Difference between revisions of "Budget lights"

The exact definition varies, but typically these are offbrand lights made in China and sold by direct shippers like DealExtreme, Manafont, and KaiDomain. Quality varies greatly, sometimes being surprisingly good, but often mediocre or poor. There seems to be little accountability by the companies that manufacture the lights with many similar lights showing up under different, but similar, brandnames like UltraFire, TrustFire, and UniqueFire that even share logos.

Cool tint colors for LED's is commonplace and neutral or warm colors are rare. HA III hard anodizing is hard to find. Some might have Type II anodizing, if that, and therefore these lights show wear much faster than name brand lights. [[Terminology#Regulator|Regulation]] of the light output is usually not that great with steadily declining output as the batteries charge down.

The retailers websites often post incorrect information about lights and change features around without notice. In particular, ratings of lumens and runtimes are often greatly exaggerated. Descriptions might claim hard anodizing and coated lenses when this is not the case. Fakes are not uncommon. User reviews can help establish some features, but because the models change, even those reviews may not be accurate.

It is difficult to sell used budget lights. More expensive lights hold their value much better and the cost to ship the light does not represent as big a part of the cost.

With those caveats above, some of the lights represent a great value, often a third of the price of a name brand light featuring the same LED. The lights are often made of aluminum, feature o-rings at the joints for water integrity, have glass lenses, and many have aluminum reflectors. Although they often require some tweaking upon receipt for them to work correctly, one advantage is that many of these lights can be easily taken apart and modified. To get a good light, read the reviews on the retailers websites and everything you can find out at Budget Light Forum as well as [http://www.jayki.com Jayki] and even CPF. Read up on the sellers too by checking out BLF's section on [http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/marketplace/dealers Budget Dealers].