Update surefire E1E or trade sell?

F

farmboy

Joined
Aug 31, 1999
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731
Title says it all. I have an incandecent E1E that I recieved last Christmas, but a 60 minute run time is not a workable thing for me.

Should I upgrade to the LED lamp, or just trade/sell it for a Fenix or other upper end light?
 
Fenix is upper end? compared to a surefire?

Novatac's (hds) new light is out, take a look I love my hds edc.

Henry (engineer behind hds edc series) will be releasing a new series.

Arc is getting closer to releaseing the new arc ls

Surefire is rereleasing its LED lights using the Cree emitter.

Don't get me wrong, fenix makes a decent light, I have an L1D CE myself and it performs great. To compare it to surefire though? I would grab a novatac if I were you, my HDS never leaves my side and has proven itself in ruggedness, runtime, and brightness (I upgraded the old luxeon to a souel it now shoots out over 100 lumens for 45min, and 60 lum for more hours than I have the patience to test).

Just my 3 cents
 
I would wait until surefire comes out with a cree lamp. The new cree E1 was just released and its runtime is 10 hours at 30 lumens.
 
ARC ls is already out, but you must travel to San Francisco and buy it at TAG's store front. 39 bucks as I recall. I own a buncha surefires, Fenix is right up there and taking into consideration that surefire cant even compete in brightness with comparable models and half the price for a fenix... Not sure how you measure ruggedness, I am a Fireman(Structural and Wildland Forestry),Investigator and State Search and Rescue Agent...I dont run over them with Dozers, they get plenty wet, I can be a klutz and Fenix lights work fine for me...not to mention AA batts are easy to put your hands on everywhere and cheap. 135 lumens on 2 AA's will trump any light apples to apples. not even debatable. buy a surefire and you are paying for ALOT of marketing, thats okay. I buy 'em. I am not anti Surefire. My Go Bags have them inside.
 
FireInvestigator said:
ARC ls is already out, but you must travel to San Francisco and buy it at TAG's store front. 39 bucks as I recall. I own a buncha surefires, Fenix is right up there and taking into consideration that surefire cant even compete in brightness with comparable models and half the price for a fenix... Not sure how you measure ruggedness, I am a Fireman(Structural and Wildland Forestry),Investigator and State Search and Rescue Agent...I dont run over them with Dozers, they get plenty wet, I can be a klutz and Fenix lights work fine for me...not to mention AA batts are easy to put your hands on everywhere and cheap. 135 lumens on 2 AA's will trump any light apples to apples. not even debatable. buy a surefire and you are paying for ALOT of marketing, thats okay. I buy 'em. I am not anti Surefire. My Go Bags have them inside.
Click to expand...

New Arc ls is not out yet and when it is it sure won't be 39 bucks, that would be the arc aaa. Fenix's anodizing is not HA, comes off on the edges rather quickly. What I consider rugged is run over it, drop it leave it in a bath of salt water if you want to. The internals of the fenix are much more delicate than most higher end lights and can be rendered useless with an unlucky drop as I have experienced (I don't think surefire is worth the price, but strengh of construction and priven track record look good).
Fenix is bright. OK. There is more to a light than just being bright. One thing ( the main thing) I have against the fenix light is the UI. More features are fine if they can be disabled. Click once for med, again for low again for high, O you want to go back to low? toggle through sos and stobe and med and your there. My Pentagon? click it, its on. A light with features? my HDS has all the whistles, even the ones I don't need, I have it set to come on at the last setting. That setting isn't what I want, I can go directly to what I want.
 
I dont own a Surefire LED, I saved my money and bought a custom job by Don of McGizmo fame a few years back. It is an Aleph model heavily modded by Don.The best you can get back then. of course that set me back 250 bucks and I still have it,love it.Very bright white. Rugged? Bombproof. Still, Fenix outshines it in brightlight for a small EDC. Yup, you are right about the Arc LS, and TAGs store. my bad. only the over priced keychain lights right now. Again, I am not stumping for fenix or anyone. I use mine everyday in some of the nastiest environs any normal person would hope not to find.Salt water? I'm smack dab on the water (Gulf of Mexico)most of the time...since owning it it was with me on two Bay rescues, one drowning in Escambia Bay and a distressed Boater in Perdido Bay. Oh wait...once more when the family went to Busch Gardens in Tampa riding the zillion water rides they have.Got soaked. still works. Not sure what 'UI' is. features? dunno. I can tell you this, I have dropped surefires a ton of times and bought a million bulbs so much I had to put a shock bezel on my 6Z combat light.Dont even go there with me, surefires are little doll playing sissy girls in that department.I dont know your lights, I figure they are not mainstream, HDS,Novatac, Pentagon et al. Googled em and saw they are pricey. cool. Hey, if they are better I am game. here are my parameters. Gotta use available Batts, 123 are not easily available at a gas station (at least not here in the armpit of our Nation, the Deep South.I am honest here,during big fires and SAR ops we hit the nearest gas stations)Small for EDC, +100 lumens Bright,no plastic lights, LED cuz they are brighter and tougher then incan bulbs. lightweight. hell, did I just describe my inexpensive 58 dollar fenix? am I happy that a $58 dollar flashlight kicks my $250 dollar modded custom job? no. but I can lose my fenix and not end up putting my fist thru drywall. true story.
 
Fenix doesn't even come close to SF in quality!! I don't think that Fenix lights are that well made, in my opinion. I also think that the Arc-P blows away the fit & finsh of the Fenix lights I own.

DO check out Novatac's new lights!! They are pretty cool. I have an EDC 120 T myself. It arrived on Friday.

DO look into the new SF Cree lights. There is a G2 LED & A 6P LED listed on SF site!!

By the way, I own 5 SF E1e's.
 
DEA said:
is the new cree e1 the e1L woodsman with the kx1 head?
Click to expand...

pretty sure it is. i have the e1e, and the new e1l is identical except for the cree led. i have seen the older e1l's on closeout at several places now that surefire is using the cree.
 
i would get a KL1 or LK4 head for the E1 myself, i have an E1 w/a KL4 and it rocks, works well with the KL1 head also.

imho the fenix lights are pretty well made with good F&F, the 3 i have anyway.
 
makes me feel alot better about splurging for the e1L now :)
at least i won't have to upgrade once the creed heads come out
but knowing surefire, they'll probably stick like 5 leds into 1 conversion kit =.=
 
I, too, got the E1E as a gift... I upgraded to the KL1 lamp and am quite happy with it... I like the size, especially, as if fits in my belt pouch for work in the office, or my smaller pockets on my cargo pants/shorts.
My only desire to upgrade would be to find some rechargable batteries for it, instead of buying new ones...
 
The Fenix AA single cell solution is cheap and effective for normal uses. I can find good AA's anywhere and have really good run time with them.

A lot of this depends on just how many lumens you need, how much throw your require, and what run time yields a reasonable expense for you.

I carried an SureFire E2 for years and now carry a Fenix. The SureFire is better but, it has too much light and is too expensive to run full time.
 
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