Marine Flashlight

Greetings!

New to the forum...I'm in need of a LED "flashlight" to use exclusively for night time navigation purposes to spot channel markers, buoys and unmarked poles. I have a halogen spot on the boat for other applications (MOB, spotting water hazards, etc.), but it works very poorly for navigation due to its impact on night vision from spillover light. In my area, we have varying night conditions, which are complicated by city lights.

I've had my eye on the "Marinebeam Ultra Long Range Illuminator" due to its long distance capabilities, and purported narrow beam, but there's not much information available. They also offer a smaller, lighter weight version. I need something with minimal/no spillover light, as any reflection from the bow of the boat immediately impacts vision, which takes time to recover from. Another feature that attracts me to the Marinebeam is the fact that it uses standard "D" cell batteries, but that's not a firm requirement.

I have read through most of the boating related threads here, and also researched the internet, but when looking at the beam patterns of some of the recommended lights on YouTube, I still see what looks to be too much spillover light. The size of the spot/beam is less relevant than the spillover light.

Are there any commercially available LED flashlights that are designed with minimal/no spillover light in mind? I don't know that I require a flamethrower, so something that would illuminate a reflective marker at 200 yards would be more than sufficient.

Thanks!

I keep a Thrunite TN31 flashlight on my small boat. It has a l-o-n-g reaching tight beam, and I chose the warmer "neutral white" LED which seems to give less backscatter and reflection from fog, rain, etc. Less than a hundred bucks.

The real experts should be along shortly with some suggestions for lights with the least spill. You might even get someone to post some beam shots....

Take it easy,
Bob

I would suggest looking at the Acebeam predator and Fenix TK lights. See what you think.

Any LED in a reflector will have pretty strong spill due to the nature of the beast, though you can look for lights with "narrower" spill beams and strong central beams, usually found with deep smooth reflectors. My advise there would be an Armytek Predator series light.

Outside of going with a small emitter in a deep smooth reflector, you'd be looking for options that use alternative methods of focusing the light. TIR or aspheric.

Thanks everyone! Seems the Armytek Predator is the most recommended for this application, so perhaps I'll try one. It's certainly smaller than the Marinebeam, and if I'm reading correctly, it's waterproof which is an added bonus.

Desmobob, is that a 900SS/SP? I recently sold my '95 900SS/SP and '92 851SP. I've been sick about it ever since...

What about dereelight dbs with aspherical lense?

Bravo30 said:

What about dereelight dbs with aspherical lense?

Click to expand...

^ +1

just saw this. I boat a lot.
I just responded to another boat light post somewhere near yours. You can see my thoughts there. I looked at the Predator and liked it a lot but it had some problems for my purposes.
- It does have a really narrow, far reaching beam. That is great for channel markers and by being so narrow reduces in-boat glare back -BUT, it you're hoping to use it for looking for water obstacles that aren't reflective these kind of beams are not great. I ultimately went with a slightly wider (XML) beam.
-As i recall the UI was a bit problematic- I think what I didin't like was that it could not be used one-handed (the twisting took two hands) Also, I think it was such that you could'nt have it come on to low ( I may be wrong) This was very important as sometimes you need a quick low light to look for things on boat and don't want to kill night vision. Also, i'm not sure the low was low enough for me.

If these things don't bother you, disregard .

The light I chose was the Eagletac S200c -- great for my purposes. no blinky modes, High High, Low low. Ability to pre-choose level before turning on. One hand operation. great balanced throwy beam. Good price as well. I love it.

RC620 said:

Greetings!

New to the forum...I'm in need of a LED "flashlight" to use exclusively for night time navigation purposes to spot channel markers, buoys and unmarked poles. I have a halogen spot on the boat for other applications (MOB, spotting water hazards, etc.), but it works very poorly for navigation due to its impact on night vision from spillover light. In my area, we have varying night conditions, which are complicated by city lights.

I've had my eye on the "Marinebeam Ultra Long Range Illuminator" due to its long distance capabilities, and purported narrow beam, but there's not much information available. They also offer a smaller, lighter weight version. I need something with minimal/no spillover light, as any reflection from the bow of the boat immediately impacts vision, which takes time to recover from. Another feature that attracts me to the Marinebeam is the fact that it uses standard "D" cell batteries, but that's not a firm requirement.

I have read through most of the boating related threads here, and also researched the internet, but when looking at the beam patterns of some of the recommended lights on YouTube, I still see what looks to be too much spillover light. The size of the spot/beam is less relevant than the spillover light.

Are there any commercially available LED flashlights that are designed with minimal/no spillover light in mind? I don't know that I require a flamethrower, so something that would illuminate a reflective marker at 200 yards would be more than sufficient.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Hi,

Please visit the website, where you will find a TON of technical information about the Long Range Illuminator, and how it works, as well as links to the independent tests done by Panbo, Sail Magazine, Commercial Fisherman, Boating Magazine, and several European boating magazines. There is no spill over whatsoever. The light also has no halo, and has an infinite focus, so does not converge or diverge at all.

In the world of "flashlight wars" almost nobody believes the claims, but the patented technique that we use improves the "throughput" of the flashlight, and is so simple that anyone can understand it, and when they do, they understand how it will make ANY LED flashlight brighter regardless of the lumens. Said another way, if you bought the biggest and baddest flashlight, you could still make it up to 2.5X brighter by adding the parts in the Marinebeam flashlight.

Imagine a fence with a 2" hole in it. Now image the sun on one side of the fence. Even though the sun is one of the brightest sources imaginable, the size of the hole in the fence limits how much sun gets through. Even if you make the sun twice as bright, the hole limits how much light gets to the other side. Same with a flashlight. If you buy a spot light, no matter how many lumens, the light getting down range is limited by the aperture. Just like a camera lens in reverse. The RLT solves this without resorting to a big aperture or huge lens. If you buy a spot light with a reflector you end up with two beams. One reflected beam (hotspot) and one radiated beam (the diverging halo that never gets down range). If you buy a spotlight with a collimating lens, then there are still two beams. The one that makes it through the lens, and the more than 50% that didn't. While you can end up with no spillover, the second beam is just lost or hidden.

Feel free to contact us offline if you want to understand in detail.

Jeff Field