THE RADIUS IS A COOL LIGHT BUT AT 3 HUNDY???. COME ON MILWUAKEE, ITS A LITTLE RIDICULOUS. THESE ARE NOT SUREFIRE LIGHTS.
JerryNY wrote:
On June 14, 2016 at 6:41 PM, JerryNY said:
$99 for tool only. They have a kit too with a 1.5 battery too and decent photos to get a better idea of it. Looks nice but not in stock yet.
update: Here is the retail packaging and what one looks like with big battery on it.
It actually looks better than I thought with the bigger pack and it stands up more stably and lights up the room like a lantern shooting off the ceiling. The sliding mechanism for the beam is super slick and it does have a nice quality feel overall.
Edited the OP…
That actually does look a lot better than expected with the XC pack.
I think because it’s all black and the battery is essentially all black too it just looks uniform. It kinda looks better and less tool-like than the predominantly red colored lights which is intentional I guess because this is designed to look more like a traditional flashlight and less like a light from a tool manufacturer.
Didn’t think they were going to be out that quick
Yeah I was going to see if they were going to show up in HD stores but decided to just order one from HD online on Tues and got it today with standard shipping.
One thing too that gets overlooked is Milwaukee really does put out a really nice color of light on their LED’s. Not too blue and very white. You can see the m12 on the left and an LED Maglite on the right. I adjusted the mag as best as possible but you can see the uniformity and color on the m12 is far better:
Sweet light, I love Milwaukee LEDs they really are great colored
Jimbo
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That is bigger than I thought it would be, I wish I could justify the cost. Nice pickup, thanks for the pics
The cost is holding me back too. I’m all about cordless tools, but $100 for a light…?
Yeah but when compared to a rechargable Maglite LED it isn’t THAT expensive and it’s much brighter, uniform and better color light and has the ability to swap out batteries instantly off a charger. It’s not cheap but it’s a quality light and has a slick beam adjustment. I’m pretty happy with it so far.
This Milwaukee light is good but it’s no comparison to a high end flashlight of the same cost and they are more then likely tougher in fact they are I have a few fenix lights and they are bomb proof
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I have dozens of flashlights (literally) and what sold me on this one is that I can pull my battery right off my impact wrench and put it in a useable light. Find me another flashlight for this price that you can hook it’s batteries to an impact wrench.
Craigh9916 wrote:
3 hours ago, Craigh9916 said:This Milwaukee light is good but it’s no comparison to a high end flashlight of the same cost and they are more then likely tougher in fact they are I have a few fenix lights and they are bomb proof
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Yeah true but you’re paying for the convenience of using m12 rechargable packs, of which I have an assload of, and popping them on and off a separate charger. Many of the higher end ones seem to use individual cells that have to be thrown into a separate charger which is tedious or you have to throw the whole flashlight into a cradle of hook it up to a USB cable rendering it useless until it’s topped off. I like the convenience of using my tool batteries which I have lying around anyway.
Craigh9916 wrote:
This Milwaukee light is good but it’s no comparison to a high end flashlight of the same cost and they are more then likely tougher in fact they are I have a few fenix lights and they are bomb proofSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Pretty much this. I keep a zebralight sc600 on me and an h602 in my bag. I can’t see using something like this.
BababooeyHTJ wrote:
2 hours ago, BababooeyHTJ said:Pretty much this. I keep a zebralight sc600 on me and an h602 in my bag. I can’t see using something like this.
The sc600 is super nice but not really a direct comparison either. This is a larger spot to flood adjustable light and you still have to fiddle with individual cells and plop them on a charger with the zebra. This is just more convenient to be able to use m12 battery packs for me than fiddling with individual cells and swap them on a charger. I think the zebra cost the same too. The m12 light is more akin to a Streamlight Stinger DS HPL Flashlight at $100 with adjustable light. Different strokes and all I guess.
I’ve never been quite so impressed with a flashlight’s beam adjustment mechanism. It’s much more slick than the twist types and more akin to an SLR style zoom ring where you just smoothly slide it forward and back. I hate the Maglite style where it twists and you never quite get it where you want or aren’t sure if you’re past the stops and have to go back, not to mention they seem to have dark spots all over. It adjusts from a super tight spot that can probably go hundreds of yards to a very broad flood that can cover a whole wall uniformly from only about 3-4 yards away. Like really surprisingly wide. The color rendition is also super nice, no annoying blue tint and looks almost like the color of a slightly warm halogen, not yellow either. The lens design is pretty interesting with a deep reflector and a diffuser in the middle on top. I’m not sure exactly what they’re doing here, the diffuser might actually be something of a TIR lens and bounce the spread out light back toward the reflector to spread it out and not leave a dark spot though the entire range of spot-to-flood. It’s an impressive mechanism and prob wasn’t cheap to develop and produce.
Stercorarius wrote:
On 7/1/2016 at 6:23 PM, Stercorarius said:I have dozens of flashlights (literally) and what sold me on this one is that I can pull my battery right off my impact wrench and put it in a useable light. Find me another flashlight for this price that you can hook it’s batteries to an impact wrench.
It’s the same as the M18 fan, these tools aren’t really intended to be bought as standalone items, but as part of the system. The fact that they can be run off of the multitude of batteries that I already own is what I care about, the convenience for using them on the job.
Yep, I can see myself getting one of these. Convenience is too great. I don’t want more proprietary connections and chargers than the ones I already have, and to justify a charger for one tool/light is absurd in comparison to one that charges batteries for 15+ tools I already have.
Got my hands on yesterday to get a feel of it, definitely confirmed my want for it lol
Jimbo
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It’s more useful and brighter than the floodlights on the service truck. I keep mine in my swather for doing late night/early morning blade changes and clearing plugs in the middle of the field.
Not interested in this light, too big and expensive. I get 980 lumens out of 4 AA’s in a much smaller package.
So price is similar to the M12, and then you buy yourself 4 rechargeable AAs or a lifetime supply of disposables? When you already have a stack of M12 batteries, and will likely continue to because they make you money, the value proposition isn’t there looking at your suggestion. As stated before, if you don’t have any M12 batteries already then buying the Milwaukee kit is likely bad value.
redmed wrote:
On July 30, 2016 at 6:27 PM, redmed said:Not interested in this light, too big and expensive. I get 980 lumens out of 4 AA’s in a much smaller package.
That’s a super nice light but totally not a comparable light. That’s purely a compact long throw flashlight. The 980 lumens is for a crazy short runtime though. 0.05h and you’re swapping out 4xAA’s!!! That’s THREE MINUTES (it’ll take you longer to swap batteries)! No thank you, that would get tiring fast, even the high setting of 550L at just over an hour and a half would be annoying. To do the AA shuffle…
- Turbo: 980 lumens / .05h
- High: 550 lumens / 1.7h
- Mid: 220 lumens / 4h
- Low: 30 lumens / 31h
The m12 gets 5 hours at 800 lumens albeit with a 4.0 battery but that’s still almost two hours with a compact 1.5Ah battery and when it’s run dry you can swap it out in all of five seconds. That and you even will have the option of slim 3.0 packs and 6.0 larger packs which would give about 7.5+ hours at full brightness.
This light would be awesome if they didn’t make it so fat. I would have like to see it as narrow as the battery, even the same shape. It’s seems unusually fat.
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HiltiWpg wrote:
This light would be awesome if they didn’t make it so fat. I would have like to see it as narrow as the battery, even the same shape. It’s seems unusually fat.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It’s odd shaped for the battery, the ass end is fat then it narrows before the head
Jimbo
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HiltiWpg wrote:
1 hour ago, HiltiWpg said:This light would be awesome if they didn’t make it so fat. I would have like to see it as narrow as the battery, even the same shape. It’s seems unusually fat.
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Yeah I think it’s physically impossible to make it as thin or nearly as thin as the battery that has to go into the handle. This is one of the reasons stick pack batteries are becoming less and less prevalent with slide on packs becoming the norm, even in 12v tools. If the battery has to slide up in the handle you can only make it so small. The compact round batteries do have an advantage though in that they still have a round barrel shape for things like this where a slide on pack would dictate you’d never get a cylindrical form favor. It’s also a bit of an illusion how much bigger the handle gets, I think they made it about as thin as they possibly could.
I find it pretty comfortable to hold and it has a nice quality feel and weight without being too heavy which is really all that matters to me.
JerryNY wrote:
22 hours ago, JerryNY said:
That’s a super nice light but totally not a comparable light. That’s purely a compact long throw flashlight. The 980 lumens is for a crazy short runtime though. 0.05h and you’re swapping out 4xAA’s!!! That’s THREE MINUTES (it’ll take you longer to swap batteries)! No thank you, that would get tiring fast, even the high setting of 550L at just over an hour and a half would be annoying. To do the AA shuffle…
- Turbo: 980 lumens / .05h
- High: 550 lumens / 1.7h
- Mid: 220 lumens / 4h
- Low: 30 lumens / 31h
The m12 gets 5 hours at 800 lumens albeit with a 4.0 battery but that’s still almost two hours with a compact 1.5Ah battery and when it’s run dry you can swap it out in all of five seconds. That and you even will have the option of slim 3.0 packs and 6.0 larger packs which would give about 7.5+ hours at full brightness.
We all have our preferences, but in our household this is the most used tool in the house. It sits on a shelf in the utility room and the wife uses it more than I do. When she was cleaning a spot in the carpet I suggested she use this flashlight, that started her obsession with this flashlight. I will eventually get another flashlight for myself when I find one with a better throw and uses AA’s. When our alarm goes off at night I grab this flashlight to see what triggered the alarm in the yard and it’s great at seeking out the intruder. Generally the intruder is deer or skunks but coyotes are common visitors also. For those who don’t know, the best rechargeable AA & AAA battery is Eneloop. I almost gave up on rechargeable AA’s until I found Eneloops. Charge them and they will sit for a year and almost keep a full charge.
It seemed really bulky and uncomfortable when I got it but as soon as you start using it you realize it isn’t. It’s just like your favorite maglites that I’m sure we all have several of.
I dont think any non-rechargeable can still be considered a competitive light. You can argue their utility (but please dont) but for day to day use its an absolute pain.
As far as light output this is actually one of the highest output focusable flashlights around. You really cant compare adjustable and fixed focus lights because the focusing mechanism sacrifices a lot of light plus it can’t dissipate heat as well. A better comparison is Coast lights which have similar output, led lenser lights which have less, or maglites which also have less.
The big question is what charging capabilities you have at work. If I had a pile of M12 batteries and a charger on hand this would be a great choice. If there was a pile of 18650s or alkalines I would use those. But in my case theres always a microusb nearby so the best choice is something with a built in charger and microusb port. Dont go bashing this because you need to buy special batteries. Its for the people who already have them and they feel the same way about the special batteries for an 18650 flashlight.
tldr; if you don’t like it stfu
I have something like 20 M12 batteries, so it’s a no-brainer. Would I consider it if I didn’t have any, and didn’t need the job site durability and convenience? Heck, no. Surprised they even offer it in kit form.
Agreed Sparky, I imagine accounting is hoping for some conquest sales, or Christmas/Father’s Day deals because those kits come across as terrible value, I dislike buying non-Fuel kits to begin with because I’d rather buy the 2.0 compacts etc. instead. I’ll likely send some of my 2.0s my dads way because the 1.5s don’t do a whole lot for a day of ice fishing, or early/late season Harley rides. 3.0 compacts would likely be a good bday gift for him lol, whenever they hit the market.
Craigh9916 wrote:
On 7/1/2016 at 5:49 PM, Craigh9916 said:This Milwaukee light is good but it’s no comparison to a high end flashlight of the same cost and they are more then likely tougher in fact they are I have a few fenix lights and they are bomb proof
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BababooeyHTJ wrote:
On 7/2/2016 at 3:52 PM, BababooeyHTJ said:Pretty much this. I keep a zebralight sc600 on me and an h602 in my bag. I can’t see using something like this.
We tried to tell them but it seems like most of these guys are hung up on stuff from Home Depot. Milwaukee makes great tools. I know cause I have a bunch of M18 & M12 tools. This light is good for a company that specializes in tools, but there are many other companies that specialize in flashlights.
Diversification!
Jimbo
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redmed wrote:
23 minutes ago, redmed said:
We tried to tell them but it seems like most of these guys are hung up on stuff from Home Depot. Milwaukee makes great tools. I know cause I have a bunch of M18 & M12 tools. This light is good for a company that specializes in tools, but there are many other companies that specialize in flashlights.
redmed wrote:
10 hours ago, redmed said:We all have our preferences, but in our household this is the most used tool in the house. It sits on a shelf in the utility room and the wife uses it more than I do. When she was cleaning a spot in the carpet I suggested she use this flashlight, that started her obsession with this flashlight. I will eventually get another flashlight for myself when I find one with a better throw and uses AA’s. When our alarm goes off at night I grab this flashlight to see what triggered the alarm in the yard and it’s great at seeking out the intruder. Generally the intruder is deer or skunks but coyotes are common visitors also. For those who don’t know, the best rechargeable AA & AAA battery is Eneloop. I almost gave up on rechargeable AA’s until I found Eneloops. Charge them and they will sit for a year and almost keep a full charge.
Yeah. People want different things. Eneloops are awesome, been using them for years in other electronic devices. I wasn’t putting down your flashlight choice, just pointing out that your quoted lumens is really spec sheet engineering that has almost no practical use with runtimes of only a few minutes (probably bad for heat generation too). I like the fact, and I suspect many others here do as well, that I can use idle tool battery packs for a household thing like a flashlight and always have charged packs at the ready and not have to deal with swapping cells, Enloops or otherwise. I hate fiddling with individual cells and tend to avoid things where there is an alternative to have a lithium pack that slaps on while one is in the charger. It’s a personal choice, it doesn’t negate your choice. Heck they make flashlights that cost a fortune that are awesome but that doesn’t mean they are meant for everyone either.
I like the M12 flashlight and it gives me hours of runtime and has an easy swap battery pack ( underrated in an emergency IMHO). It feels pretty nice in hand, has a slick beam adjustment mechanism and has excellent CRI, probably far superior to many many lights out there. The bluish cast of many cool white LED’s gets annoying, especially after you get used to a light with a better color output. I’m an LED snob admittedly. I’ve spent THOUSANDS of $$$ on LED light fixtures over the years for marine reef tanks and know more than I probably should about the LED industry lol.
Those two LED fixtures cost $750 each and draw 130w (actual output not compared to incandescent) each through TIR lenses. Their output and versatility put my Milwaukee M12 light and your flashlight to shame but they make terrible handheld flashlights ?
redmed wrote:
1 hour ago, redmed said:
We tried to tell them but it seems like most of these guys are hung up on stuff from Home Depot. Milwaukee makes great tools. I know cause I have a bunch of M18 & M12 tools. This light is good for a company that specializes in tools, but there are many other companies that specialize in flashlights.
Lol. Your opinions haven’t fallen on deaf ears, and certainly aren’t being discredited. No one is arguing there aren’t better flashlights out there, simply explaining different use cases. I have two devices in my house that use AA batteries: my wireless trackpad and keyboard for my Mac. Realistically I wish they were wired. If I replace it with a laptop at some point, then eneloops are nothing to me but “another battery platform”, but one that, for me, have less utility than a power tool battery. Obviously flashlights can be subjective, they would have to be to sustain an entire forum devoted to them 😛
I love reading here, I never know where the topic will lead….
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A year or so ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d say this, but for me AA’s have become almost obsolete, especially out in the field. Too small for any real work, too big for a lot of modern high tech devices. It was different way back when a 2AA Maglite and a Sony Walkman were the height of portable tech, but these days I find that more stuff takes AAA’s (eg head light, pen light, emergency UHF radio) and that a pack or two of spare AAA’s is easier to carry and more useful.
I’ve got high-end lights from Fenix, 4Sevens, Olight, Nitecore, Surefire etc but none of them really work for me as a system – swapping and managing batteries and never knowing how much charge is left really spoils the party. These new M12 lights are the killer product for me.
Happy to pay the asking price.
Ok, the light finally landed in my hand today – on my way to a job where I actually got to use it ;D
As others have said it is beautifully made, heavy, solid, well engineered, very much like a good SLR lens. It’s a serious bit of kit.
Love the power, love the focus range – wide flood to tight spot, easy to find a middle ground that gives a good mixture of center and spill. It is definitely the best flashlight I own. The power gauge and M12 pack is the icing on the cake.
But I have to say, the shape IS a bit bizarre, and I don’t get it. Why was it so important to have a round aluminum body, that they actually ‘bulked out’ the battery compartment so much to do it? They already have a somewhat ergonomic battery shape, why not use that?! They could have had a nice over-molded handle grip to match the battery, then have the aluminum part emerge from that – something like this (pretend the button isn’t on the side):
Anyway, JMHO.
That’s what I was eluding to earlier. The shape seems awkward. Bulking it out only to fill the void with plastic seems odd.
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The shape grows (figuratively) on you.
Brewer wrote:
15 hours ago, Brewer said:Ok, the light finally landed in my hand today – on my way to a job where I actually got to use it ;D
As others have said it is beautifully made, heavy, solid, well engineered, very much like a good SLR lens. It’s a serious bit of kit.
Love the power, love the focus range – wide flood to tight spot, easy to find a middle ground that gives a good mixture of center and spill. It is definitely the best flashlight I own. The power gauge and M12 pack is the icing on the cake.
But I have to say, the shape IS a bit bizarre, and I don’t get it. Why was it so important to have a round aluminum body, that they actually ‘bulked out’ the battery compartment so much to do it? They already have a somewhat ergonomic battery shape, why not use that?! They could have had a nice over-molded handle grip to match the battery, then have the aluminum part emerge from that – something like this (pretend the button isn’t on the side):
Anyway, JMHO.
They really needed you in on this flashlight design early on, this looks very cool!
Agreed, that looks way better.