All this year, I’ve been slowly filling in the holes in our survival tools and supplies. Along about August or so, Dillon Precision started featuring a couple of products in their catalog by a company called Digilight: a 6V “tactical” flashlight and a really nifty keychain LED illuminator thingy with a multi-year lifespan and a strobe feature built in. The flashlight comes with a bunch of extras — lanyard, rubber grips, waterproof spare battery case, belt clip, belt pouch — all for less than $35. The illuminator was about $10 and came in white, blue, red, green and even an infrared version (although Dillon only ever carried the white one). Well, I bought one of each and was so impressed at what you got for the price that I bought several more — one for each BOB for me and the missus, one for each hidey-hole for the house guns, one on a lanyard by the door so I can slip it on easily when I go jogging at night, etc., etc. Yeah I knew the guts were probably made in China, that’s how the price point was so low. Didn’t matter — they work, and they’re tough.
The illuminator thingys were gold — I put one on each dog’s collar and now I can see where they are in the back yard at night without having to turn on the outside lights. I put one on each keychain for the cars and aside from the obvious utility, they also helped us finally tell the car keys apart at a glance — blue for the blue car, green for the green car, etc.
All in all I was very satisfied. I hopped onto the internet yesterday to buy a bunch as gifts. Lo and behold, Digilight’s website was down. Oh well, says I, I’ll just call Dillon. The friendly guy on the other end said that they were out of the illuminators and so far as he knew there would be no more as the company was out of business. He and I speculated for a bit on just why a company that’s selling its products like hotcakes would suddenly go kaput — one wonders if there’s a CEO sitting on a beach somewhere with a suitcase of cash, but that’s simply speculation. Dillon has about 150 of the 6V lights left. I bought three more.
The big problem for me, since I standardized on these things for my disaster planning, is that in a couple years or so when one of the bulbs eventually burns out, I won’t be able to get a replacement. A very big reason (aside from price) that I felt good about the lights was that Dillon was carrying them, and Dillon seems to change suppliers very rarely. And I can’t imagine Dillon ever going out of business — so I thought I had a safe, reliable source for years in the future.
Anyway, this fellow on eBay has a few of the illuminators left: blue, green, red. Here’s the infrared one at a slightly higher price. I highly recommend them, even without a company to back them up. And you still can’t beat the price on the 6V lights either for yourself or as a gift — just don’t expect any warranty service.
UPDATE: “Owen” on this thread thinks that the Digilight flashlights use G&P lamps, whatever they may be. So there may be hope to obtain replacement bulbs down the line after all. (Although the comments seem to be focused on Digilight’s 9v model….)
FURTHER UPDATE: Yeah, baby! They’re coming back with a new name — DigiCell. See the end of the comment thread for details and contact info to obtain bulbs, parts, etc. from the remaining DigiLight inventory.
I noticed the supply issue myself, a few months ago. Coleman marketed a really nifty LED flashlight with a “smart switch”, for $20, $15 on sale. The light has a cluster of 7 white LEDS, but with the Smart Switch, you can turn on one LED (the middle one), three LEDS or all seven. The flashlight has a small orange-yellow LED with it’s own switch position (#4 on the sequence), that is used as a marker to help you find the flashlight in the dark. The light uses 4 AA cells, fits the hand nicely, and I have yet to go through a set of alkaline batteries for it.
I bought the light last spring, and within a few weeks, decided that I wanted more. Dispite the light having only been on the store shelves for a month or so, it was dropped from the Coleman line, and my search of several LED-only websites doesn’t show it either.
There have been other examples. All of a sudden, a REASONABLY PRICED mod kit for a mini-mag light came out. It had the reflector and LED PLUS and end-cap switch, all for about $7. Not bad. Except the end-cap switch failed after about 3 duty cycles. I go to take it back, want to trade end cap switches. All gone, no mas. IN LESS THAN A WEEK.
Has everyone in mass marketing bitten off the same poison apple that infected the computer makers?
Or has the new generation learned to use something once, then throw it away, and NOT COMPLAIN WHEN IT BREAKS?
When I was a kid, my Dad taught me to look at the bottom of toys in the store — if they said “Made in Japan,” that meant they were chintsy and we wouldn’t buy them — or if we bought them, we expected them to break. (Obviously that’s changed — see Toyota.)
I’d think that kids today would feel the same way about the vast amount of “Made in China” stuff — i.e., “disposable” — except that in a lot of cases, the quality seems pretty darn good to me.
(A product “Made in India,” on the other hand, is still a product to avoid.)
However, one thing to keep in mind is inflation. The end-cap you mention cost $7, but just twenty years ago it would have cost about $3. So in terms of purchasing power, to kids today, the price of that $7 end-cap “feels” like a $3 end-cap would to someone who grew up in the 80s, as I did. I would have considered a $3 end-cap pretty disposable in my youth. So I could see a disposable mentality in today’s youth being somewhat rational — at least about a lot of things in the $7 to $10 price range.
I see an extreme example of this in my grandmother, who still thinks $2 is an outrageous price for a loaf of bread. I remember reading somewhere that if you adjust it for inflation over the decades, bread at $2 is actually cheaper than the 25 cents or whatever it is she paid for a loaf in the thirties.
For awhile I wasn’t really sure what happened to DigiLightUSA. I purchased a T12 last spring, and bought two spare lamp assemblies “just in case,” and now I’m glad that I did. I went back to buy a second T12 winter 2006 and found that their website was down.
The first time I wore the T12 light, I sat on it funny while it was in the holster and accidentally turned it on. For all of you people out there who aren’t flashlight addicts, it turns out that high-pressure Xenon bulbs were ridiculous when it comes to thermal output. It melted the top of the holster and I almost burned myself on the hot nylon.
Anyway, DigiLight sent me a free replacement holster and a replacement tailcap for my troubles, and all was well. I was in contact with their customer service for a few weeks, sending E-mails back and forth, and from what I can tell now, their going out of business must have been unexpected. In my contact with them, they stated that they had a new model planned with >1000 lumens of output (roughly ten times the output of the T12) that they were going to demonstrate at some flashlight tradeshow in the Spring of 2007. Evidently it was going to be some beastly maglight type of thing with an arc bulb and a rechargable NiCad battery. I’d have loved to swing around something like that made out of the same anodized aluminum as their other flashlights.
I travel the world, too, and last year I saw these flashlights for sale in Frankfrurt, Germany and there are some still on sale in stores here in Hong Kong. They were frequently out of stock of these lights on their main page for the T12, which means that they either weren’t stocking them very well or they were selling faster than they could make them. So I figured, surely the reason that DigilightUSA is out of business is because their corporate guys must have gotten greedy and sold off the company…right?
Wrong. I found a report in a bankruptcy filing a few weeks ago and discovered that Digilight filed for Chapter 7, which means that the company liquidates all of its assets and gets out of business.
According to the proceedings, Digilight was putting way too much money into R&D, and just didn’t properly care for production costs and definite income. They were selling their stuff at barely above the profit margin, and just weren’t taking in enough cash to cover themselves. It’s really a shame because their products were quality (in my experience), and they had incredible customer service.
Just thought you guys would like a somewhat more complete story of what happened.
Wow. Thanks! That is a shame. They had some great products.
And yes, the xenon bulbs do get hot. I carry a Digilight in my right front pants pocket and have learned to un-twist the rear housing a half-turn so that I don’t inadvertently turn the light on by sitting down. I’m getting pretty good at twisting the housing back into position with my thumb and forefinger as I draw the light (not the easiest thing with the rubber grip in place).
Greetings from DigiCell. My wife, (aka IT director/Web Guru) noticed your post about DigiLight flashlights and said write to these guys. GOOD NEWS. I am the guy that purchased ALL of DigiLight’s remaining inventory after they declared bankruptcy. Mostly this inventory consists of a variety of bulbs, some flashlights, and the keychain lights (Personal Illuminator System PIS lights). I created DigiCell to pick up where DigiLight left off. If you liked the DigiLight “T” series of lights, more good news, some of these lights will be coming back as DigiCell. Our first offer will consist of the T6 which will be called the “Duty Six” 6V xenon, etc.
The NT9 will come back as the “Ranger 9” and we will have two options (175 lumen xenon OR the new 120 lumen CREE LED). In the works is a carbine ready kit which will include…….some really cool attributes I cannot post on the web right now. Otherwise feel free to contact me if you have any questions on remaining DigiLight inventory and I will be happy to help.
Jim Hicks, at 919-608-2181 or email me at [email protected]
WOO HOO! That’s great news, Jim!
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