for the last year, I have been fascinated with the utility of Goal Zero's excellent solar powered and rechargeable small lights. The bigger light can be plugged into a wall or the computer or has it's own small solar panel. The focus-able hi low bean is quite powerful, very handy for looking all over our little place at night. the 10 dollar solar charger lights are cheap enough to keep one on the truck's dash and on the window sill in my office.
I always have my Surefire Outdoorsman with me. I have a single cell OD, but it is twice been misplaced in a coat or under the sofa cushions...

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Of the Troops & For the Troops

Maglite makes a little LED light that runs on 3 AAA batteries; brightness is excellent (not SureFire bright but good) and at $15 if it falls down a gas pipe it's no big deal. It's been my go-to work light the past few years.

I have put the conversion LED bulbs in 3-Cell Mag-Lights and am very impressed with the resulting brightness and battery life. Used one to track and field dress a buck two weeks ago in the snow. It was on for over 3 hours and never showed any problems with decreased brightness or flickering. Not too bad for a light that lives in my truck, has been used quite a bit already, and was thoroughly cold soaked. I also found a Mini-Mag with the LED on sale at Home Depot for $11 last year, it is now attached to my house key ring and gets carried everyday and used a bunch. I have also been impressed with an Cree LED bulb in a little light purchased in a 3-pack from Sam's Club 2 years ago that uses 3 AAA batteries. In fact all of my vehicle key rings have one of the very inexpensive LED lights Harbor Freight gives away free with purchases periodically, they are not real bright, but more than good enough for general use.

Do not even know how many Mag-Lights, military angle heads, old Ray-O-Vacs, and what ever else are laying around here. Am generally not more than two or three feet from some sort of flashlight. Yes, the battery costs do add up.

I carry a Fenix E11 with me at all times. Upper end is over 100 lumens and takes 1 AA battery. Probably not on the same level as a Surefire, but a pretty good light and would definitely disorient somebody.. Don't know how I got along before I started carrying one.

I got one of the TerraLux conversion kits for my MagLight some time ago..HUGE difference in performance. Definately a must have upgrade.

Flashlights and knives

Is this little guy:

http://www.gunshack.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=38&product_id=235

Small, bright and seems fairly durable. I carry it every day at work and it gets a lot of use. I have it set up to use CR123's but may convert it to AA when the current battery dies just due to cost. It has a little collar that has a smaller ID for the AA battery. Works pretty slick! I have sure fires, including several G2's, some mounted on long guns and some with LED heads. Also have one 6P but it seems 'too nice' to use hard! I've gone through a few smaller 2 AA LED lights at work and have been generally happy but usually the tail cap switch goes out on me. I'm definitely a flashlight junkie too. I'm just too cheap to go for the higher end stuff!

I started buying nice lights about 5 or 6 years ago. Before that I thought the maglites were great, but they have their problems with reduced brightness as the batteries pass 50% of their life, and burned out or broken bulbs.

I bought LED's from Streamlight, Pelican, Nuwaii and more recently Mag and Fenix. The latest Cree LED's are much better than the older Luxeon LED's, and more lights now have electronic circuits that control the brightness through the life of the batteries. Today I EDC a Fenix LD01 that uses a single AAA and is barely larger than the battery, and I have a Fenix PD32 for outdoor use that uses a pair of CR123's and is very bright. I've got some of the newer LED maglites for use around the house, and I've got a Terralux dropin in a mini maglite and it is very impressive.

I learned that you can buy the CR123 batteries economically on the internet and they still have several advantages over Alkaline batteries. And I agree that Surefire is the best, but too expensive for me.

And streamlight has a comproble with 600 Lumens