Ultrafire WF-504B with XR-E R2 Drop-in Review

I was interested in getting a flashlight that could accept P60 drop-ins. After reading Don’s review at jayki.com it seemed like the 504B (from DealExtreme) would be a good choice for a host because he felt like the heat-sinking was good and he liked the button. It looks good too and it is able to tailstand. I figured since the anodizing on these is Type II instead of the more durable Type III that I would be better off with the natural aluminum version because it wouldn’t show if any of the finish flaked or wore off. I liked the shiny finish in the pictures (looked like stainless steel) more than the shiny black finish (it seems like black should be more of a matte finish than glossy).

Continue reading “Ultrafire WF-504B with XR-E R2 Drop-in Review”

AeroPress Coffee Maker

I got the fancy coffee maker I wrote about earlier. It’s just a collection of plastic pieces. If you saw them, I don’t think you’d guess they are for making coffee. They almost look like medical or lab equipment.

I’m not sure if it is because I am using twice as much coffee, or if the thing really works, but it does seem like the coffee is better. If I followed their instructions they would have me using 4 times as much coffee as I use in my Mr. Coffee. So to make it stretch further, I am increasing the stirring time and adding more hot water. The water is probably a little hotter as well. I know if I used freshly ground beans, it would go way up in quality, but I don’t have a grinder or any beans, so that is something I may do later.

I have made coffee with it three times now. The most time-consuming part is heating up the water in the microwave. It takes about 3.5 minutes to get 8 oz of water to the right temperature. While it is heating up I can load a small filter in the bottom of the maker and measure out the grounds. Then wait on the microwave. As a hungry Homer Simpson said on meatloaf night “Isn’t there anything faster than a microwave?!” So then you pour most of the water into the maker, stir, and just set the plunger in to make a good seal, but don’t press. Now add some milk to the rest of the hot water from the microwave and put it back in the microwave for another 30 seconds or so. The reason you put the plunger in first is otherwise the water will all gravity feed through the filter. So then you press and you find out you press the water out pretty quickly and most of the time you’re just pressing air through the filter. It seems kind of silly to press air, but it does help in the cleanup because the plunger is like a squeegee down the inside of the other chamber. Once you’ve done that, add the rest of the hot water to the cup (the coffee has drained directly into the mug).

One thing is you don’t get that coffee smell in the kitchen, which I guess is good because maybe that lost flavor is going into the cup instead. Once you are done it seems like there are a lot of parts. There is the plunger, and then the container and the filter cap plus the stirrer and you have to have a second mug to heat the water in originally. With the Mr. Coffee there is just the basket and the coffee pot and they all go back together to air dry. So I don’t think cleanup is as easy, but you can heat up water any way you want, so you aren’t dependent on electricity. Some people have a special boiling hot water tap and that would really speed things up. In fact, this would be ideal for people like that. There are a ton of reviews on Amazon and some people take this to work with them because the community coffee isn’t that good and they want to make their own.

A Good Cup of Coffee

Today I was researching coffee for some reason. So I started off researching french press coffee makers where you pour hot water over some coffee grounds and then force a strainer down over all of that and wind up with coffee on top and grounds trapped at the bottom. The nice thing is this is a pretty simple machine and they are cheap. People swear by these. I was watching a show on Discovery about coffee (maybe that’s what set this off) and a couple of the experts said that is their favorite way to make coffee. The problem with the french press is the filter is pretty porous and it lets fine grinds past, so you end up with cloudy coffee with some sediment. You can avoid that by grinding the coffee to end up with bigger chunks. Sounds simple, but most grinders can’t do that and you end up with some big chunks and some little ones in economical grinders. So french press lovers say you need to spend $200 on a special burr grinder that will only produce big chunks of beans. So much for economy: a $15 coffee maker requires a $200 grinder.

Continue reading “A Good Cup of Coffee”

Fan Lights Now CF

Almost all of the light bulbs in my house have been converted over to compact fluorescent bulbs using 75% less energy, but I was never able to replace the little lights in the ceiling fan of my bedroom until today. Today at Home Depot I saw that they had compact fluorescent fan lights. cfbulb.jpg The fan has candelabra bulbs in it that burn out all the time, so it would be nice if I could find something that wouldn’t burn out and would be more energy efficient. These have a kind of chubby shape to them and you can see a skinny helix inside the bulb despite the frosted glass that covers it. They’re certainly not as attractive. But they were also only $1 each. So I bought three of them. They are made with the narrow base that my light fixture uses, but they come with adapters so they can be screwed into a regular base. One of them has some flicker to it, so I will take that one back.

They seem to take a little while to get to full brightness. It isn’t just a few seconds, but maybe 30 seconds or more. The tint of the light is decent, but they aren’t quite as bright as the old bulbs I had in there, which are labeled as 25 watt while these CF bulbs are labeled 15 watt (and actually use 3 watts). Here is a mix of the bulbs installed for comparison with the incandescent bulb on the left and the CF bulbs in the middle and on the right:

Continue reading “Fan Lights Now CF”

Flashlight Suspension

I have been learning a lot about flashlights for the last year and most of it has come from reading the discussion forums at Candlepower Forums. I’ve learned enough that I have written a couple of reviews of lights and I answer questions from newbies every now and then (I’ve also done a lot of editing of their Wiki, which was terrible). By and large the people are very helpful and incredibly knowledgeable. There is just a lot to know. And there are thousands of threads for a newbie to search through, even using Google search. It helps that the forums are strictly moderated, so flaming, bad language, etc. are simply not to be found. They have a lot of rules and zero tolerance of people who break them.

Long story short, I got suspended from the flashlight discussion board. Not long, just for a day. Here’s how it happened.

Continue reading “Flashlight Suspension”