Harbor Freight 'Braun' Work Light - WOW! (1 Viewer)

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This is hands-down the best 18650 I've used. Have 4 of them now. Lasts forever in the Braun. I use two at a time in a high-draw 3200 lumen flashlight I have and even with that the runtime is impressive. (Hint: It's a rebadged Panasonic made-in-Japan).

 
well, used a little bit the Braun's little brother: The Quantum 215 lumens for $4 on sale. Feels very sturdy but it's quite heavy - 200g vs 230g for the big Braun and the magnet is only just strong enough so would not take too much to knock it off a vertical panel unlike the Braun. Light is OK but clearly much less than the Braun so not that tempting to use when I have both handy. But enough light to be useful. And I find the tiltable head on the Braun is a major plus that this one unfortunately does not have. It has a pocket clip that you could use to position it to light things up when you walk or work but it's so heavy that on a breast pocket for example it would feel awkward. Belt maybe. So not too compelling a feature for me.
Having said that, for $4 it's a decent buy (if it lasts), could come in handy to work on the car or around camp. And you get 4 or 5 for the cost of one big Braun. But it's not exactly thrilling so I don't think I'll get another one.
 
I just saw that HF extended their sale until the 8th. The Braun is still at $19....
 
So the Braun light I purchased and have been using (a few times) won't turn off. The tip light stays on a low glow and can't be turned off. I have resorted to removing the battery when not using the light. Another Chinese piece of junk.
I was initially impressed with the light but that didn't last hahaha.
 
So the Braun light I purchased and have been using (a few times) won't turn off. The tip light stays on a low glow and can't be turned off. I have resorted to removing the battery when not using the light. Another Chinese piece of junk.
I was initially impressed with the light but that didn't last hahaha.
My switch kinda.failed.too, but it's now "fixed" by tightening the flexhead cap...
I dunno but it worked...
 
bummer about the switch. Yep, it's surely not bulletproof quality. Mine is good so far, knock on wood. I will say that I never use the tip light, it's basically worthless for me. So if that one were to stay on, and I could not return the unit, I may just disable the tip light so it does not draw on the battery. Well, assuming I can still use the other lights after that.
 
I have the Braun light and like it a lot. Magnet is nice and strong and the ability to adjust the angle is super handy.

I recently noticed that Home Depot has a similar looking light that might be worthy checking out at 15 bucks regular price: Husky 300-Lumen LED Flip Light-K60241 - The Home Depot
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FWIW, Sale going on right now (with coupon) this overhead shop light LED, is FANTASTIC! 5000 Lumens. Compact extruded Aluminum housing. Corded. I bought a couple and they were so bright and easy to install and made such a huge difference over the crap fluorescent ones I had, I ran back to HF and bought 3 more!

$19 with coupon


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FWIW, I remember reading about some folks saying their Braun lights would turn off by itself after a short time. That would of course, happen if the battery is low. But, aside from that, I also just experienced something similar. It turns out that the 18650 I used was quite a bit shorter than the original HF one and I had to make sure that the tube cap is firmly tightened. Else the light would turn off after a couple of seconds. Probably an iffy contact to the battery. A little spacer should take care of that, I imagine.

Oh, talking about batteries, if you have not done that yet, check your old bad LiIon power tool batteries. I took some of mine apart and was able to find several working 18650 batteries among the bad ones. So I now have several spares for the Braun light, which I can swap as needed for long jobs.
 
The LED shop lights are a good deal. We've been using a few of them for the past year with no issues.

I have a couple of the worklights (swap them out to recharge). One of them the plastic cover on the one side of the hinge has broken. That's been about the only issue. As @e9999 mentions, if the cap isn't fully tightened you can have intermittent issues with the light shutting off. I learned that tightening it is the first step if you're having issues. So far, it has solved any issues every time.
 
So just a heads up to everyone. There is a site that I use all the time for HF. It is called HFQPDB. Their SEO is crap so it rarely shows up in searches. They keep a data base of all of the coupons for all HF products. The shop lights always have a $20 coupon right now and the work light is usually about $19. Just take a screen shot of the coupon with your phone and they will accept that at the store. I have also never had an issue with using a freebie coupon with a discount coupon at HF. The freebie coupons are a great way to get the little blue LED lights for camping and the heavy duty batteries to power them.

www.HFQPDB.com

I have 2 of the Braun work lights. They work really well. The cap must be screwed on really tight or they can flicker and turn off. The battery isn't the greatest, but it sounds like people have found workarounds for that as well. Oh and one more thing, you can use the work light while it is plugged in. I oftentimes just plug in my portable cell phone battery charger to this when the battery finally dies. It will stay on indefinitely at the highest brightness setting this way.
 
Here is a picture of the broken hinge piece that I had mentioned above. Another of the lights has a crack developing in the same area. I have to find some time to take them apart to see if I can just glue things back together.

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These are getting used pretty regularly and have suffered some minor drops. Over time, this piece just isn't holding up to being dropped on the light part of the assembly.

To expand on @gungriffin 's comment about the battery dying - if you use the next lower setting instead of full brightness, you get a few more minutes of use. That's come in handy for me a few times. If you're really smart, using the dimmer setting when the button goes from green to red will get you even more use out of it.
 
The cap must be screwed on really tight or they can flicker and turn off.
FYI>>>I recently dropped mine from the work bench. It still worked but had an issue with the light wanting to immediately cut itself off unless i held the button. When I went to plug it into the charger the green charge light came on around the port indicating it was fully charged. Turned out to be the battery screw port at the bottom of the handle had come loose when it hit the floor and needed to be tightened.
 
to my utter amazement, the 18650 battery (long blue generic one) that came with my light actually tested noticeably higher than the stated capacity! Could not believe it, being HF.
 
to my utter amazement, the 18650 battery (long blue generic one) that came with my light actually tested noticeably higher than the stated capacity! Could not believe it, being HF.

Yes, I've been surprised at the relative quality of the HF batteries. I usually swap them out with a panasonic type but I've kept the HF one in rotation and fully charged.

I must say, I've found many uses for this light as the slim length allows lighting where my head lamp just gets in the way. Particularly great for slipping under the air cleaner on my 60 and illuminating the carb mix screw so I can actually find it without multiple curses and scaring the cat.
 
I would suggest to put a bit of lube on the end side O-ring as mine was painfully dry and doing all sorts of contortions in there. I don't think it would have lasted long otherwise.
 
Yes, all my electronic stuff with O-rings gets a small dab of Syn Lube.
 
Really Really like this guys videos. For me he takes a very methodic, analytical and science based approach. Not perfect by any means but still VERY good.

 
Really Really like this guys videos. For me he takes a very methodic, analytical and science based approach. Not perfect by any means but still VERY good.



I've sub'd to him as well. His "lubricity" tester is pretty innovative.

That video in particular really shows how you can't trust the numbers printed on cheap stuff.
 
I've sub'd to him as well. His "lubricity" tester is pretty innovative.

That video in particular really shows how you can't trust the numbers printed on cheap stuff.
Exactly... What surprised me the most was the fact that the Samsung 25R really was kinda the all around best, and the kicker was that it was mid-level price wise. I have a few saved on my eBay list, looks like they range from just about $4/ea to dropping some in multiples.
 

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