Customer Reviews

Vector VEC-142 Rechargeable High Intensity 12-Volt Worklight

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Because it can be charged from the 12v tap in your car or pick-up truck, this rechargable light is handier than the ones that need to be charged from 110v household power. It is a little on the heavy side, but on the other hand it doesn't tip over easily. The head adjusts to almost any angle. The battery lasts at least as long as your cordless drill will hold out. The light does get hot in the front so don't let it tip over on the vinyl seat cover of your truck.

The light arrived on time and works very well. I've used it a couple of times already and the battery still hasn't run down. It can be set at almost any angle and works where other lights won't. It can even be recharged from your car lighter socket.

Ordinarily I would not write a review, particularly a negative one, on a product that arrived in a non-working state. Amazon makes returns easy, and it's usually a simple matter to get any defective product replaced quite easily. As with so many other reviewers here, the battery on my unit failed to ever take a charge despite my following all instructions precisely. Sadly, this light's failings are far beyond the minor inconvenience of being defective but cut to the heart of the light's design. Even if the light had functioned perfectly, I would still have wanted to return it due to it's breathtakingly poor and potentially dangerous design.

The manufacturer's product image pictures here at Amazon are misleading....they supposedly portray the lamp mounted on the recharging base with the clamp attached and ready for use, and suggest to the buyer that it's a simple matter of removing the lamp from the base and from there being able to immediately clamp the light onto another support. This is not the case. The way that the lamp is mounted to the base require unscrewing a nut, and then juggling some tiny parts while screwing the lamp head onto the clamp accessory. With the lamp now attached to the clamp, it has to be again unscrewed from the clamp accessory to mount again on the base....a completely unacceptable level of utterly needless time-wasting for anyone who simply wants to illuminate something in a reasonable amount of time.

If you decide to leave the clamp accessory attached to the light and clamp it to the vertical post of the base, it fits very loosely due to the foam covering of the vertical support and is quite unstable on level ground....the clamp puts the light's center of gravity off to the side, rendering the entire matter a silly mess. If you decide that you can put up with this, there is still the matter of the exposed metal screw thread sticking up from the base, which is now uselss and a potential safety hazard if you grab for the lamp or fall on it in the dark.....when the lamp is clamped onto another support and the base is nearby, you now have what is essentially a metal spike supported on a vertical column, ready and waiting to impale or injure.

Please do not buy this product, as it will most likely be a source of profound frustration and potential danger to yourself and others unless you never intend to use the clamp accessory. But if that is the case, why buy this light? Others have already mentioned the silly grille which causes a crosshatch pattern in the projected light, so unless you intend to never use the clamp function and also intend to remove the silly plastic grille, buying this lamp is pointless and counterproductive for anyone expecting the product to perform safely as advertised.

I purchased this light about a year so its gotten some serious use so far and not one complaint, battery life is pretty good for a light of this intensity. I modified the light by cutting off the cage on front, much better light display. it's the first light I grab when I need a flashlight, 12 and 120 volt charge capability is a great feature. And boy is this thing bright.

First off, this is not just a simple, rechargeable flashlight. If you're looking for something like that, you will not likely be happy with this Vector worklight.

The worklight arrives packaged in hard plastic blister packaging, which may explain why some reviewers received non-working lights. Something this heavy and expensive should be packaged better. The enclosed operating instructions are practically useless. They do not tell you that you have to plug the coiled cigarette lighter plug into the receptacle on the base for the light to work. So people who said their light wouldn't work may not have figured out this crucial step. The instructions also do not tell you how to use the included clamp. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I still haven't figured out that feature out yet.

This worklight appears to have been engineered with no thought to form or design. It is very bulky and heavy, largely due to the rechargeable battery that forms the base. Thankfully, the base is heavy because the light is not balanced at all -- the light is not balanced and sticks out forward from the base, so if the base were not heavy it would fall over. The coiled plug, which can be used to power the light from a 12V cigarette lighter socket, gets in the way of the handle when carrying the light for portable usage. Even worse, the plastic guard in front of the bulb makes dark crosshairs across everything you shine the light on, which really hinders the lighting. I can understand why one reviewer cut the guard off for better lighting. Unfortunately, this would then leave the expensive bulb exposed to easier breakage. The instructions tell you to go to an "electrical store" for a replacement bulb, and I have not taken the light apart yet to see if the bulb is standard or not. Maybe mine just needs to be broken in more, but the head angle adjustment is very tight and does not adjust easily when you loosen the thumbknob. I had to remove the thumbknob and pull the screw back to adjust mine. The battery is recharged with an included AC adapter, but you are warned not to operate the light while it is charging. There is no mention about what might happen if you do. The on/off switch is not clearly marked to tell which way to push the rocker switch to turn the light on or off. The company made a point to create a rubber cover for the AC adapter socket so it would be waterproof, but they did not do so for the 12V socket on the base. So if you are powering the light from another 12V source (on a boat, for instance) the base socket is exposed to moisture. Many of these criticisms are minor issues but they illustrate the poor engineering design of this light.

Engineering and design criticisms aside, one of the biggest problems with this worklight is the battery does not hold a charge for very long, especially if you leave the coiled lamp cord in the 12V socket. After a full charge I tried to use this worklight only a week or so later. Dead as a doornail. And it takes 10-15 hours to recharge. According to the instructions that come with the worklight, you should not leave it charging for longer than 15 hours, so you cannot simply plug it in and leave it charging until you need it. So unless you plan to use and recharge the worklight regularly it is basically useless.

About the only useful features of this light are the fact that it can be powered by a 12V socket, making it more useful if you need it for a camper or boat. Since there is a 12V socket in the rechargeable battery base you can use the base to power other 12V devices that use a cigarette lighter socket.

Overall, I was very disappointed with this product. I have seen lighter weight LED worklights that put out better light and are easier to use. Even on sale (I paid $25 on a Gold Box offer) this light was not worth the money spent. For me it was money wasted.

I purchaced 3 of these lights without reading the reviews and wished that i did. I recieved the lights and plugged them in to charge for the 12 hours (red charge light comes on) as suggested by the instructions. I plugged the power cord into the battery and flicked the switch and nothing. I tried to reset the 12v plug into the battery and still nothing. This was with all 3 lights. I plugged them into the car 12v outlets and the lights worked but that was not the purpose i had intended. I tried to charge them using the 12v charging cord and the red charge light didnt come on. I feel that there is a problem with the 12v connection on the batteries. Anyway im in the process of returning them. Not worth the money at any cost.

I got this for Christmas but it would not charge up. I called the customer service dept (Black and Decker) and they sent me a new charger in the mail and this fixed the problem. Their service was very courteous and fast. The light is very bright and the reflector spreads the light so it will illuminate a whole room. The bottom of the light is a 12 volt battery so that by unplugging the cord which has a standard lighter plug it can be used as a portable battery pak for other 12 volt tools. This makes it very versatile indeed. It is nice to deal with a company who takes service seriously and I have no doubt they would have done whatever was necessary to assure my satisfaction.

Followed directions -- charge for 15 hours and then wait 5 minutes. Turned the light on -- and nothing.

This product never worked out the box. After trying to charge the battery in different outlets for days, I mailed it back to the company for a refund.

I never should have purchased this ... charge time was too long, light time was too short, and wasn't bright enough anyway. From something as heavy as this you'd expect more. Finally died althogether today, and am glad to not have to look at it anymore.