Flashlights

On the subject of lighting up the trees, LOL
FourSevens Maelstrom XM18

Burning up the forest is great fantasy, but I am more intrigued by the 50-100 lumen light that will last for 200 hours or so - runtime trumps absolute brightness for most of my usage.

I wonder when one of these barn burners will actually feature a fire lighting function as one of their options.

My wife and daughters didn't see any humor in this comic strip.
Now I feel...adrift.
-Blast

too late for the warning, and too early for the intervention...

My wife is not best pleased with the number of flashlights I have. Or more accurately, the number of flashlights she knows about.

Hahaha! I think that comic is spot on!

AH HAHA!! Thanks for the giggle, Doug!!

Then maybe you should not let your wife go to Susie's Beauty Shop. I can hardly believe that you got anywhere near enough flashlights though.
I usually carry 2 or 3 with different brightness and size. LED technology allow a huge improvment in battery life (that alone justifies the purchase of a few new samples). I even built my own emergency light from two 10mm LEDs and a stepper motor.

I have enough that I've been giving some away to friends and family. There's a computerized inventory. I could give one to every man, woman and child in my neighborhood without having to give away any of my favorites.

Last year I gave Middle Daughter a flashlight to mow the lawn for the entire summer, and we both felt good about the deal. This is the one who was over the moon at getting a Leatherman Super Tool 300 for her birthday. I'm raising her right.

I would just try a lens with one of them, focusing the entire beam on some fine dark tinder. Should work.

Wicked Lasers torch videos usually have them setting things alight with it.

I have one of those. Yes, they will fry an egg. The slinky they use for an element is not conducive to battery life, but you can land a plane with it.

I have one of these, which claims 12 lumen for 173 hours. So not there yet, but also not far off.

Lat night, just as I was settling in to watch the evening news, we experienced a power outage. I was glad I had a small light on my key ring - instant illumination. Not far away was a good headlight, useful as I scanned the neighborhood and the premises, and decided to read a good book instead.

You really never know when you will need a good, dependable light.

Speaking of lights that would be good in a power outage -- I picked up a CountyComm TLL (temporary landing light) strobe. The light runs on a single C cell and has three modes:

It always turns on initially in the constant 300 lumen mode and a quick twist puts it in the constant low mode which is the only mode I use. It can illuminate the entire ceiling of a room which in turn lights the entire room at a nice low level.

I'm thinking about a second one for the truck.

I picked me up one of these little lanterns the other day:

http://www.batteryjunction.com/ust-20-awr05wl03-08.html

I first saw it at an REI store. Nifty little thing. Has a magnetic base and a pop out snap-hook for attaching to things. The frosted lens makes it a good glare-free small area light. It's not super bright, it's not super efficient, it's just a neat little middle of the road small area light, about 4 inches tall. The construction quality is very good. And it's cheap!

Mrs. O'Leary's lantern.

I've never heard of a commercial 200 hour light, but I've seen some big battery/ small bulb homemade rigs that might do it. 6v lantern batteries hooked up to a 1 watt LED with a current regulator

Some of the Malkoff M61 modules- specifically the LL and LLL- can fun for 250+ hours on a set of lithium cells. Many of the better makes that have a moonlight or firefly mode will run for hundreds of hours.

This Repulsor flashlight on Kickstarter looks brighter than anything I've heard of, 'though at 7911 lumens perhaps some bright flashlight aficionados might know of similar or brighter ones. Has twin Xenon HID lamps.

This is an interesting area... can knowledgable folks share links to some comparable flashlights?

Disclaimer: No association to the folks doing the flashlight and I have not seen it in person.

Color me skeptical- weighs 2.8 pounds, runs for 90 minutes (hopefully it can run at lower levels for a longer time, although that is not mentioned). I don't think team mates on a SAR operation (or anyone else, for that matter) would appreciate 7911 lumens shining in their eyes. That is a lot better than 7939 lumens, however.

On night time SAR ops, I much preferred a lower light level that retained some night vision when travelling. Bright lights were useful only in certain situations, like patient care.

I would hate to walk off trail, or climb, with all that stuff around my waist.....

Awfully big. Looks a bit unwieldy.

FYI - Repulsor campaign suspended by Kickstarter. Usually means they saw something that made them uneasy.

Like it was a really bad idea?