I bought a PrincetonTec Pulsar for my sister. She's since broken the protruding LED. She needs a new keyring LED. She is usually juggling several bags of gorceries and my favorite and only niece.

Hence, one-handed operation is essential and critical and vital.

This light needs to be a simple squeeze-beam. A protected LED would be nice, because it is going to get the hell beaten out of it. This light needs to be low-tech. No special modes or anything like that. Squeeze on. Squeeze off.

If the proposed LED is not a tough little bastard, it will be broken and dead inside of a month, if not a week or less.

Your suggestions would be appreciated.

-- Craig

How about twist-on-twist-off? Try a Peak LED:

http://www.peakledsolutions.net/

Not with a toddler in one arm and groceries in the other. This LED has to be one-handed operation.

what about an inova, the led protrudes is the only problem. or a photon light 1 - very tough btw - ? take a look at www.ledmuseum.org (hope that's the right address!) to see what the guy there says.
Ian

Hi Craig,

Photon makes a less expensive model called the x-light:
http://www.photonlight.com/x-light/

It's one handed, simple squeeze on/off button and the LED is nicely protected by the body. It's $7.95 on their site and might be worth a look.

Stay safe,
J.T.

Whoa! I didn't know about that one. That light looks like a winner.

I was about to part with my beloved Photon Freedom Micro Covert. I like the Freedom Covert a lot, but I love my sister, so I was going to give the light to her, but now it's looking like I won't have to. Yippee!

I'm off to do more investigating. Thanks much.

-- Craig

I don't have any trouble working a cylindrical twist-switch with one hand. But push button is definitely easier.

There is a photon "covert" model with a shrouded LED, but they have multiple modes so I guess it isn't what you're looking for.

Coast, LED Lenser, and Eddie Bauer are US distributors of Zweibruder flashlights. Short of the photons, these are the best I've seen.

They have several keychain models, the thinnest of which I use in my PSK because it's so out of the way. This is a combination twist/push button tail type so it's out of the question.

Two of the slightly bigger keychain model, the V8 and V9, has the pushbutton feature you're looking for. I have the blue model V8, and it's bright enough that if you shine it at the ceiling in a dark room, it bathes your entire room in a blue glow enough to get around in. Push the button and you have momentary light; push harder to turn on hands free. It has a clip on it that can be positioned over the button to protect it, and it's flexible enough that you can push momentary on.

These Zweibruder flashlights look interesting to me for my own needs!

I'm always peering under and behind desks and behind computer towers -- and into dark closet corners when my wife can't find the exact shoes she's hunting for.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm off to take another look at Zweibruder.

-- Craig

Cool <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The eddie bauer ones seem to be of slightly less quality for some reason (one of my LED's from them projected a square beam on the wall instead of round!) but the coast ones seem pretty good. To boot, they come in black instead of just silver.

Here's a pic I just took, the Maglight Solitaire and swiss army knife for scale.

From top to bottom:
Solitaire
Micro Lenser (Eddie Bauer, red)
Micro Lenser (Coast, red)
V9 (Eddie Bauer, white)
V8 (Coast, blue)



The micro lensers use an odd looking battery, but the others (excluding solitaire) use some of the more common button cells.