Flashlight for a 3 year old

My wife keeps bringing home plastic flashlights that get broken pretty quick which results in my son wanting one of my flashlights...Ummmm No! He still ends up getting his hands on them though and when I go to work my light is either sporting a dead battery or it is missing in action. As a result I'm looking for something that a 3 year old can't destroy that has a moderate out put level because if it has a high lumens mode that is all he will use and I will be replacing batteries every hour. I also wanted the moderate max brightness level so if he leaves it somewhere left on all day there are no worries about heat issues. He left an SC51 on hi under some blankets in the living room and that sucker got pretty hot by the time I found it. It wouldn't have caused a fire or anything but it can't be good for the light and if he fell asleep with the light it could possible burn the skin. I would also prefer something that is not twist on because he just takes those apart. Something around the size of a Proton with half the lumens. Thanks!

My 2.5 year old has his own Sipik SK68. The zoom keeps him busy and it runs off one AA. It does get a bit warm if it's left on a long time. The flood mode makes great wall shadow puppets.


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Looks like it has everything except that it is too bright. I'm thinking in the 50-60 lumens range.

How about a Mini Maglight? A gave my daughter a pink incandescent and put a Nite Ize 3 led drop-in which has about 10 or 15 lumens and runs forever. The bright colored ones are easier to spot too.

You could try buying a sturdy 2 cell incan light and get the 1D eveready LED lights and swap the dropin out of them. You can use partially depleted alkalines or cheap nimh batteries in it and it should run about 15 hours off nimh 2000mah batteries

3 year old huh? That's tough. Nothing too small or it gets accidentally swallowed, or lost. Nothing too big and heavy in case something gets destroyed. Nothing too bright in case of retinal damage but not too dim or he'll be wanting something else... How about a Quark Tactical programed to moonlight and medium? Lot's of runtime and the modes are adjustable.

Icon Solo would be a great choice for a 3 yr old.

I'll suggest you take a look at the PALight "Star" model. Softish rubber exterior, almost drop-proof, not too bright, even has a 30 minute auto-off so it won't drain the battery when it isn't being used. Can even get it with different coloured cases if he has a favourite colour (I like the bright orange as it is easier to find).

Run old 9v batteries from your smoke detectors and your son will have plenty of guilt-free lighting.

Streamlight stylus pro or microstream: relatively cheap, older ones had 20 something lumens. With the forward clicky he can activate it by pushing but might not be able to click on so it won't stay on.

The PALight Star is pretty interesting but I can't find a lumens rating yet.

Play Skool incan with built in red/green filter. Turns it self off to save battey life. Toddler safe and proven track record. Plentiful on Ebay.

Incandescents will not last him long. It also has to look like a tool and not a toy or he will just be back looking for mine. There was one in the adds at the top of the page that I noticed as I clicked on another page. I tried going back but the adds come up randomly. It looked like it was black anodized aluminum and was advertised as 60 lumens and you could adjust the brightness by twisting the head...anyone else see it? I spent an hour refreshing the page hoping the add would come back up again but no luck!

willieschmidt said:

Play Skool incan with built in red/green filter. Turns it self off to save battey life. Toddler safe and proven track record. Plentiful on Ebay.

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I have a few of these, Not sure that they would be interested in these if you have a lot of nice flashlights around as the output is somewhat pathetic but perhaps an LED dropin would make them interesting then you could even use some AA to C adapters and save money on batteries.

I have the same issues with my 3 year old. I gave him a Rayovac 100 lumen AA that runs around $15-20. It is not a great light but for a young one it's pretty darn good. I don't like him to have and lithium lights for the increased danger of venting or explosion. So alkaline it is.
I have also given him a coast led and let him play with an Icon Rouge, the Rouge he chewed the tail cap off of. Arrgg!

Might I suggest a Brinkmann ArmorMax 1AA Flashlight for $13.95. It is made of reinforced nylon. Runs on 1 AA @ about 50lms for about 2 hourse. I can't think of a better light for a 3 year old!

My .02 FWIW YMMV

How about one of those $13 lights from autozone

BARBARIAN-X, the add that you were looking for can be found by looking at the CPF Classifieds page, all of those adds are sitting there waiting - on the regular forum pages we see one at a time. I think you're talkng about Thrunight TI by the way.
PALight Star sounds pretty likely to me.

Cheap light that can survive a 3 year old

Light is a gift for the older brother. However, no doubt little bro will get a hold of cus he wants whatever older brother gets as well.

NIce cheap single or dual mode twisty i guess.

Re: Cheap light that can survive a 3 year old

Still my all-time kid's favorite: the Gerber Recon - 1xAA, colored lenses built in, 5MM LED that won't blind anyone, run it from a NiMH and it doesn't matter if they leave it on, ~$20.