Reviews > Lighting > Flashlights - LED > SureFire L1 LumaMax > Steve Nelson > Long Term Report

Long-Term Report: Surefire L1 LumaMax® Flashlight
August 29, 2006

Reviewer's Information

Name: Steve Nelson
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Email address: nazdarovye at y..oo dot com
City, State, Country: San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

Backpacking Background:

I've been backpacking since I was a kid, starting in the Adirondacks of upstate New York and in nearby Quebec. I now live in California, backpacking in all four seasons there, with occasional trips back to the east coast and elsewhere. I like hiking fast, and transitioned to lightweight backpacking over the past few years. I also enjoy skiing, snowshoeing, canoeing, and aviation in addition to backpacking, so my gear gets exposed to a wide variety of uses and conditions. As a design and usability consultant, I love analyzing and improving products; backpacking provides a rich arena for that.

Product information

Overview

The Surefire L1 LumaMax Flashlight is a metal-bodied flashlight utilizing a single lithium 123A cell to drive a Luxeon 3W LED. It features a combination tail switch with a two-stage rubberized pushbutton (for momentary use of the two brightness levels) as well as a twisting action that allows the light to be locked off, set to respond to the pushbutton, or turned on full-time at either of its brightness levels. I provided more background details, description and pictures in my initial report, and results from my first two months of use in my field report, which you may wish to reference. This report gives results from two more months of use of the flashlight.

Long-Term Conditions

I've now used the L1 LumaMax flashlight almost daily for over four months. This includes two overnight snow camping trips and a four-day Spring backpacking trip, three summer backpacking trips, a combo backpacking and hotel trip, a couple of other road trips with hotel stays, at least ten day hikes, frequent use around the house, and use on nighttime drives. Locations have ranged throughout Northern California, from the Bay Area to Anchor Bay on the coast, and throughout the central and northern Sierra Nevada (numerous locations ranging from Kings Canyon north to Lassen Volcanic National Park). Elevations have ranged from sea level to over 9,000 ft (2,750 m), and weather from clear to extremely windy to rainy and snowy, with temperatures from 24-101° F (-4-38° C).

I've stored the flashlight in the lid of several backpacks, in a special hidden lanyard pocket of one pack, inside a hip pack, in suitcase pockets, in my pants pockets, in tent pockets, hanging from my neck by its lanyard, in the center console of two different cars, and even rattling around in a drawer when I'm not actively using it.

I've used the LumaMax by holding it in my hand, clipping it to a headband, hanging it from my neck, and hanging it from the inside of two different tents.

Long-Term Observations

I've continued to find this flashlight a reliable companion on my trips and hikes and other activities. I really don't have much to add to my observations on usability and features from my field report: the light performs as promised, has a flexible and easy to use switch, comes with a useful lanyard, and is highly durable. I also find it quite versatile—I've enjoyed using it around the house and in the car as much as I have for backpacking and travel. The light levels and overall usability have been great in all of those settings.

My only quibble with the light is one I identified early on: the beam is a bit more focused than I would like for most backpacking uses, especially fast hiking at night or when getting ready for bed inside a tent or bivy sack. I also find the ring/halo around the beam slightly distracting, particularly the color aberration at the outside of the main beam area (yellow to orange at the outermost edge). I would love to see the flashlight sold with a wider and more even beam pattern, or better yet, an adjustable one. (For use around the house or car, the current beam spread is appropriately narrow and focused.)

That said, and as noted in my previous report, I was able to fashion a diffuser from a water bottle cap, and that has been a fine (and inexpensive) solution for fast hiking and in-tent use. I've also used the F05 red filter cap on a couple of my trips, and found it a good solution for both lowering the light output and retaining night vision, though not for diffusing the beam (note: Surefire does sell a diffuser cap as well).

I ended up conducting the entire four months of almost daily use on a single battery! I tend to use the light in short bursts (generally for just a few seconds at a time, and rarely more than a couple of minutes, other than when I've hung it inside a tent). My combined usage over the four months added up to a bit over 11 hours of actual run time, with approximately 80% of that at the lower output level. At that point, the light levels appeared slightly lower than they did at the start of the test.

In addition to my field use, I conducted a battery run-time test at home (since I don't have measuring equipment for light intensity, nor a camera set up to take pictures of the beam at a consistent exposure, my report is strictly anecdotal). I put a fresh Surefire brand CR123 battery into the L1, turned it on to its high setting, and left it on edge of a hard surface, pointed at a white door where I could monitor the strength and size of the beam. I checked the light every half hour, comparing it each time to the fresh beam from another flashlight for reference. At the 2 hour checkpoint the light seemed very slightly slightly diminished, and at 2.5 hour checkpoint, I was certain it was dimmer than it was at the start. At 3.5 hours, the light was quite a bit dimmer than before; at this point I was curious to see whether I could still use both settings, and I turned the switch off, then back on. Surprisingly, the light refused to turn on any more, even though it still had a usable light output before I turned the switch off and on (and that light output appeared brighter than the normal Low setting).

I'm not sure what to make of this, except that in this quite unscientific test, the duration of the high beam was quite a bit less than claimed by Surefire, and that when it reached the end of its life, something in the circuitry would not allow it to turn back on even though there was obviously some life left in the battery. I've always carried a backup battery in the field, and this test reinforced to me the importance of doing so.

Durability over the course of the four months of testing has been outstanding. Despite almost daily use and my simply tossing the flashlight into pack pockets, pants pockets, and containers around the house and in the car, the only wear I see is on the surface of the lanyard clip where it contacts the ring on the flashlight, and one tiny spot where the anodizing flaked off a single bump on the handle. There has been no apparent wear or damage to the lens and plastic components of the light, nor to the switch mechanism.

Summary

The Surefire L1 LumaMax is a bombproof-feeling, thoughtfully-designed flashlight with a two-level, tightly-focused beam. My experiences with it have been very positive and I will continue to carry it for daily use, both at home and for non-ultralight backpacking trips.

Things I like:

• High quality fit, finish, features
• Well-chosen low and high beam settings
• Flexible yet easy-to-use controls for on/off/brightness
• Lanyard and battery are included; the flashlight is ready to go right out of the box
• Very durable and reliable

Things I don't like:

• Beam somewhat too focused for the majority of my backpacking and hiking uses
• Slight ring/halo and color aberration around beam
• Somewhat abrupt shut-off at the end of a battery's life (compared to the long, slow die-off of intensity with a non-regulated light)

Thanks to BackpackGearTest and Surefire for giving me the opportunity to participate in this test.

Reviews > Lighting > Flashlights - LED > SureFire L1 LumaMax > Steve Nelson > Long Term Report