Illuma-Lux was first announced by Elektrolumens in 08/03. Month or so later I've had it in my hands. It is a 1 watt luxeon star LED flashlight powered by 3 AA batteries and using an acrylic ball as a lens to get the focused beam. In which it really succeeds :) I don't know exactly what happened, so that Illuma-Lux has been discontinued. May be it was not popular enough to keep it in production, or may be it was a limited run. The response to initial announcement was quite wide on the Candle Power Forums. Later I wasn't following LED news for the period of few months and once I got back to LED flashlights Illuma-Lux was gone. Anyway, I have mine for a few months. Can't say I've been using it a lot though. I'll explain that below.

Body

 - Illuma-Lux has lightweight aluminum body. It is made of rather thin aluminum and even Maglite 2AA has thicker walls, let alone thick skinned Hyper Lux I and Night Buster 8X. Compared to those it has little bit flimsy feeling, and rattling batteries in it add to that feeling. However, on the positive side the finish and quality is real nice. So, if you're looking for something lightweight probably this one will do. For turning on and off flashlight employs the head twist mechanism.

Beam

 - As I've mentioned above, Illuma-Lux uses acrylic ball as a lens. The results are impressive I must say. I haven't seen such an ideal circle of light produced by flashlight. Basically there is no sidespill to talk about. Illuma-Lux gives very even circle of bright light, with practically no side spill. There is a hotspot in the center of the circle, then it gradually dimms and ends with the dark ring which has a thin halo. I think for the small flashlights, not designated to illuminate the large areas this is an advantage.
    As of the beam, or LED quality to be precise I have a little positive to say. Unfortunately this one came with very natural puke green tint :( It is well known amongst LED flashlight enthusiasts that high powered LEDs are somewhat of a lottery. And as in all lotteries you can't win them all. Well, if that makes you feel better chances of getting a good or very good Luxeon LED are much higher compared to most of the lotteries, but when you get your new toy for which you've paid your money and it's not exactly all that good, that lottery comparison won't help much ;) Anyway, it's still a usable flashlight, even with the crappy LED. Visually, in terms of brightness It stands somewhere between 2AA Maglite drop-ins and 3AA TaskLight. LGI is way above in terms of brightness, but it is overdriven to the max.

Last updated - 05/06/19