Friday, April 16, 2010

Let There Be Light


We happen to live in a very advantageous nexus in technological history for portable, personal lighting when various technologies have come together to produce many excellent, efficient, durable, and cost effective illumination options. I mean just in the last decade or so the advances in flashlight technology have been revolutionary. Around 1980, I was still using this thin, stamped sheet metal flashlight, with a cast plastic head, an incandescent bulb which cast a pale yellowish light and burned out every few months, and most commonly these big honkin' D cell batteries, or worse, those giant "lantern" sized batteries. Nowadays, you have the option of high intensity halogen lamps, like xenon, or energy-efficient, super long lasting LEDs, in a virtually indestructible machined aluminum case, and powered by a variety of very compact power cells (from AA, AAA, AAAA down to N-cells and CR123s).

In the following essay, I will mention many different brands and types of personal lighting (some with purposes not ideally suited for a "survival" or "disaster" flashlight but nevertheless useful for some special applications (like explosive atmospheres, underwater, for the intense shock of being attached to a weapon, hands free use around camp or while mountaineering, or casting a more general light over a wider area). But in general, I would like to bring up 3 very desireable characteristics that are easy to find when you go to a sporting goods, camping/outdoors, surplus, or police supply store. Even Target nowadays stocks good "emergency" flashlights suitable for shelter use. The main characteristics to look for are: 1) LED lamp instead of an incandescent bulb 2) durable body, with 0-ring seal, and 3) uses a common battery type, like a D, C, AA, or AAA.


First of the popular light types for consideration is the headlamp. Headlamps have been around of course for centuries in mining, rescue and spelunking, but with the advent of bright, lightweight and cost effective LED technology have recently seen a resurgence in popularity. Around a modern campsite, mountaineering, adventure racing, or expedition , they are pretty much standard. With a headlamp, everywhere that you turn your head and look is illuminated, conveniently casting a light just where you need it. For a relatively inexpensive $20 up to $100, one can obtain a good, reliable headlamp. Just remember the three criteria I mentioned, and in particular for the third criteria, I think, the smaller and lighter weight the battery is, the better. Like I prefer a good single AA battery headlamp (made by Eddie Bauer), even though a 2 D-cell headlamp might be brighter and last longer, I don't like being "tethered" to a heavy battery pack that you have to schlep around. For my rescue/combat helmet, I use a military grade waterproof, OD green Princeton Tec Quad 4-LED headlamp which uses a reasonable 3 AAA batteries in a single self-contained unit (as opposed to a separate lamp unit and battery pack). I'm not particular about headlamps as long as it can sufficiently illuminate the ground 6 feet in front of me around a dark campsite, or allow me to find some piece of gear out of my pack. Lumens aside, I would pick a headlamp based on battery type (which effects weight) and battery life. No matter how blindingly bright a headlamp will illuminate, I would go with LED, NOT incandescent.

Back in the day, I was a Maglite fanatic and I think I owned about 10 of them (various sizes, lengths, and colours) at one time. Smaller, brighter, longer lasting LED flashlights have supplanted most of my Mags and I relegated most of my Mags to "fixed" positions (closet, stairway, garage, auto emergency kit, etc) where weight is not an issue. The availability of after-market LED retrofit kits for the Maglights have given several of my old Mags new life (because, let's face it, there is absolutely no more socially acceptable excuse to carry an aluminum club in plain view than a big honkin' flashlight.... LOL). They perform great, bright white light, great range. They turn your Maglite into a "modern" LED flashlight and as a side benefit, batteries will seem to last forever. Win win.

I understand (I am aware) that there is much current enthusiasm for some small, extremely bright "tactical" flashlights with crenulated bezels and machined alloy bodies that can shine an amazing 200 metres, and I too think that they are excellent, cool, sexy. However, as superbly engineered as they are, they tend to be exorbitantly expensive ($100-$200), use expensive exotic batteries and lamps, and are not known for their long battery life (usually single digit peak use). I suppose these high-tech illumination tools are for people whose price is no object, or have an agency or employer footing the bill.

For far, far less cost, you can get a decent (waterproof, durable metal body, compact, lightweight) LED flashlight that may not be as bright, but will perform adequately for 20, 30, sometimes 40 hours, using inexpensive COMMON batteries. In the field, I find it far more practical to have multiple inexpensive LED lights using common AA batteries than carry around a valuable Fenix that I'm worried about setting down (and losing), or abusing (as an impromptu hammer or whatever). There are so many of these decent LED flashlights available practically everywhere (surplus, electronics, discounters, drug, and even grocery stores) in the $10 to $25 range that it's hard to endorse any one brand or model in particular. There seem to be two main classes of these LED lights. Ones that provide general lighting in a wide cone, sometimes utilizing multiple LEDs, and ones that focus the LED beam tightly, like the excellent Inova line.

In the first category, my kudos to the CMG Infinity. Running on a single AA battery this LED light lasts for a loooong time, it puts out a decent cone of light, it's small (and can be clipped onto a shoulder strap or hat), very durable ("soldier proof"), and waterproof. I have the original version also in matte black, which was issued to me in the late 80s and is stamped with "U.S. Government". Light output on that is slightly dimmer on this one, but the flipside is that the light seems to last forever. I use one Infinity as my keychain light, mainly because it has a counter-intuitive on-off system. You must tighten (screw in) the lens bezel to turn it ON, and loosen (screw out) the lens bezel to turn it OFF. This neat feature makes it very hard indeed to accidentally turn it ON (and break light discipline), because screws don't tend to spontaneously tighten. This BTW I found was the fundamental design flaw in the old Mini-Maglites and Maglight Solitaires which used the more intuitive but opposite system (tighten to turn OFF and loosen to turn ON). I can't tell you how many batteries I've wasted because of this idiosyncrasy.

My (excuse the expression) "glowing" endorsement of this product is withdrawn for the GERBER version of the Infinity light. Gerber took over manufacture of the Infinity light from CMG and made two design changes. They re-worked the tail cap section to form a more conical shape, which is both more aesthetic and probably better for things like lanyard attachment, AND, to the Infinity's detriment, they moved the on-off twist switch from the lens bezel (head) back to the tail cap. Now, it may seem like an insignificant change but because the tension spring is also in the tailcap, I'm sorry to report that (at least in the 2 Gerber Infinitys that I've owned) it has led to odd and not entirely explicable performance problems. Like, my first one stopped working reliably. I could not get it to turn on when I needed it (and the problem had nothing to do with the battery or the LED bulb). It would only turn "on" intermittently after much turning of the tailcap. The second one lasted a bit longer, but on this one, the problem was that the light would spontaneously turn on. I would respond by further "unscrewing" the cap, which would turn it off temporarily, but then a few minutes later, the light would be on again. It was making sporadic contact somewhere because the LED would flash on and off (annoyingly) as I walked or moved my keyring around. I went back to using my original CMG brand version of the Infinity, and, so far, the problems did not manifest itself. Since 2 out of 2 of the Gerber Infinity's failed, it is my subjective opinion that their is a design flaw with the tail cap on-off switch system.

I've been a longtime fan of the Fisher Space Pen, especially the Bullet model which I've used since the mid-80s, so when I heard that Fisher would be making a compact focused beam LED flashlight I was thrilled. It was going to be smaller and thinner that the excellent Inova lights that I had been using/carrying. It certainly looks really cool, like some alien technology. It's slightly larger and fatter than a Fisher Space "Bullet" Pen. The light is "hella" bright and very, very tight (almost too focused, as it is has zero "spillover" light). It makes a sharp 1 metre circle at about 6 paces. The package specs reads an incredible 1250 lumens... but that sounds very high to me. The light beam does look painfully bright so perhaps it is true.

I don't like that there is not lanyard hole or any possible attachment point. It's just a smooth casing with the one seam. The so-called pocket clip is useless right out of the box. It barely stays on the light. It will slip right off the end. I had to glue it down. I also added a rubberized "bite grip" for both hands free use.

Finally, I'd like to mention the so-called Krill Lamp which is a small, single AA, low power "glow" lantern, much equivalent to a small chem light. It casts a dim coloured, even glow in a 360 degree radius. Just as a chem light would, a Krill Lamp is most useful as a marker, in tent night light, or dim light to read a map by without blowing ones night vision. The advantage over a chem light though is that you can turn it on and off at will. My other lantern style LED light that I use is that Guyot Firefly water bottle light that I've mentioned before. It uses 2 AA batteries and provides a 360 degree cheery light bright enough to read by.

Desirable features checklist:
LED - for long life and brightness
compact - no longer than 6 inches, no thicker than 1 inch in diameter
durable - all metal, machined body
waterproof - 0-ring seals, submersible to at least 1 meter
common battery powered - AA or AAA is probably best, no rechargables!
lanyard hole - to guard against accidental dropping
dark coloured or matte finish - so it doesn't shine in sun
screw off/on activation - preferred over push button (which is always a weak point)
common diameter, crenulated bezel - attachments and lens are available for 1" diameter and the crenulations can make even small flashlights into weapons

No comments:

Post a Comment