Flashlights

These look interesting:



http://www.9voltlight.com/military_pak_lites

How do you turn the Pak-Lite on?
The control toggle switch moves from side-to-side. It has three positions, Low-Off-High.

Will any 9-Volt Battery work?
Yes! Pak-Lite is compatible with any 9V size Battery.

How do you change the Battery?
The Pak-Lite simply snaps on & off of the 9-Volt Battery's terminals.

How often will I have to change the Battery?
Burn times will vary depending on the Battery chemistry you are using. Click "Products" on the page banner. Then click "Batteries" to view the Battery's page and the operational time for each Battery.

Can I use my old Smoke Alarm Batteries?
Yes! In fact, a hospital in South America, where the power is on for only 2 hrs. per day, uses Pak-Lites with old smoke alarm batteries. The used batteries provide enough power to run a Pak-Lite 6 hrs. per night for 3 weeks.

What if my Pak-Lite gets wet?
In some cases, the Pak-Lite's LEDs will glow dimly in the off position for a few hours. This does not indicate a malfunction with your Pak-Lite, nor does it drain your Battery significantly. However, you can unsnap it from the Battery and let it air dry, or use a hair dryer to remove the moisture quicker.

Where do I get replacement Bulbs?
You will not need to ever replace the LED Bulbs. They are usually unbreakable and last 100,000 hrs. (over 11 years continuously). The LEDs are covered under Pak-Lite's Lifetime Warranty.

Flashlight-Make into a charger for personal devices!

FREE Emergency power for your, Ipod, cellphone, PDA and other small electronics!I'll show you the hack!

There's a LOT of information about different flashlights here. It talks about lumins, bulbs,lenses, and a lot more.

Every Man Should Carry a Torch: A Primer on Flashlights
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/flashlights-guide/

From helping you find your way back to your campsite, to allowing you to find a missing widget under the bed, to providing illumination when the lights go out, to warding off a would-be attacker, there are few tools as handy and essential as the flashlight. And there are few tools that elicit as much affection and attachment. I think our British friends’ word for the flashlight – torch – gets right to the heart of the appeal. The flashlight is simply the latest iteration of the ancient need to carry fire in one’s hand.

As we’ve moved from burning branches to battery-powered tubes, the number of options for handheld light has multiplied. You may think that all flashlights are the same, but boy you’d be wrong. There’s more to know than you could possibly imagine. Today, we’ll stick to the basics that every man should know and consider when buying a flashlight.   ---CONTINUED---

The following series of posts should be considered a supplemental addition to the "Art Of Manliness" article, above.

My own take on flashlights is quite different from the average user. An oddball set of ideals, developed from years of working with the military, doing equipment maintenance at night, miles from town and, most recently, running a night watch observation post.

There are, generally, three kinds of lights you tend to need, miles from town, to get the job done.

Area lighting: Lanterns, trouble lights ...
Spot lighting: Flashlights and spotlights
Headlamps: cap lights and head bands

For security (observation post) work, you also need some "low observable" lights.

Flashlights.

Over the past dozen years, LED's have really come into their own.

Twenty years ago, they were an expensive toy.
Ten years ago, they did the job, unless you needed some serious light.

Today, they are about the only thing you see.

But, at the other end of the flashlight, we have a problem: complexity.

I recently bought a "Tac Light" (as seen on TV), and was surprised at just how annoying the complexity had become. Every time I turn it on, I randomly get one of its five modes. There is bright, medium, and dim. Frankly, there isn't all that much difference between the three, once your eyes adjust.

Then there are the two strobe modes. And the beam can be varied from wide to narrow. Frankly, I don't need any of this. I took some rubber bands and wrapped the beam control, because it would slide in and out at the slightest touch.

I still get a strobe when I want to light up an animal (or person).

I was bemused to see that Back Door Survival recommended a flashlight
https://www.backdoorsurvival.com/how-to-store-batteries/
BYBLight XML-T6, with the same design flaws, but then, I realized the probably got paid to put that light on their website.

Ideally, I need a bright mode, and a dim mode.

The bright mode should be as bright as possible. Well over 100 lumens. I call it stun setting: to see something 100 yards away, or to blind a predator at close range.

The dim mode should be to preserve batteries, and should be sufficiently stingy to run a set of batteries all night long. Or longer.

There should be a reliable way to select which mode will engage when the light is turned on.

A bit of history, followed by my recommendations, and then a word on "cap lights," and lighted reading glasses.

I have used many headlamps, over the years.  When I first started, they were largely just an expensive kid's toy, but eventually, I found one that ran on three AAA batteries, had two red LED's and one bright white one. Not too shabby, but not that impressive.

They got better, over the years, moved to one red LED and two bright white LED's, but with another lamp to see further away. The first ones had the same little bulb that goes in a AA MagLight, but the later ones had a Luxeon (1W) LED. More light, less drain on the batteries.

Then they began to get complicated. I have one that has one red setting and three different white settings. The white settings aren't that much different. Just means I have to press the button a bunch of times.

It is important for some of us to have a red LED, since the red light doesn't wipe out your night vision, and they are very frugal on batteries. Beyond that, one white light setting is sufficient, two (one bright and the other for saving the batteries) is the point of diminishing return. More than one red and two white settings is just an annoyance.

Don't think no one can see that red LED, though. They are visible for thousands of yards. The US Army promoted this myth for years, but the real reason to use red light was, as mentioned before: it doesn't wipe out your night vision, so you can use less of it.

A word about cap lights.

This is a device that clips to the bill of a "ball cap." The ones I have seen are good if you just need to see to bait a hook while night fishing, or something like that. The good news is that most of the ones I have seen are pretty simple and not too expensive. The down side is, they run on some pretty expensive 2032 coin batteries that don't last very long.

Lighted Reading Glasses.

Unfortunately, I haven't tried these. Seem like a good idea, except that I don't know about battery use and replacement (or recharge cycles). If anyone wants to provide a review of the ones they use, I would appreciate it, since they may be in my future.

I don't have as much experience with area lighting as I do with other kinds of lights, but I do remember Coleman Lantern's, which I used to call "a small copy of the sun," when I was camping.

Generally, area lighting isn't all that much different outdoors than indoors, except that you are more likely to be running on batteries. I highly recommend getting one that is designed for camping. There are several good camping lanterns available, some are "rechargeable," but that is not a feature I recommend. Often, it means insuring the lantern is recharging all day, to give just a couple hours of light each night.

String Lights are a new possibility, but currently all of the ones made to run on 12v are designed to be decorative, rather than serious lighting. That doesn't mean they won't work, but they don't produce as much light. Of course, it may be better to deal with less light, if you are running on batteries.

Trouble Lights haven't changed much, although the new rough service LED bulbs don't take as much electricity and don't produce as much heat. There should be some good 12v models on the market, as well.

As a last remark, the last place I worked was out in "the boonies" and we had problems with mosquitoes, so the (simi permanent) porta-pottys had light bulbs installed. They first switched to a yellow "bug light" bulb, but yellow light in a porta-potty makes the experience worse than it was, before.

I found, by taking one of those curly-cue CFL's and spraying a light coat of yellow on one side and a light coat of red on the other side (using just enough to hide all of the white), the resulting light did not attract mosquitoes (or other bugs) but tricked our eyes into thinking the light was just a very warm, white, color.

Suppressed light.

This is for those occasions when you need light, while on a security detail (to avoid tripping hazards along a path), and don't want to advertise your location.

After I realized the Army had lost its bearings on the red light thing, and I noticed the lights in the armored vehicles were blue, I looked into the subject and found out that green and blue light were less visible at a distance, especially when the moon is out, since it's light tends to mask blue light.

I experimented with a small blue flashlight and with the 1 inch square screen on the outside of my flip phone, but I soon discovered that any light source producing enough light to be useful, would be bright enough that the source could be seen for a few hundred yards.

The remedy is to hide the light source. By placing the light source in a tube, the only light to exit the tube is light that shines where you need to see. I did this with a cheap little flashlight from WalMart, and the cardboard insert from a toilet paper roll. Even without painting the inside of the carboard, it reduced the light seen from any angle other than strait in, to barely visible.

With a little work, and very little expense, this could be made fairly stealthy, yet allow the user to do minor tasks that need a little light.

.

Ultimate Guide to Selecting the Best EDC Flashlight
https://alphasurvivalist.net/best-edc-flashlight/

  In this post Alpha Survivalist will cover exactly what it is that makes a regular EDC Flashlight into a great one; and we’ll also be highlighting a selection of some of the best value for money EDC Flashlights currently available lower down.   ---CONTINUED---

Best Solar Flashlight for Emergency Preparedness
https://alphasurvivalist.net/best-solar-flashlight/

  (SNIP) ... Solar flashlights will provide you with the light you need without the hassle of having to find batteries or locating a power supply for recharging, as long as you have access to the sun, you’re good to go.

We’ll cover the refinements of how solar flashlights work and what makes   ---CONTINUED---