Have you ever caused "Flashlight-Envy"?

[fyrstormer]

Anyway, I let them finish up in the attic and we head down to the basement to take a look at a crawlspace. We enter a room with no lights near an opening into the crawlspace under the other section of the house when I whip out my Fenix PD32 on max and light up the place. I ask the guy with the LED flashlight from the attic if he needs the light as he heads over to the opening into the crawlspace, he doesn't answer but silently walks over to the opening without even looking at me. He takes out his flashlight and makes sure to reach his arm way inside before he even turns it on. I was standing on the far side of the room, shining the PD32 in his direction, and it completely drowned out his little light. He made sure to switch it off before walking back to avoid the obvious comparison, again not even looking at me. Meanwhile the foreman looked very impressed and commented, "that's a great flashlight". Maybe it was just my imagination, but the flashlight envy from the other guy was almost palpable

Maybe it's just me, but I actually feel kinda bad about showing people up like this. It's one thing if I actively dislike them, but otherwise I kinda feel like a jerk for demonstrating that the thing they were proud of is actually a piece of junk. Maybe it's the result of having a brother ten years younger than me, and spending my teenage years being careful not to embarrass him at every opportunity for failing to be as good as I was at almost everything.

[Stream]

Maybe it's just me, but I actually feel kinda bad about showing people up like this. It's one thing if I actively dislike them, but otherwise I kinda feel like a jerk for demonstrating that the thing they were proud of is actually a piece of junk. Maybe it's the result of having a brother ten years younger than me, and spending my teenage years being careful not to embarrass him at every opportunity for failing to be as good as I was at almost everything.

Oh it wasn't like that at all, and I'm not into showing people up. I actually made a conscious effort not to shine it around unnecessarily, that's why I didn't feel the need to shine my light around the attic when I first asked if they needed a light. The basement was natural because I led the way down first. Not my fault if that inspired so-called 'flashlight envy'. I'm kind of curious why you picked my story to comment on, though, as it sort of pales in comparison to some of the other stories here. Like the guy bragging to his friends about the outdoorsman type club he had recently joined and all the high-end gear he had to purchase like a "super-bright" Mag Charger, only to be embarrassed and outshone by the P-Rocket of a light-savvy CPF'er; or the foreman thinking he would "save the day" with his pathetic little 6 LED cheapo light, only to be outshone in a crocodile dundee that's-not-a-light-moment by another one of our CPF'ers. Honestly, I think it's harmless fun. It's not like you're a jerk revving your expensive sports car next to some poor guy proudly showing off his new Hyundai to his friends. Flashlights are such mundane objects that most people would never stop to give a second's thought. Showing them a real quality light can often set them on a path to become a more conscious and informed consumer, and maybe even a fellow CPFer. Perhaps the glee expressed at some points in this thread can make it sound as if it's somewhat mean spirited, or perhaps you just need to lighten up (no pun intended).

[Sub_Umbra]

After living through the six week power outage in New Orleans following Katrina I had CPFer IsaacHayes build a thrower for me. A CYAN LuxIII, Osink in a 3C M/\G host. By today's standards it's pretty modest, but it's brilliant 1-2 DEG beam really blew away a friend of mine. He offered me far more than I paid for it. He couldn't understand that I couldn't just make a phone call and get another one. I told him that I was only able to get the light for myself because I knew that IsaacHayes already had the sweet emitter the project needed and without it there could be no more.

The guy never did understand.

[varmint]

Last night after practice at our gunclub they were shining their lights at the 200 yd targets and one said wait till Kenny gets his new Maglite out you wont believe it, neither could I, he had just new batteries in a new light, their were several Cosco cheap lights. I could not resist, all I had was my Derrelight XML V2 with smooth reflector, you could not even see their beams in my light, everyone wanted to look at it and 1 person copied the name down and called me later as to where he could get one, the price scared him, I doubt he will get one. It was amusing, this is the 3rd time I have done this. Sunday week we have a night competetion and I will take my TN11 and D/L ASPV3 last time none could compare to them.
100 yd shots are very easy with the D/L asperical lens.. The TN11 does better for room clearing drills.
Larry

[valueknifelover]

Showing them a real quality light can often set them on a path to become a more conscious and informed consumer, and maybe even a fellow CPFer.

This is what happened to me Can't imagine going back to the world of thinking my 2-D MagLite was about as practical and good as it could possibly get... and then cheapie LED lights were AWESOME!

I thank my friend's Preon 2 for helping me see the light (yeah... I said that). Now that I have acquired the lights I feel are practical for the time being (we all know there will be more and more as time goes on) the next on my list in a drop in for that ol' MagLite!

Sorry to get off track... Just showing that you guys showing off your lights can lead to more addicts!

[fyrstormer]

Oh it wasn't like that at all, and I'm not into showing people up. I actually made a conscious effort not to shine it around unnecessarily, that's why I didn't feel the need to shine my light around the attic when I first asked if they needed a light. The basement was natural because I led the way down first. Not my fault if that inspired so-called 'flashlight envy'. I'm kind of curious why you picked my story to comment on, though, as it sort of pales in comparison to some of the other stories here. Like the guy bragging to his friends about the outdoorsman type club he had recently joined and all the high-end gear he had to purchase like a "super-bright" Mag Charger, only to be embarrassed and outshone by the P-Rocket of a light-savvy CPF'er; or the foreman thinking he would "save the day" with his pathetic little 6 LED cheapo light, only to be outshone in a crocodile dundee that's-not-a-light-moment by another one of our CPF'ers. Honestly, I think it's harmless fun. It's not like you're a jerk revving your expensive sports car next to some poor guy proudly showing off his new Hyundai to his friends. Flashlights are such mundane objects that most people would never stop to give a second's thought. Showing them a real quality light can often set them on a path to become a more conscious and informed consumer, and maybe even a fellow CPFer. Perhaps the glee expressed at some points in this thread can make it sound as if it's somewhat mean spirited, or perhaps you just need to lighten up (no pun intended).

Ah, I missed the part where you were the first person down the stairs.

I responded to your post and not others because your post is the one I just happened to stop and read while skimming the thread. Nothing personal.

[fyrstormer]

After living through the six week power outage in New Orleans following Katrina I had CPFer IsaacHayes build a thrower for me. A CYAN LuxIII, Osink in a 3C M/\G host. By today's standards it's pretty modest, but it's brilliant 1-2 DEG beam really blew away a friend of mine. He offered me far more than I paid for it. He couldn't understand that I couldn't just make a phone call and get another one. I told him that I was only able to get the light for myself because I knew that IsaacHayes already had the sweet emitter the project needed and without it there could be no more.

The guy never did understand.

Maybe he would've been happy with a comparable light with a white emitter, or something similar.

[Stream]

This is what happened to me Can't imagine going back to the world of thinking my 2-D MagLite was about as practical and good as it could possibly get... and then cheapie LED lights were AWESOME!

Exactly. If I see someone with a really cool or handy tool it just peaks my interest. I'm hardly gonna go stew over someone having a better or cooler power drill than I do.

Just showing that you guys showing off your lights can lead to more addicts!

Haha, your last line makes it sound like it can be a bit of a curse. On the one hand you're enlightening someone by showing them what's out there, on the other hand you may have created a monster lol.

[madecov]

Today,
Stopped to check by with another Officer. Had an ambulance on the way and we were in a parking lot so it could be difficult to see us. The ambulance pulls up and starts to look for us from the roadway. I take out my Klarus XT-11 and use strobe to get the attention of the driver.

Once he gets out of the box the driver looks at me, shakes his head and says I was an A@* Ho*& and what the heck was that light that blinded him.

Then he says I really need to get one of those.

[buds224]

I have the XT-11, and love the separate switch for strobe. I will get to use it one day. LMAO. Loved your story.

[madecov]

Forgot to mention it was still daylight

[fyrstormer]

Today,
Stopped to check by with another Officer. Had an ambulance on the way and we were in a parking lot so it could be difficult to see us. The ambulance pulls up and starts to look for us from the roadway. I take out my Klarus XT-11 and use strobe to get the attention of the driver.

Once he gets out of the box the driver looks at me, shakes his head and says I was an A@* Ho*& and what the heck was that light that blinded him.

Then he says I really need to get one of those.

If it was daylight, why didn't you just wave at the ambulance, or turn on your light bar?

[madecov]

If it was daylight, why didn't you just wave at the ambulance, or turn on your light bar?

I'm a plain clothes officer and don't have a light bar in the unmarked vehicle I use

We were in a parking lot 20-30 yds away from the roadway and there was a quite a lot of traffic and moving vehicles in the area. The light did it's job

[buds224]

During Cinco de Mayo, the darn pinata would not bust open, it started getting dark. I used my floody ST Cycler to help the kids see the target. All the kids came up to me, "Wow, what is that?" All the dad's had the look of curiosity (envy?), but since I was new to the group, none of them approached me about it, but I got a lot of thanks from the moms. It was nice to get that wow factor from a light that is in the middle of my collection in terms of lumen performance. It was the perfect choice for the situation.

[mvyrmnd]

I met up with a couple of fellow geocachers one night while they were in town, and we headed out to a cache on a rural dirt road. After we stopped, they whipped out their 9x5mm LED torches, and off they went. I waited for a moment before firing up my Mac's 3300L (on high, of course) and lit up the whole road. They were stunned, to say the least. They asked me how much it was, and I declined to tell them as it would frighten them . I also explained that my torch only has 9 LED's as well... at 1.5A each

It was referred to as the 'portable sun' for the rest of the evening.

[ikeyballz]

Lost power for an entire day once. I was out with my friends at night when this happened. I only had my incan lights but they were Underwater Kinetics branded 4AA lights so they were fairly bright. We were hanging out at a local starbucks so I tied the lights to the umbrella thing and our table had light. Everyone else was in complete darkness

[surgicalshot]

I keep hoping for a situation where I can bust out a cool flashlight to show off. I always hope the power will go out but it never does. When the power flickers, my wife gets worried that the power will cut out, and I secretly hope it will. Funny part is, no one around will think the flashlights are as cool as I think they are, unless there happens to be another flashlight enthusiast around. (rare chance)

I hear you on that one brother. I hope for the same thing at work. We have emergence lights but when i light my torch they will scoff no more...

[fiberguy]

I work emergency fiber optic repair. A tractor trailer took down a telephone pole and it was hanging by the power lines. We were on the scene as the local power company arrived. We couldn't work our damage before they secured power. Police blocked the intersection for hours of the night. We were made to stay about 100 yards back from the problem pole as Dominion Power secured it. They didn't have much lighting set up at the time, so from 100 yards back I stood there with my 4 D Mag with Terralux lighting the entire work environment for them. The police (about 100 yards farther back) were standing there pointing and talking, taking an acute notice. I felt awesome.

That was nowadays I can only dream of a similar scenario. TK70 inbound, I'll be SURE to blast some light on a dark emergency situation.

[SDM44]

We were recently looking to have a new 2 ton A/C unit installed into the ceiling area on our floor at work (in a high rise building in downtown). The building engineer, and 3rd party electrician, and the A/C vendor were all there walking around with me so we could check out the runs needed for the chilled water pipes. The building engineer had a old 2D Maglite, the electrician had a 50-LED cheapo light that was about the size of the 2D Maglite, and the A/C tech had a 9-LED cheapo light.

The building engineer pulled some ceiling tiles out and was looking up there with his light, but asked for more light. The immediately passed over the A/C tech's 9-LED light and went to the 50-ish LED light that the electrician had. As soon as they turned it on, the entire ceiling are was blue.... not cool blue but straight blue, and it wasn't even that bright - maybe 60-80 lumens. I pulled out the LD01 I had in my pocket with a 10440 on it and turned it on to Medium and shined it up there from where I was standing. They all kind of looked in aw and then looked back at me shining it up there to see what I was using. Then they were in more aw (more like a 'wtf' look on their face) when they saw the size of the light in my hand. Needless to say, they used my light for the rest of the time after that.

I kept thinking that I wished I had my TM11 with me

[shelm]

they used my light for the rest of the time after that.

my LD01 (R4) on 10440 on Med-mode doesnt run longer than ~33mins. How short did the work last?

[ScottFree]

Late last year a old girlfriend called me up to assist in a night-time scavenger hunt that she was organising at the local secondary school for her class that she teaches there and the parents if they wanted to come along, or if not the kids and adults could form groups and one of the teachers would escort the group along. She spent most of the week setting up the hunt.

Once enough people had turned up and it had got suitably dark the lights in the school would be turned off and the scavenging could begin The parents or kids could bring their own flash lights or the school provided some cheap lights. I also lent out some of my own for the escorts with the kids with some NiteIze. For personal use I had brought two flashlights with me, my HDS 200T and a Fenix TK15.

Anyway after the hunt had finished there was a little party out on the main field, BBQ and drinks and I had gotten into a conversation with a few of the kids there when it turned out one of the dads had headed into the woods that surrounds one half of the school and had called his wife to report this. Hearing this I whacked out the Fenix TK15 and set it on Max (337l) and told the wife to ask him whether he could see the beam and what direction it was shining. Then using his directions he walked back slightly worse for wear.

It wasn't until he came back that I noticed quite a few of the people there staring at me until I switched off the light though whether it was the Fenix or my ruggedly handsome good looks that had been reflected I don't know. I do know that there was a lot more Fenix lights at the next scavenger hunt she did.

[Richub]

Last week a maintenance guy had to check out the electricity system on our workplace for insurance reasons. Halfway through the checkup I heard him swear: His 2 C cell incan flashlight dropped and the bulb blew.

I gave my trusty Fenix PD31 to him so he could continue the checkup.
20 minutes later he came to me and asked me what kind of flashlight this PD31 was. What happened: He incidentally turned the head of that PD31 so it went to turbo, and it blinded him badly.

After a short explanation about these high-end LED flashlights he ordered a Fenix LD25 on the spot. He didn't want to use 'special' batteries but 'normal' ones. I had a LD25 with me, and he almost drooled on it. He spent 20 minutes calling stores to find one that had a LD25 in stock so he could pick it up right away without waiting.

[yliu]

Maybe I didn't create a "flashlight envy", but heres the story:

I was on a trip with my friends, and the tour guide was one of my friends as well. At night, he decided to bring us into a dark stairway of a house near a pub. I got out my SWM M10R to light up that place, but he asked me to turn it off. Of course, I turned my light off but had it in my hand. He then started explaining that some guy was killed in that stairway and right on that instant, another person with a mask jumps out screaming from a right door next to us.

I had my light in my hand, and fired it up right into his eyes. After the guide told us that it was a prank, and we chilled down. The person who came jumping at us told me that the light was very bright and hurt his eyes and that he got disoriented for a while by killing his night vision. It was set to medium.

So there we go, I just had my first victim who was blinded by me at night. Hopefully I won't have to do it anymore, but at least I know that I've got some advantage by carrying a light at night. It also helped me to convince one my friend to get a Fenix TK12 for a nice discount.

[firelord777]

I took my P-Rocket XM-L with me on a camping trip with some friends. One of the guys was bragging to everyone else about this outdoorsman type club he had recently joined, and all of high-end gear he had to purchase for it, including a "super bright" flashlight. As it got dark, he pulled out a large rechargeable mag-light, and was showing it off. After letting him have a little fun, I pulled my P-Rocket out of my pocket and turned it on medium, which provoked a lot of "whoa, his is brighter than yours and he just pulled it out of his pocket!", then I turned it on high. He didn't talk to me the rest of the weekend.

Bigmac, you almost gave me a heart attack, that was hilarious!

[Bigmac_79]

Bigmac, you almost gave me a heart attack, that was hilarious!

Sent from my mobile device. Please excuse brevity and typos.

[Roger Sully]

I met up with one of my LEO friends the other night and we were talking about, of course, lights. Another officer pulled up and joined the conversation and asked if I had anything that would compare to his light. He reached around on his belt and pulled out an incan C2. I said I think I had a few that might match it

I reached for my keychain..at which point he started to laugh...until I activated my Revo and went thru the L/M/H cycle. I then proceeded to show him my EagleTac T20 and then I broke out the Maelstrom S12

Needless to say he was quite impressed! He is now the proud owner of a T20C2 and I have a C2. I'm actually planning on getting a new drop in for the C2 and returning it to him at some point. I'm going to let him be happy with the T20 for a while before I bring back the C2 with maybe a 1000 lumen drop in and blow his mind again!

[M@elstrom]

I dunno' about envy but I sure was a little embarrassed the other night, I lent my back up light (SL Scorpion Incandescent) to a client rep' who had neglected to bring their own light (in the middle of the night) whilst I was using my new XT11, well it made the poor Scorpion look so woefully dim that I instantly offered them the Klarus to use instead... I had at that point considered the lights' battery to be partly discharged.


Short story is the light was working absolutely fine, it was just the XT11's output that made it appear so horribly yellow and dull by comparison

[CYMac]

Yes today at work,the lights weren't on at the construction site i was working on & the foreman pulled out this cheapo led light that had 6 LED's that put about 20 lumen on max power
it was also 5x bigger than my HDS Rotary 200.There was 7 men who couldn't see a thing & the foreman was bragging about how his light was going to save us.So i had my crocodile
dundee moment & said "thats not a light,this is a real light" & i illuminated everywhere we needed to see.The foreman wasn't very happy but the rest of us had a good laugh at his
childish remarks.....priceless

HAHAAHAH! How come fireman are not issued with some qualified lights anyway? They should all gear with an RRT3 or TN30, then fire fighting is another story..

[AnAppleSnail]

HAHAAHAH! How come fireman are not issued with some qualified lights anyway? They should all gear with an RRT3 or TN30, then fire fighting is another story..

All-metal flashlights have great heat-sinking until the outside is hotter than the LED is rated for. Cost is also a factor; there are about 1 million firefighters in the US, and about 80% of them are volunteers. $100 per light requires good people across the US to shell out (In taxes or out of pocket).

I think you're going the wrong way with your suggestion anyway; you want excellent throw, not a wall of light; according to our CPF firefighters.

[ledmitter_nli]

I dunno' about envy but I sure was a little embarrassed the other night, I lent my back up light (SL Scorpion Incandescent) to a client rep' who had neglected to bring their own light (in the middle of the night) whilst I was using my new XT11, well it made the poor Scorpion look so woefully dim that I instantly offered them the Klarus to use instead... I had at that point considered the lights' battery to be partly discharged.


Short story is the light was working absolutely fine, it was just the XT11's output that made it appear so horribly yellow and dull by comparison

And my Kenji 5 amp Quad R5 XPG P60 dropin makes the XT11 look kinda "cute" in comparison as well. And it's a slightly smaller form factor - to boot!