<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bigos:
BTW, Craig @ the LED Museum(I think I'm right) I wonder what you'd recommend to use in such an emergency. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hard to say. A plastic flashlight is probably out of the question; an ALL-metal one may have a chance of survival, depending on how it is oriented in space to the actual detonation point. The hope here is that the metal body of the flashlight will act like a faraday cage and keep the majority of the electromagnetic pulse away from the lamp.
Higher current incandescent bulbs, like those found in the Legend and Surefire flashlights, would stand a better chance of withstanding the pulse; lower current lamps like LEDs and smaller incandescents like Mini-Mags would be more prone to blowing out. Flashlights with a lot of internal wiring would also stand a poorer chance than those with minimal or no wires. Large bodied flashlights would also be worse off than tiny flashlights.
LED flashlights that stand at least some minimal chance of survival would include SMALL metal-bodied ones like the Arc-AAA and the CMG Infinity. Incandescents that would stand some chance of survival would include the Surefire E1 and E2, the Legend LX, and possibly some of the Mags.
Plastic bodied lithium keychain lights probably wouldn't do well, because the long, exposed LED leads would act like antennae, gathering a substantial amount of pulse energy and dumping it into the LED die. The proximity of the LED leads to the batteries is short enough in some of these to allow an arc to strike between them, thus completing the circuit and popping the LED.
And all plastic-bodied lights, LED or not, stand a very high chance of popping. This includes all LED, most incandescent, all fluorescent, and all electroluminescent. If you're close enough to the blast (but not so close as to be killed or injured yourself), don't expect your household incandescents or fluorescents to work afterward either. Fluoro tubes in the house will probably flare very brightly, and your TV and computer monitor tubes will glow brightly, even if they're turned off and unplugged.
The only advice I have to offer (not being an expert in nuclear theory or fission dynamics) is to buy a small, well-sealed lead, thick copper, or thick stainless steel box or safe, ground it THOROUGHLY, and put your most loved flashlights and a transistor radio inside when the Emergency Broadcast System alerts you to an incoming ICBM. If you see the flash before putting your flashlights in this container, you're too late. Don't expect the radio to make it, but most of the flashlights should.