LED lighting, and a small ranty rant,

[shoju]

Yeah, I once bought a bunch of clearance priced incan flashlights from Radioshack, (though in Canada they're now called The Source.).

They were worth it to me at least for the slightly rarer Xenon bulbs they came with, but the main intent was to buy these cheap (but good enough for most general uses) hosts for LED retrofit bulbs.

Then I realized, the technology has now caught up, that for a few dollars more than the price of a decent, mid grade LED drop in. I can now buy a very good, purpose built LED flashlight that is just so far ahead in quality and performance.

So that kiboshed my original plan, and I'll probably wind up perma-loaning some of the ones I bought on a camping trip or something.

I won't lie, some of the LED Hand Held Units we have go....... Overboard.

But, we have this really nice unit that I just picked up for myself. It's a 16 LED Front Facing Flash Light, and then on the side of the Flashlight, it has a metal cover that you can slide back. When you slide this back, it kills the power to the Front Facing Flashlight, and has a 30 LED (3x10) bay light, like what you would use in an auto repair situation (stuck on the side of the road, and trying to change a tire/check engine/etc...)

I picked this bad boy up for right about 15 bucks, 3 bucks cheaper than the maglite sitting next to it, and far brighter. The maglite may win out on the metal quality (Because the side of the LED slides, which will probably wear out at some point), but it isn't by a lot.