Best Flash lights for fire investigation

[torontoguy]

Hello everyone this is my first post and have been reviewing the website for some time and have to say to everyone well done.

Okay I am a fire investigator so my job requires me to enter a home or bulding after it is burnt and investigate. Two things a fire will do is make everything black and second take away any power. So I currently use a standard mag led light 2D. I have tried out pretty much all of the lights you can buy at home depot and canadian tire and find that they may work well for about 5 min.

I am currently looking for two types of lighting systems.

1. A handheld flashlight that gives a good white light with decent flood and decent throw. I would like the beam to be as clear as possible.

2. A portable flood light system. My boss uses two indandecent 400w flood lights and plugs them into a genni. I would like to see if there was a simple way to do this maybe a large battery and some kind of LED array or something.

So far i have looked into moding my mag light or moding a AA mini Mag but think that maybe this money could be better spent else where. So what do you guys recommend. As for budget i don't want to get crazy. I'm thinking of maybe 150 - 200 for both but of course if I could do it for less I would like that.

Cheers and thank you in advance

 

[Gunner12]

For the Maglite, check this thread.

What batteries do you prefer?
What size?
How smooth a beampattern?
Multimode?(low output, medium, strobe etc.)
Price that you prefer?

The second one, I'm not sure.

:welcome:

 

[torontoguy]

okay i meant to mention this before but forgot.

As far as beam i would like as smooth as possible.

As far as batteries. Okay our work supplies us with batteries. we have

aaa
aa
and D batteries we may have C

price for hand held 100 or so

price for portable flood light I would say 100 or so. I am thinking for the flood a battery jumper could work well or something similar

Cheers

 

[torontoguy]

batteries would be

D AA or AAA

for the portable flood light I would say maybe a portable car charger or something similar

as far as price 100 for each around

thank you

 

[Youfoundnemo]

well for the area lighting a HID setup with a diffuser would probably work well, get something with a 4200K bulb tho the 6000K bulbs would make everything look diffrent as for the Maglight I cannot say too much

 

[PhotonBoy]

Pelican makes a lot of professional gear that looks suited to your line of work. Check out their site at: http://www.pelican.com/

 

[torontoguy]

I have looked at some of there stuff - it is a bit pricey for the flood lights and they are not LED has anyone seen anything similar or made anything similar that is LED

 

[PhotonBoy]

Given your budget and the fact that you don't have access to lithium 3 volt 123 cells, you might look at the Fenix L2D CE:

https://www.4sevens.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=195

Have you tried any LED lights yet? I wonder out loud if their lower output in the middle of the spectrum might limit your ability to see important details.

Are the flood lights required for general area lighting, photography or both?

 

[Chrontius]

What about the AmondoTech N30 Illuminator? 75 lumen low-level flood from seven LEDs in the grip, and the main gun's pushing 3,000 lumens for an hour.

 

[bones_708]

The simple answer, for the scene lighting, is that there are none for the price you want. The cast would be more that the lights and Gen combined. That only make sense considering the limited market and the increase in price for portability. Pelican does make scene lighting one in a rolling case for around a grand 9450 I think and one hand held 9430 at $600. K&H make a rechargeable area light called RayMax. For your price get some 12v lights from the auto parts, farm supply, ect fasten to a frame and wire up to some battery clamps. It can be done for well under $100 but you would still need a battery. You might try a streamlight lightbox. If you use the diffuser lens that comes with the 5watt and swap in the 8 watt you get a nice handheld flood for about $100 with the ability to home or auto charge. Streamlight strion and stingers both would be great belt lights, both have piggyback chargers that alow you to keep extra batterys charged. Very easy to sell in the public safety field if you move on or upgrade.

 

[torontoguy]

The AmondoTech N30 Illuminator looks promising i will look into that.

I have used Mag LED already and find them good but would be interested if there was something better.

For the porable flood light has anyone tired or looked into any systems like these http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TBQBPS/?tag=cpf0b6-20

I live in toronto canada and have looked to get some upgrades for my Mag lights put shipping here from the states is a bit expensive compared to the parts. Does anyone know of a good supplier in canada

 

[torontoguy]

Ohh I forgot to say. I do not need this lighting for photograph. I already have some big flashes for that. This is more for observations. As much as CSI tells you. You can see squat with a basic pen light.

 

[Gunner12]

Did you check out the thread I linked to? Most of them are in the US though.
Swapping the Luxeon III in your MagLED for a Seoul P4 will yield twice the output for the same runtime. A single AA light can probably match your MagLED in output(not throw though because of the much larger Maglite reflector).

As for the flood light you linked to, one or two high power LEDs can probably match it in output at a much smaller size. That's around the same as 15-20 watts though, not 400.

Smooth flood and AA, I've heard that the Liteflux lights have a smooth beam. But if the MagLED works for you, then most of the lights here should have a smoother beam then it like the Fenix L2D/LD20, Olight T25, Nitecore D20 and so on.

 

[bones_708]

Hey I like the look of that floodlight on Amazon. I would be real tempted to try that. I got curious and found these. http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200307157_200307157
Two of those on a frame with wiring so you could tie it in to a vehicle or a 12v batt if their batts run low.

 

[:)>]

I cannot say enough good things about the Malkoff Maglite drop-ins. If you want a light that has excellent output / runtime and a smooth beam try the Malkoff 2 to 3 D-Cell drop in and get a camless reflector from the Sandwich Shoppe. It makes a great light out of a Maglite and it should be under $100.