Good Red lense LED flashlight

Armyman9 · Apr 28, 2010

Hey guys I am in need of a good red lense light to do night time land navigation. I need a light that has good throw, not looking for anything tactical I need to find points quickly at distance. I was thinking possibly the Quark RGB or the Streamlight Sidewinder or compact. I am new to the forum any advice would be great.

ti-force · Apr 28, 2010

If I'm not mistaken, red filters don't work very well with white LED's. I have a Fenix TK11 that I bought a red filter for, and IMO, the filter was a waste of money. It kills the output of the light. It might be a better idea to stick with a light that has a red emitter, like the Quark you mentioned, but I don't know how much throw it has. Or you might want to stick to incandescents.

JCD · Apr 28, 2010

What, exactly, do you mean by "red lens light?" If you only need the light to produce red light, then a red LED would be better than a red filter on a white light.

If you only need red, a mint condition Surefire L1 Red currently for sale in the CPFMarketplace (offered by user knightrider). There may be another L1 Red offered in CPFM, but I'm not certain.

The L1 is a single CR123A cell light with two stage output, high and low. Either stage can be accessed directly from off.

There are, of course, other options, but if reliability is critical, few options are as good as Surefire.

Depending on what you mean by "distance" (10 meters, 100 meters, etc.), you might be better served by a filtered incandescent light with higher power.

Armyman9 · Apr 28, 2010

Ya I need a light that produces Red Light. Something in the 40-50 meter range would be great.

ti-force · Apr 28, 2010

Maybe this thread will help you:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=261941

You might be satisfied with an LED filtered light at 40-50 meters, since that's not too great of a distance. Maybe someone with some experience will chime in.

JCD · Apr 28, 2010

Armyman9 said:
Ya I need a light that produces Red Light. Something in the 40-50 meter range would be great.

DM51 has already explained it very well elsewhere:

DM51 said:
If you examine a spectrogram of a typical LED, you'll see a high output spike of blue, then a dip at cyan rising to a high covering green through yellow, then tailing off through orange to a very weak red.

Filters are subtractive. A red filter will filter out colors other than red. It can't add red. So, if there is very little red there to start with, that's the best you're going to get - you can't convert some of the blue into red.

What some filters designed for LEDs do is allow some of the orange component through. That gives a brighter output, but as Moonshadow has noted, it results in a more orange tint, rather than a true red.

If you need the red to preserve your night vision, I would recommend a proper red filter, such as the Surefire F04 (which will fit most 1-inch bezel lights), or alternatively a light that has a red LED. If you will be using this light on military night exercises as you say, I think you'll find a bright light will be a handicap in more ways than one, and frowned on by your instructors. You don't need a bright light to help you read a map, and if you need to preserve your night vision you'll need a true red light, with no orange or other color component.