Flashlight as a weapon: The State of the Lumens Address 2013 (warning PIC HEAVY)

[TwoGunJayne]

I don't think anyone credible has said anything bad about those Fenix Pd 35 lights at all, even now. Looks to be an extremely solid choice that will have staying power for years. Fenix connected solidly with that one. Yeah, there's other stuff that's brighter, but there's more to the total package than just output. I'm not sure that they ever have made a bad light.

As far as a driver swap on the Black and Deckers pistol grip lights, that should be totally doable as there is a bunch of room in that housing. Even if you put a double-pole double-throw switch on the side to swap drivers with the flick of a switch... Driver chips are super cheap and they're labeled where to solder. It's hard to get it wrong unless you've got the wrong one. People swap them out all the time as it's easier than an emitter swap.

I think I need to get the low end B&D and supe it up now. Their stock "high end" approaches car headlight brightness. The Fenix PD 35 beats it in output, too. Sounds weapon-y to me!

[ikoiko]

TGJ,
If you build it, you must post it.

Please.

[TwoGunJayne]

I'll pick one up tonight and start fiddling with drivers.

Edit: Stanley HID back in stock at Amazon. $70ish with shipping. Far cheaper than the Streamlight HID. You could get FIFTY Stanley HID spotlights for the price of ONE Peak Maxabeam. I think I'll order a couple of Stanleys while I'm at it! The Black and Decker low-end pistol light is available locally. 

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-HID0109-HID-Spotlight/dp/B001U04MEY

[TwoGunJayne]

Okay! (sorry for the bad pics, I did this whole teardown while watching a movie with Mr. Molson.)

$20 at Great Wal of China gets you a 4AA spotlight. It feels good in the hand, the trigger is decent with a fair amount of take up to prevent "negligent discharge." It could be "match grade" with a trigger job. Heh. The trigger actually has a locking safety, lock it on or off!


Pros:

• Surprising distance throw for $20! The package claims 400 something meters; I didn't pace it off last night, but that sounds plausible.
• Spill beam is okay and useful for close range indoors.
• Color tint is extremely warm for a budget light; they're usually quite bluey.
  
• It is two mode; pull the trigger for high, or "double tap" for low.
• Low mode battery life is claimed to be 13 hours. You'll never get that on high mode, but they don't say what it is.
• It feels lightweight and handy in the hand. Install standard voltage AA lithiums (Energizer Ultimate) to further reduce weight!
• The light handily stands on the front rubber bezel (headstanding) for a quick and easy grab and trigger pull in one motion.

Cons:

• The cheap plastic lens is reducing output.
• LED not centered in the reflector, so the light spot is asymmetrical. This looks easy to fix as the LED star is not permanently fixed.
• Low mode has extremely awful flicker from how they chose to regulate it. Sweeping the beam shows you individual dots along the wall and this is one of the worst examples of low-mode flicker due to "pulse width modulation" I've ever seen. High mode doesn't do it.
• No "tail-stand" without propping it up on something; you want tail stand to "ceiling bounce" and illuminate the whole room. Oh well. It's Fixable with modification to the battery cover.
  
• I know it's not extremely bright because the beam doesn't make my camera freak out. Fixable.

Thoughts:
The driver was huge! I was expecting a small format "coin," not something like two matchboxes stacked on top of each other.
Low mode stays on for about a second on trigger release due to all those capacitors discharging. Not a problem, just a quirk.
There's not as much room on the inside as I thought due to the trigger layout; I was hoping to hide a switchable emergency backup battery in the grip, but it'll be small.
It looks like it will easily convert to one or two lion batteries (4.2-4.8v) by shorting the battery carrier or using dummy battery blanks/spacers.

Tear down procedure (take it apaaaaart! this is the best paaaaaart!  )

• FIRST: Slip the front rubber bezel straight off the front, nothing holds it on but tension. There is a hidden frame screw underneath it! Do this first!!
• Unscrew the rear battery cover or else the frame will not separate.
• Remove the black frame screws and the two screws retaining the reflector assembly in the zinc heat slug.
• The driver, entire slug and reflector assembly, and entire trigger mechanism slip right out once you get the frame halves separated and the reflector and pill assy just slips apart now.
• The 4aa battery carrier isn't actually attached to anything, it's just clamped in place by the frame halves.
• DONE! The hardest part of the tear down is getting the rubber bezel off. I actually turned back one of my fingernails on the first try. Ouch!

The "star plate" holding the LED is attached to the reflector by 3 screws. Swapping emitters will be a piece of cake! Got a small phillips?

All in all, this thing was MADE TO MODIFY!  It will be chiiiiild's play! I can't see how any machining would be needed! Plastic cuts with a knife.

SL3886 is the number marked on the driver, by the way. You can't make that out in the pic, sorry. High mode is pretty good on this driver (for a budget light,) but low mode... well, yeah... I hate the stock low mode on this driver and emitter combo. Oh well, nobody said I had to use the one that comes with the light!

I think I'm going to get another 2 and leave 1 stock. This one is getting painted with black rubber coat and a teflon tape trigger job. I'm considering the addition of an internal switched emergency/auxiliary battery, a switched auxiliary driver to fix low modes and give "firefly" aka "moonbeam", an external tap to hook to a 6v 14 amp hour battery, and maybe a few other odds and ends. Like a laser sight. 

I haven't taken any electronic measurements yet. It's next on the list to do. See you next post!

[TwoGunJayne]

I'm seeing 2.94 volts across the LED under high mode.

When I clipped a lead to the LED star, hooked the amp-meter in series to the emitter, I got 1 amp on high mode and the meter registered 80 milliamps on low mode. You can't trust an amp reading with a digital meter when the signal is a waveform and we know low mode is "pulse width modulated."

Still, good enough.

With 2000 mah Eneloops, my calculations say you only get 2 hours on high mode in stock configuration. I thought I'd post this since they don't tell you this important bit of info, they just say 13 hours on low. That's still not bad. My calculations say low mode run time should be more like 25 hours, but we know I have a percentage of error in the low mode amp measurement perhaps as high as 30%.

The led is pretty small, guessing it's an XP-G or something like; it's a thrower, not a "blaster." Driving it hotter probably "is bad" for it. The hole in the reflector is huge, though. I could easily drop a Nichia 219 or XML-U3 in there no problem at 2 or 3 something amps on high mode for short bursts only before the zinc slug saturates with heat. An external battery would be for a low mode driver. Who cares about runtime? Let's make this baby a "real pistol-grip flashlight" with an "evil black paint job" and "strobe mode."

It's obvious I must have more than one of these... for "tactical reasons."

[G50AE]

You might want to upgrade those capacitors as well. 

[TwoGunJayne]

I was disappointed with the relatively weak driver output of such a huge driver. It has to be a "buck/boost" or else it wouldn't be so huge. Buck/boost is good, it reduces voltage from the battery pack when it's too high and cranks it back up as the batteries peter out.

Part of me suspects that it's the exact same driver that's in the entire B&D pistol grip light series and they just solder a jumper or something.

Time to do some more digging!

Can't paint the shell yet, it's raining. Guess I'll just fiddle with the guts and burn out the LED emitter for fun with my adjustable power supply. Tiny LED is tiny, 195 lumens maker claim. I'm pretty sure we can go over 800 lumens single-emitter with no real consequences as long as the bursts are short.

If I ditch the reflector and battery carrier, cut out the insides, and go with flat optics like Carclo 3-UP, I think this shell can convert to 18650x4 (wired in parallel to have massive runtimes.) Then again, we're back to machining our own custom pill.

I think I'm in trouble. I might not be able to stop with one of these! 

EDIT: Got it rubber coated, as well as one of my 1980's Police issue Maglight Magcharger lights and now I have to wait for 24 hours. If that thing could talk, I'm pretty sure it's been used to bash people before from the look of it... Definitely a weapon.

[TwoGunJayne]

So anyway, my biggest debate is "what guts to put in there?"

I'm so very torn. Red, green, or white emitter? What amperage should I push these things? 100% duty cycle or "burst only?" Should I make something that's going to melt after 2 minutes? I really really want one that's a red thrower, but also a green, but also a floody multi-emitter! I've even still got some police magchargers to rebuild (even now!)

Tough call.

...and yeah, I seem to be unable to stop at one of the Deckers. I'm toying with a "Flash Gordon" motif for the next one.

Also, the next one I bought actually "tailstands," such that you balance it upwards. The emitter is better centered in this one, as well. Oh, man! Am I going to have to get yet another one of these?

For $20, it out-throws in distance many "china lights" I have at $60 or less. GOOD DEAL! Get yourself one!

[G50AE]

...and yeah, I seem to be unable to stop at one of the Deckers. I'm toying with a "Flash Gordon" motif for the next one.

When you have a Lightning field set up around the Capitol City, it's time to break out the Flash "Ah-ah" Gordon gear.

[TwoGunJayne]

I'm going to have a seriously hard time with Brian Blessed stealing the show!

"Stands for every one of us! Stands for every one of us! He'll save every man, every woman, every child, every time,  OH FLASH!"
(Only Doctor Hans Zarkhov, formerly at NASA, has provided any explanation)

"Just a man... with a man's vision... Just a man... with a man's courage"

[OV-1D]

  TwoGun your a worrisome fellow !!! I'm glad you don't work at NORAD . I believe I'd have to make some phone calls .

[TwoGunJayne]

I feel great. I've caught up on a lot of sleep over several days, it's a bad sign when I get testy. (Could you tell I was sleep-deprived? )

Anyway, here is another reason to feel good: The brightest LED single beam to date. We're not counting "showerheads" with a bunch of LEDs pointing in one direction. In raw output, this thing crushes 99.9% of those anyway, no contest. RGB single beam, multi-emitter. Parts are available off-the-shelf.

I first saw this concept when researching something called an RGB laser. What this does is mixes (entangles) 3 lasers to make a white laser. The first few stumbling attempts were hard core custom lab stuff. I found an off-the-shelf source to do this with three of the biggest and nastiest LEDs (meaning awesome) out there right now.

Just in before the wire of Jan 1, 2014, we have the brightest LED beam of 2013. Without counting transmission and auxiliary optics losses, the theoretical moderate output (24/7, low temp) is around 4200 lumens or less with a white beam made of a red, green, and blue emitter at about 7 degrees of spread stock without further optics. This blows away the real-world high mode of just about every LED flashlight out there. Once we crank the juice to it, the beam will no longer be white. The moderately high range (without overdriving) will be around 8675 lumens and the beam is now yellowish (theoretically.) It should get a little warm, but not bad with a properly designed driver and heat flow.

With overdrive, this device will exceed 10,000 lumens. I have little information on the exact upper limit at this time. The beam has now color shifted to a sort of a yellowish-green wavelength (most likely.) It's going to get firecracker-hot and can not maintain this output for long without frying something. Without great heat sinking and heat dissipation, your light is going up in smoke. The upper range could be so potent (with off the shelf parts) that with a 1 or 2 degree beam, this becomes a lab toy only and unsuitable for whipping out at a barbecue party without a safety lock for the high modes. Seriously, a lock and key should be built on your flashlight. Theoretically, this could light the charcoal at your bbq party at the right distance with the right optics.  The upper limit determines whether or not you need starting fluid. Welding goggles for everyone!  (ha ha, only serious.)

Each of these emitters could be soaking in up to 30(+) amps of current without exceeding spec! They can short-burst higher than this. This is impossible without a driver circuit. "Direct drive" (just hooking a battery to one) will never give this level of output and should get extremely hot (depending on how much battery you have.)

The driver circuits for the big monsters are (at the moment) pretty much non-existant "off the shelf." It's 100% build-your-own.

The resulting flashlight would look something like a Chewbacca's "energy crossbow" from Star Wars, but with thicker straight "limbs." ...Except that this is real life, baby!!!  The limbs of the device would be about 20" wide towards the front of the "energy thrower." Luminous Flux Thrower: the perfect name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminance

Luminous intensity
In photometry, luminous intensity is a measure of the wavelength-weighted power emitted by a light source in a particular direction per unit solid angle, based on the luminosity function, a standardized model of the sensitivity of the human eye.
One lumen is the Luminous Flux or expressed more simply, the total amount of light energy emitted into one solid angle or steradian . . ., by a point source having a luminous intensity of 1 candela.
The candela is the SI base unit of luminous intensity; that is, power emitted by a light source in a particular direction, weighted by the luminosity function.
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction.

Anyway, the pic is of the device for combination of red, green, and blue. The unoccupied flat side on the horizontal is where the beam blasts out into space.

Extra credit awesomeness: Dial in your color. It's pink, it's orange, it's green, it's whatever you set it. Rainbow cannon.
Even more awesome: This may very well be the beginning of the end of short-arc carbon, this tech isn't the only nail in the coffin.

This is not for the average person. Stay safe, friends, keep the dream alive: Hand held ray-guns within our lifetime. We are so very close.

Too cool! 

[ikoiko]

2GJ

Thoughts on this/this company?

http://shop.monsterflashlight.com/MF-Tactical-PowerStar-Cree-3xU2-3300-Lumens-Max-5-Mode-PowerStar.htm

[TwoGunJayne]

They claim a 3.5 amp drive, math says that's about 1.16 amps for each emitter. Fortunately, there's math out there to help you debunk what they say. There's no way that's 3.5 amps each emitter on a mass-produced light, especially with older XML-U2. It takes special skills to drive them that hard for more than seconds.

The right hand side of the chart below shows XML-U2 lumens versus input juice. Note that this is a bit of a ballpark because optics change everything (and absorb a little light while doing it.)

Assuming we can believe their amperage numbers....
The Math:

3v @ 1 amp = 415.7 lumens for one emitter.
3.06v @ 1.2 amp = 488 lumens for one emitter. (452 lumens for 1.1 amp)

Call it 470 lumens at 1.16 amps each x 3 = 1410 lumens without taking into account optics losses. Really good optics are ~80%+ efficient. Bad ones are around 65% or worse. Cheapies really kill the brightness. 65% efficient optics would put it at about 916 lumens real-world out-the-front. This assumes we can believe their amperage numbers. They are claiming 3300.

Analysis:
Anyway, I think they are BIG TIME overstating the output. Getting a true 3300 lumen output "out the front" is possible with XML-U2x3, but that's going to be an extremely well-made custom light with great optics. It's also going to be rather over-driven to pull it off for real.

Physically, it looks like a China body. As usual, I check sites like DX.com for cheap bodies that look identical.
http://dx.com/p/rustu-r43s-4-x-cree-xm-l-t6-3200lm-5-mode-memory-white-flashlight-black-3-x-18650-170723
Pretty close, there..

Also, XML-U2 has been out for a while. The new hotness is XML-U3. Older emitter. Perhaps this is the remnants of an old China bulk-buy?

Summary:
I suspect a comparable light would be $30-$100 on DX.com. Suspicion is a good default when it comes to believing flashlight numbers. I'm not bad-mouthing this company, but I'm suspicious. I think that they are overcharging (x3 the price) on a China product. The kind of money they're asking for should get you an extremely nice and large Olight or Fenix where you can better trust the claims. I'd lay dollars to doughnuts that you'd be happier with one of those two makers.

[ikoiko]

Thanks for reply. Was curious. Have been happy with the 3 fenixs I have. The body barrel on one seems to be a little narrow. One of my batteries is very snug in it, but fits fine in the other two.

Nice bright lights.

[boone123]

Think I am going to have to upgrade. Every time I ask my wife to hold the light for me, she tips it sideways and all the kerosene runs out..

[G50AE]

Think I am going to have to upgrade. Every time I ask my wife to hold the light for me, she tips it sideways and all the kerosene runs out..

Please tell me that you are using something newer than a TRS-80 to surf the internet. 

[TwoGunJayne]

As far as tight batteries, I've run into that as well. Some batches are just a bit out of tolerance. I had one light that needed pliers and a dental pick to change the battery.

[G50AE]

As far as tight batteries, I've run into that as well. Some batches are just a bit out of tolerance. I had one light that needed pliers and a dental pick to change the battery.

Yeah I ran into a similar problem with 9V batteries some years back.  A very nice old lady who was a throat cancer survivor was having issues with the battery in her electronic voice box. (Pardon me if that is not the correct term for such a device.) The only solution I could come up with was to peel the plastic label/sheath off of the battery.  It worked, but I did not think that a consumer should have to go to such trouble when that device was designed to take that type of battery.

[I]

Think I am going to have to upgrade. Every time I ask my wife to hold the light for me, she tips it sideways and all the kerosene runs out..

NEC-NEC-NEC- NECROBUMP! Muahahaha!

I was in a military dining facility lit by butter. That's right, the stuff on toast. It impressed me so much, I started asking senior enlisted about it, since even the Colonel didn't know. It seemed nobody knew, nobody knew. It wasn't in SOP or regs. We couldn't find it in an ops manual at all! Where did it come from?

Turns out it's a trick that goes back farther than anyone could remember.

You see, when you soak lipids into a wick (fat into cloth,) it takes on the characteristics of an oil lamp. You can take most oil-based non-sugary salad dressings and use them as oil lamp fuel. Sugar added ruins the fuel. If they've got chunky bits of stuff such as garlic, you could strain them out with a coffee filter or cheesecloth... but don't. Let the garlic stay in the burning dish. You hate mosquitoes, right? Cook a little garlic in the butter as you clarify it before you use it as oil lamp fuel, as you must melt it first and preheat the dish for maximum effect.

Most loose, dry plant fibers are excellent for the firemaking task of "tinder." However, they can also be used in conjunction with mostly annhydrous fatty liquids as kindling and even a fuel component. An oil lamp properly placed can ignite fuel (a large, wood log) without the intermediaries of tinder or kindling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_lamp

Butter lamps (Tibetan: དཀར་མེ་, Wylie: dkar me) are a conspicuous feature of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries throughout the Himalayas. The lamps traditionally burn clarified yak butter, but now often use vegetable oil or vanaspati ghee.

Each morning Tibetans offer a lighted butter lamp, representing the illumination of wisdom,[1] along with seven bowls containing pure water (or symbolic offerings of washing water, drinking water, flowers, scent, perfumed water, food, and sound) before the images on their household shrine. The butter lamp usually being placed between the fourth and fifth bowls. At funeral ceremonies or when visiting temples and going on pilgrimage to sacred sites, Tibetan Buddhists often light a large number of butter lamps together at one time.

The butter lamps help to focus the mind and aid meditation. According to the Root Tantra of Chakrasamvara, "If you wish for sublime realization, offer hundreds of lights".[2]

Pilgrims also supply lamp oil to gain merit. The monks in the monastery manage the actual lamps, taking extreme care to avoid starting one of the devastating fires which have damaged many monasteries over the years. For safety, butter lamps are sometimes restricted to a separate courtyard enclosure with a stone floor.

Externally, the lights are seen to banish darkness. Conceptually, they convert prosaic substance into illumination, a transformation akin to the search for enlightenment. Esoterically, they recall the heat of the tummo yoga energy of the Six Yogas of Naropa, an important text for Kagyu, Gelug, and Sakya schools of tantric Buddhism.

Rather than fight the [CITATION NEEDED] people on the Wiki, I thought I'd just throw in that this is in a WW2-era US military manual and was used in dining facilities aka "chow halls" world wide in the 20th and 21st century, particularly in the Pacific and Middle Eastern theaters.

How do I know so much? I cheated and attended a remembrance night while deployed in a combat zone. We shifted our thoughts from our situation to those of the past and things they had to do to try to get by.

Butter is a source of light. It's a source of dense calories. The dilemma: in the face of uncertain food and fuel supply, do you burn up your critical food calories in exchange for light to eat or wait and hope for a fuel resupply?

Most salad dressings work, but are more smoky and better at repelling insects. Pure olive oil is a fantastic oil lamp fuel and capable of giving a pure, clear, white flame with the right wick, yet you could simply just drink the stuff for sustenance.

Much like the conundrum of turning corn into ethanol to cut gasoline as a band-aid on an artery bleed of fossil fuel dependence, when you turn your food calories into light as a tool... was there another way, a better way, a sustainable way?

Human food is easy to make but tough to get 100% right. Burning food-grade oils is quite a waste, yet it has been done out of desperation. Burning fuel-grade oils shouldn't be done indoors due to serious and 100% real contamination threats. There is a reason we use million year old dinosaur guts to run our motorcycles, automobiles, vans, trucks, and aircraft and we do all that OUTDOORS. Even some emergency off-peak electrical generation is done with gasoline turbines to try to play a middle man in the commodities market, yet they try their best not to vent that junk inside someone's house. You weren't wanting to eat uranium, so one would think that it's a natural choice for our prime desired fuel as we're actually cleaning up nature's mess as far as radiologicals. Uranium is, in fact, the prime ecological contaminant for burning fossil coal; uranium is the prime reason to stop burning fossil coal. All nuke reactors ever made, plus all nukes ever detonated don't add up to the yearly gigaton uranium pollution of fossil coal burning power plants. Really. Go look it up.

You would think that thorium reactors would be hailed as the salvation of mankind as we now have to begin mining old waste repositories for fuel for the new reactor technology. We can feed upon our own radiological waste and provide a net energy positive for the upcoming population crunch as the human race exceeds the resources of the planet.

I'm not doom and gloom at all. Let's just be smart about this.

Nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal will only help us fix our horribly broken re-use/re-cycle/re-purpose chain where the biggest idiots who don't care are the biggest problem. It's like walking into a business and immediately seeing how to cut this and that expense by 50%-95% each simply by reusing, repurposing, and recycling in an intelligent way.

Don't just throw it all away. Use that butter from the garbage to light your kitchen.

[G50AE]

Nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal will only help us fix our horribly broken re-use/re-cycle/re-purpose chain where the biggest idiots who don't care are the biggest problem. It's like walking into a business and immediately seeing how to cut this and that expense by 50%-95% each simply by reusing, repurposing, and recycling in an intelligent way.

Don't just throw it all away. Use that butter from the garbage to light your kitchen.

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/fish/devices/jugs.html

You can also reuse those 1 gallon jugs that various kitchen liquids come in to make the fishing device shown in the above link.  Reusing plastic 1 gallon jugs to catch fish is a very "tactical" way to fish.