Many years ago I bought a yellow Fenix LD25 with a neutral colour LED for outdoor use, particularly camping. It was one of the first flashlights I saw with multiple brightness levels, and I was able to use it most of the time on low. My brother-in-law really liked it (he had never really been interested in flashlights before) so I gave it to him and replaced it with another LD25, this time in black.
I used it heavily for a number of years, then it disappeared and by that time the product had been discontinued so was unable to replace it with anything similar. Around the same time we started going on fewer hunting and camping trips, so I didn't miss it as much as I would have if we were still camping actively. I did eventually obtain similar (and better) functionality with a 4000K Convoy S2+, but I really liked the size and interface of the LD25.
Just now I was outside cleaning out some of the accumulated junk in the carport and picked up a dry storage / ammo box that I believed to be empty. Turned out to be full of tools & cleaning supplies for our rifles, along with the LD25. I left the rest of the stuff and ran inside with the flashlight. It had some powdery residue on the grip up near the head, so I wasn't feeling really confident when I unscrewed the tailcap. Fortunately it had a couple of Eneloop cells in it rather than alkalines, and when I pushed the button it lit up like all those years had never happened.
Woo hoo... time to start planning the next camping trip.
Even better, while poking around on the net to confirm the model number I found that it had additional modes that I didn't know about. I knew it had low (unscrew the head a bit) and high (tighten the head) but I discovered that it also has camping and SOS modes. SOS is a waste of time IMO (uses too much battery and nobody these days would recognize the Morse anyways) but camping mode (two lower levels than normal, with correspondingly longer run times) seems very useful.
The LD25 must be the only thing I ever purchased where I didn't read the instructions... look what happens
Speaking of SOS, what I would really like to see is a mode that delivers something like the usual SOS but with an extremely low duty cycle, 5% or less (like a strobe) than the usual 50%. If I am lost in the woods and people might be looking for me, I want something that can run for a few nights on a single set of cells while still having a decent chance of being noticed. A regular strobe would be fine but rescuers might dismiss it as a marker for a radio tower etc... but I don't think you need a long 'on' period to be noticed.
I'm thinking some kind of stylized SOS with several seconds between the flashes for the S and maybe 1% duty cycle.
tic tic tic...................tic...................tic...................tic...................tic tic tic (pause for as long as the "O" takes, repeat)
It might be even better to skip the SOS pattern and just do a series of intermittent flashes with the occasional "tic tic tic" to distinguish it from a strobe. That would probably give the best ratio of visibility vs battery life.
I used it heavily for a number of years, then it disappeared and by that time the product had been discontinued so was unable to replace it with anything similar. Around the same time we started going on fewer hunting and camping trips, so I didn't miss it as much as I would have if we were still camping actively. I did eventually obtain similar (and better) functionality with a 4000K Convoy S2+, but I really liked the size and interface of the LD25.
Just now I was outside cleaning out some of the accumulated junk in the carport and picked up a dry storage / ammo box that I believed to be empty. Turned out to be full of tools & cleaning supplies for our rifles, along with the LD25. I left the rest of the stuff and ran inside with the flashlight. It had some powdery residue on the grip up near the head, so I wasn't feeling really confident when I unscrewed the tailcap. Fortunately it had a couple of Eneloop cells in it rather than alkalines, and when I pushed the button it lit up like all those years had never happened.
Woo hoo... time to start planning the next camping trip.
Even better, while poking around on the net to confirm the model number I found that it had additional modes that I didn't know about. I knew it had low (unscrew the head a bit) and high (tighten the head) but I discovered that it also has camping and SOS modes. SOS is a waste of time IMO (uses too much battery and nobody these days would recognize the Morse anyways) but camping mode (two lower levels than normal, with correspondingly longer run times) seems very useful.
The LD25 must be the only thing I ever purchased where I didn't read the instructions... look what happens
Speaking of SOS, what I would really like to see is a mode that delivers something like the usual SOS but with an extremely low duty cycle, 5% or less (like a strobe) than the usual 50%. If I am lost in the woods and people might be looking for me, I want something that can run for a few nights on a single set of cells while still having a decent chance of being noticed. A regular strobe would be fine but rescuers might dismiss it as a marker for a radio tower etc... but I don't think you need a long 'on' period to be noticed.
I'm thinking some kind of stylized SOS with several seconds between the flashes for the S and maybe 1% duty cycle.
tic tic tic...................tic...................tic...................tic...................tic tic tic (pause for as long as the "O" takes, repeat)
It might be even better to skip the SOS pattern and just do a series of intermittent flashes with the occasional "tic tic tic" to distinguish it from a strobe. That would probably give the best ratio of visibility vs battery life.
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