts out the 400 lumens claimed for $23.49 (just for the drop-in; these multi-die LED's are expensive).

I also found a good review of a silver DealExtreme 5-mode 504B for $15 that uses a XR-E R2 and has a very tight beam that throws a long way. It would be neat to have a good thrower regardless while the XP-G R5 or the P7 would have more of a floody beam. So then I could get the R5 drop-in separately from KD. Alternatively I could get one of the KD 504's (or 502 or 503, haven't decided yet) with the R5 and buy the DX R2 drop-in (the drop-in has mode memory but the flashlight they sell claiming memory apparently doesn't). Or, since I would rather have mode memory and avoid the flashy modes of the DX, I could get a higher quality Solarforce drop-in from this site which offers a 5% CPF discount. That would be about $40 for a light with two different drop-ins.

There is another alternative that I looked at that involves building your own P7 drop-in, but that involves a whole new list of parts, so I may write a separate post on that. It's intriguing because it is kind of like building your own light saber.

Alternate 1: A silver R5 504B from KaiDomain for $22.20

Alternate 2: A silver 504B from DX with 5-mode R2 plus KD's R5 drop-in: $29.85

Alternate 3: A 504B from KD with R5 plus the DX 5-mode memory drop-in: $33.93

Alternate 4: DX 504B with R2 plus the DX MC-E drop-in: $38.48

Alternate 5: 504B from KD with R5 and Solarforce 3-mode R2 drop-in: $42.15

So I thought I would try out rechargeable batteries. I know what you are thinking: Due to the self-discharge rate of NiMH batteries, won't they all be dead in a couple of months? Not if I use low-self-discharge batteries. But low-drain applications aren't economically viable due to the high up-front cost of the batteries, right? Well, not if you can get them on a really good sale, which I have been able to do recently. Target had 4-packs of Duracell precharged batteries for $6.45 last September and in December Rite-Aid had them for $7.09 after one rebate and down to $5.18 after another. These will retain 80% of their initial charge after a year and, because they have about twice the capacity of alkaline cells, they should be able to make it the whole year. If it works, it will still take 5 years to break even on this system (based on the cheapest price I ever got alkalines, which was 16 AA and 16 AAA batteries for $9.99).

The only problem is the voltage of NiMH batteries is only 1.2V instead of 1.5V for alkalines. Even fully charged, a NiMH is only 1.45V. So some devices think the battery is low even though it is just fine. And after installing 12 NiMH batteries yesterday (I had just installed alkalines a couple of months ago in the other two devices, so I am hoping they will make it for 12 more months), some are already reading LOW BATT. On alkalines, the probes and everything would work for months on low, so I am hoping it won't be a problem and they can last all year on low.

The other potential problem is the batteries that are outside may not perform very well in cold weather. They will really be tested the next couple of days as temperatures drop into the teens, but they are also fully charged. Then the other question is how well they will do in the summer when temperatures in the attic go up to 120 degrees.