Anyone ever "clamp" two or three lights together?

[Dude Dudeson]

I was messing around (well, actually it was a semi serious situation) with 3 lights the other night.

I realized the three combined were very much "more than the sum of the parts".

A 6P/M60 and two Quark Mini 123's.

I'd been thinking of getting a 600'ish lumen class light, but the "light bulb" went off in my mind - if I can figure a way to "clamp" these three into something in less than say, sixty seconds, and for less than fifty bucks I'd rather do that (because this would utilize my existing EDC).

No extra, bigger, heavier light in my EDC. No extra battery backup overhead in my EDC. A small piece(s) of gear to link all three up for 600'ish lumens on tap within if not one, two minutes notice...

I'm never going to need more than the 6P/M60 "right this second". If my lifestyle ever got me into that territory I'd buy a bigger light, and carry it. But I'd gladly drop some coin into a way of integrating the three pieces of my EDC into one "powerhouse" (yeah like 600'ish lumens qualifies around here lol!).

I'm already working some ideas in my head, but has anyone else ever experimented with this?

 

[kramer5150]

Yeah its been done. Someone a year ago made a clamp with 4 lights arranged 2x2. Someone else took a 6" diameter PVC and some plumbing hardware and arranged a bunch of lights around the tube.

 

[Swedpat]

Some year ago I got the idéa of putting together four Fenix E20. The result you can see HERE. Around 450lumens and with a very bright spill.
Maybe I will evolve it further and make a handle for more comfortable hold.

Regards, Patric

 

[bluepilgrim]

I haven't actually clamped them together but I have used two lights together just holding them. This works rather well with ,say two Romisen rc-n3s, one white and one warm white, which gives double the brightness and better color rendition. The only disadvantage is having two switches to deal with -- but one could rig something up for a more permanent arrangement to handle that.

One advantage as opposed to upgrading a led and driver is that the heat disappation would not be a problem. Another is that you have a built-in 'spare' if one of the lights fail.

What is that they say? One is none and two is one ...

 

[LEDninja]

There was a thread about this topic years ago.
I had 3 L0D CEs at the time so strapped them together with some rubber bands. The twisty switches made turning them on-off very difficult (I suspect similar problems with the Quark Minis.). When I strapped only the heads, the lights go whatever which way. Clicky switch lights would be better.
The P60 head would get in the way of the smaller light's beams. Some kind of stand-off would be needed. Otherwise a couple of tie wraps would do the job.

EDIT
Paul Kim of Surefire did it years ago.

From the thread where I found it:

The funny thing is that only the keys, pocket knife, the compass (A little homage to "A Christmas Story" methinks.. and the brass spotlight are shopped' in.

The rest was all real. The pic, and the shopped version have been on the net for at least two, maybe three years. It's a gun-board favorite.

That is PK, and presumably he thought it would be amusing to mount one of everything SF makes on an AR-15/M-16 style rifke.

 

[Ty_Bower]

A few years back someone posted a photo of twenty or thirty lights all duct taped and bungie corded together. I don't think there were two of the same kind of light in the bundle, and everything ranged from coin cell squeeze lights up to the handheld spotlights. I'd love to see that photo again...

 

[Dark Laser]

This idea came to my mind when I thought about a possibility to carry more lights around than I already sometimes do...

But I thought more of a C-cell Mag (used as a handle) and a D-cell one, put together with a double clamp. This makes it easier to switch through the lights (less stress :laughing and, as already said, to hold more lumens in one hand. Since I have no C-Mag, I would combine my 4D with my E20/TK20.

 

[sween1911]

Reminds me of the movie "Of Unknown Origin" where Peter Weller tapes several flashlights together while hunting a big sewer rat in a New York brownstone.

Don McLeish made something similar years ago. Dovetails into the pocketclip slot of some Surefire lights. Very cool stuff... http://dmcleish.com/CPF/piggyback/index.html

 

[Illum]

If I recall correctly the big G himself made a "weaponlight" mount for his light:thinking:

http://dmcleish.com/CPF/piggyback/index.html

 

[Dude Dudeson]

Awesome ideas, thanks for the replies!

 

[LeifUK]

I go running with two lights strapped together using a Fenix bike mount, the plastic one, not the rubber one. With 2 Quark AA2 lights you get over 400 lumens OTF on turbo. The great advantage of this Fenix mount is that it is articulated, so you can rotate one light relative to the other. This makes it much easier to rotate the head and/or tail cap, when for example switching from normal to turbo. You could strap 3 or more lights together, with more than one Fenix mount, but it would get cumbersome. But two lights works well. It has the advantage over one light of 'light security' by which I mean that if one light fails, you have a backup.

 

[Dude Dudeson]

The P60 head would get in the way of the smaller light's beams. Some kind of stand-off would be needed. Otherwise a couple of tie wraps would do the job.

I'm thinking of just making something like "the stocks" with some wingnuts to clamp it down - here's a really cruddy mock-up I made in paint...



Right behind the 6P head there's about 3/8 inch of the middle Quark section to work with - even an aluminum piece should be plenty strong, as this setup would rarely actually get used anyway.



What'd be really nice is to make something like this that functioned like a butterfly knife, but that'd be too expensive...