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The fact is that consumers killed US manufacturing.

Not true. The most important rule of market economy is to maximise profits. Moving manufacturing to cheaper countries helps maximising profits. This has got nothing to do with the customers bying the cheapest option ...

You are terribly mistaken. Profits are dependent upon sales and consumers decide what sells. Maximizing profits, corporate greed, etc can lead to either domestic manufacture or overseas manufacture. It all depends on consumer preferences. If consumers value domestic manufacture more than retail price and buy accordingly then maximizing profits leads to domestic manufacture. Consumers drive the system, they control the system.

... The more expensive Maglite is still being sold because it caters to a different target market than a chinese made brand. If the Maglite CEO could achieve higher profits by manufacturing in China, he would already have moved the production base there.

No. Sometimes ethics and patriotism prevail. "Why Mag Instrument is against "outsourcing" of flashlight manufacturing jobs: It's a curious thing: While its competitors in the flashlight industry are busy exporting manufacturing jobs from the United States, Mag Instrument is busy exporting flashlights from the United States. Why? The answer, again, comes down to one man's abiding commitment. To "outsource" flashlight manufacturing jobs -- to take those jobs away from American workers and send them "offshore" -- would violate Tony Maglica's philosophy in several ways."
http://www.maglite.com/Mag_commitment.asp

You wouldn't lose this one, the security guard special.

I machined the body out of 1-inch aluminum hex bar stock.

He actually machined out the center of hex bar stock. Boring a large-diameter hole lengthwise through bar stock is a slow job, and 80% of the metal ends up as chips. You don't do that in a production product. (Well, Apple once did it for one model of laptop, but that didn't catch on.) The outside machining doesn't look all that tough. It's lathe work, either manual or CNC. There's a lot of excess metal there, though, which runs the weight up.

If you want a good flashlight, get one of the MagLite models. They have LED models now, and even offer a blink option and "intelligent battery management". They're also waterproof, shock-resistant, easy to grip, and the standard flashlight for military and first responder use. They're machined out of aluminum tube, not stamped or extruded.

The problem with flashlights isn't features. It's corrosion and wiring failures. Adding all that complexity means a lot more internal connections to fail. If you're going to make something like this, it needs to go through the military ruggedness tests.

I love my LED flashlights. I was a fan of Maglights, but the stupid bulbs would break.

You can have both: http://www.maglite.com/AA_Cell_LED.asp There's even conversion kits that you can use to upgrade your old ones.

Whenever I run into a tough time proving a case, I fall back on due process of law...

Take a look at the new LED mini-Maglites. They have "candle mode", where the reflector (and housing) screws off and leaves the bare LED exposed -- giving fairly uniform white light. I have one, and looking at the single LED, I'm pretty sure they use a simple, ~1/4in hemispherical lens. (Maybe the manufacturing of such a lens requires a great deal of precision/cost, but in terms of its optical properties I see no reason to assume there's anything complex about it.) The light does seem more intense if I point the flashlight straight at the wall than if I have it angled ~75 degrees from the wall, but not a lot. On the other hand, there is a very significant drop in illumination at 90 degrees.

It may add cost (the LED version retails for just over twice the cost of the incandescent version), and it's not perfect, but it doesn't add any significant weight at all. Incidentally, since the LED was not used due to its directionality in this case, they also had to use an extra-deep reflector in order to get good intensity when used in normal "flashlight" mode.

. it's rare to see LEDs used for illumination, though it is making an entrance for some applications, like flashlights and even headlamps.

Headlamps, as in the type that you wear on your head when you go hiking/climbing/biking, are now pretty much 100% LED lit. And it's not only about the order of magnitude gain in battery life, lamps can now reach over 300 feet at 300 lumens (Petzl Ultra, Princeton Tech Apex).

LEDs are not traditionally used for illumination not only because of the costs of LEDs, but because of the complex optics required to distribute the light. it's rare to see LEDs used for illumination, though it is making an entrance for some applications, like flashlights and even headlamps. As LED prices continue to come down and LED optics technology improves and cost stabilize, conventional LED lamp retrofits will become commonplace. Take a look at LEDtronics for some examples.

Here's a few pics of the Mini-Mag in action. Looks vaguely familiar... Interesting how the cargo capsule seems to release from one end and dock at the other. Very intriguing.

2)Maglight is the Microsoft of flashlights - they use lawsuits to prevent a LOT of competition

Maglite has principles - they manufacture their lights in the United States because they haven't been seduced by the "globalization" trap. They use every tool available to keep some asian company from creating low-quality look-alikes of Maglite's designs. This is simple business sense - no company will last for long if they let a competitor destroy their reputation with "cheap shit".

Traitors have taken over the U.S. government, which has enabled the present war on the middle class (look for a torrent of Noam Chomsky's Class War talk). The housing bubble has already popped, and an old-fashioned economic collapse is scheduled for 2007. America will be forced to re-industrialize, and if you want to have a job early in the reconstruction, I suggest that you buy a maglite now, on general principle.

I too got scammed on the shake light... Bought one at the gun show, showed my grandfather. He wanted some too (gifts), so I got a couple more. When I got home, I pulled them all out of their boxes to make sure they worked... And one had a busted switch. Took it apart, and found batteries in my shakelight. Sure was disappointed.

Anyways, went to another gun show, and saw a booth with all sorts of LED light stuff. The guy had a strip of white LEDs for undercounter lighting, and LED conversion kits for Maglite flashlights (made in the USA). I picked up a light strip, and was looking all over for the 'made in china' label, and couldn't find it! Later the owner's son came up and told me that they built most their products locally. The guy used to work for Intel, got tired of the corporate life, and started designing LED setups instead.

I went over to his house, and saw his little workshop... He was employing a highschooler to assemble the setups he'd designed.

Anyways - he also sold some 'made in china' LED products. Told him about my disappointment with the shakelight, and he sells a 'generator' light that has a small electric motor and capacitors. I got one and took it apart to look for batteries.

Next time you're emergency flashlight shopping, look for a crank and you'll probably be okay. :)

A low-cost solution would just be to mount a Maglite onto a rifle.

This is no surprise... it's been this way in flashlights (hand torches, to you brits) for a while, particularly the higher-end ones and those designed for specialty applications.

As an example, some of the weapon-mounted lights being used by the military are also going to LEDs. Some of the regular incandescent bulbs just don't hold up as well to the punishing recoil of most weapons... you were forever changing bulbs. The higher end incandescent lights like the Sure-Fire lights could take the shock, but forget mounting anything like a mag-lite on a weapon.

Best thing about them: they're easy on the batteries. Batteries are heavy, and there's nothing worse than having to carry too many spares. Every ounce counts when you're carrying it on your back.

40MW for 7 minutes = 4.6 MWattHours. A D-cell is 12 AmpHours * 1.5 = 18 WattHours, so this battery pack is equivalent to 260,000 D-cells. A D-cell is 60 mm long, so this is would be a Mag Light 9.6 Miles Long!. Here's an artist's rendering

And there's even one smaller than your phone

http://www.maglite.com/product.asp?psc=1AAACELL

They make a mini Mag-Light?

Yep.