new toy - Streamlight Trident

[Albany Tom]

Maybe this isn't the right place for this, but here goes

This is a 3-AAA headlamp with three modes:
- single green LED
- 2 white LED
- krypton, 300mA

The package says 150 hours for the single LED,
I haven't tried that yet. The batteries load
into a cylindrical cartridge that fits into the
body of the light. You cycle between modes by
pressing the button on the top of the lamp.

Green is brighter than I expected. Package says
"night visions green LED" - well, this thing will
degrade your night vision, it's certainly fine for
walking around most places. Green has rings, with
a center bright spot of about 6" at arms length.
Not great for reading.

White is very nice. About the same as my 3 LED
Tikka headlamp, about the same brightness, but
wider coverage, as a white photon. This is nice
for walking around in a dark area, reading, or
close task work. Used it tonight to do household
electrical wiring. The even beam is great for
that, and the white colors works well with the
ARC-white florescent I was also using.

Krypton is OK. No way to focus, yet has rings.
It has a patterned reflector, and it isn't as
bad as a maglite (no real dark spot), but not
even close to the quality of the $20 Brinkman LX
I bought tonight. It's way brighter than a AA
maglite, and way dimmer than the LX. Fine for
walking where you want a brighter light than the
white LED, for "rough" working on big things, or
when your eyes are adjusted to normal roomlight,
and you need a light to see into the dark corners.

Other: Mechanically it's very nice. The up/down
adjustment is easy to do, but doesn't slip on
its own. Comfortable for me to wear, with wide
adjustable straps. I bought the optional hard
hat strap, which requires unscrewing the light
from the headlamp mount to use. I'd hoped for
something a little easier. The headlamp and
straps are black and dark green.

Final thoughts: Package says "water resistant",
but this looks and feels waterproof to me. The
rubber housing around the lamp keeps glare out
of your eyes in all modes, which my Tikka headlamp
doesn't do.

IMHO - It's cool, and I like it.

 

[Whistler]

Sounds good, seems to have a fair price (±$20).
All is in 1 bezel (unlike than for example a PrincetonTec Matrix, there you would have to carry your LED/krypton Lamp Assemblies with you

,...and it's much more expensive

.) Good.

I'am afraid that the krypton will not provide very long light with 3 AAA's. Al right you still got you LED's.

Trident sounds really like toothpaste, do you get a free toothbrush with it?

 

[Albany Tom]

No toothbrush.

I was hoping for a little fish stabber that I could use on shrimp platters or something.

I should correct - this is the "green trident", they also make a regular model w/o the green LED, but with the same 3 power settings.

I love that it's all in one. Having to switch parts (on other flashlights) sounds silly to me. But why the marginal reflector? Oh well...

Now I'm wondering what the krypton life will be, and if the LED's will work better than it when the batteries are almost dead. OK, I'll do a runtime test and post the results.

 

[Joe Talmadge]

I thought that was a cool light! In fact, looking at the Trident is what inspired me to go over to SureFire and suggest that they make a headlamp designed around the A-2 head. That would be sort-of a super high-end Trident.

Joe