Hey everyone. I was doing a little work in the shop today and decided to do a quick side by side comparison of my two magnetic base work lights: the Streamlight Stinger Switchblade, and the Braun Slim Bar from Harbor Freight.
The Braun has three modes: high, medium, and an end-firing single led that allows you to look into smaller areas or search for parts without blinding yourself. It's advertised as having 390 lumens with an 11 hour run time...but I'm going to tell you right now, that's a little misleading. While the 390 lumen figure seems reasonable, I'm quite certain that their 11 hour runtime figure is only if you run the single LED that fires out of the end of the bar. On high, you'll get about a half hour of constant-on runtime out of it. My biggest complaint is that the bar doesn't fold flat into the handle like the switchblade, however, it has a multitude of positioning options that the switchblade doesn't have. It uses a standard 18650 rechargeable battery that can easily be replaced if needed. It's a tough, reliable, inexpensive no-frills light that does a great job of...well...being a light.
The Switchblade, on the other hand, is a serious beast of a light. Everything about it screams professional grade, from the rubberized exterior, to the fold-flat blade, super powerful base magnets, and hanging hook that recesses into the handle when not needed. It has a double-sided blade with a blindingly bright 800 lumen LED array on one side, a slightly warmer but equally bright high-CRI LED array on the back side, and a UV inspection LED built in. Battery runtime is outstanding at nearly 4 hours (which is actually accurate based on real-world use). One of the only things that I dislike about it is that while the blade folds flat, you aren't able to hyperextend the blade past the point of it being in line with the handle. This makes it a little awkward to use in some situations, and I find myself needing to use the high-CRI side of the blade in some cases. Additionally there is no end-firing LED, something that I actually find quite useful on the Braun. I have not tried to open it, but the batteries appear to be proprietary and non-replaceable. The quality is much, much better than the Harbor Freight light, but the cost is also about 4x more expensive.
So which one would I pick overall? Watch and see! Have a great weekend everyone.
19 дек 2019
