What are PKEF Lights?

[jufam44]

Pardon My ignorance, but can anyone "enlighten" me as to what PKEF lights are? Special Editions, perhaps?

Thanks
-Max

 

[Beastmaster]

A SureFire custom flashlight. IIRC, it stands for Paul Kim Experimental Flashlight. It's a predecessor to the Kroma.

-Steve

 

[Size15's]

Paul Kim (PK) is SureFire VP of Engineering.
He develops new products.

PKEF models were those similar to some of the models SureFire developed for a DARPA project with SAIC and LumiLeds. SAIC work with SureFire on optics including their TIR optics. DARPA Experimental Flashlights were known as "DEF".

Based on the "U2" platform they experimented with concepts from which the K2 Kroma family was born.

SureFire (PK) gave fans the opportunity to own a part of SureFire R&D by releasing a small number of these flashlights under his name following the successful completion of the DARPA project.

 

[dano]

Mine looks like a U2 body with a turbo head. The head has a very large TIR optic surrounded by smaller LED's.

-dan

 

[Lightguy27]

Paul Kim Experimental Flashlight. Came about with the DARPA and SAIC projects.

-Evan

 

[Size15's]

Paul Kim Experimental Flashlight. Came about with the DARPA and SEIC projects.

-Evan

Evan - you mean "SAIC" as I mentioned in my post above.

Back in late 2005 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) a contract to deliver 800 high-performance LED flashlight prototypes designed and manufactured by SureFire.

At the time SAIC and SureFire had already been collaborating for several years to develop new nonimaging total internal reflection (TIR) optics. Lumileds were selected to provide their Luxeon LEDs.

The flashlights were supplied to U.S. forces deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq for in-the-field experimental evaluation and feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of inserting a range of state-of-the-art optical technologies into flashlights, while maintaining the same form factor that troops in the field are already using.

 

[Lightguy27]

Evan - you mean "SAIC" as I mentioned in my post above.

Back in late 2005 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) a contract to deliver 800 high-performance LED flashlight prototypes designed and manufactured by SureFire.

At the time SAIC and SureFire had already been collaborating for several years to develop new nonimaging total internal reflection (TIR) optics. Lumileds were selected to provide their Luxeon LEDs.

The flashlights were supplied to U.S. forces deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq for in-the-field experimental evaluation and feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of inserting a range of state-of-the-art optical technologies into flashlights, while maintaining the same form factor that troops in the field are already using.

Typo.
-Evan

 

[Size15's]

Gotta be careful of those damn tpyos

 

[jufam44]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Do you know how many PKEF lights were released "into the wild"?

 

[Size15's]

I'm sure the details can be worked out by various posts/threads on here. From what I can recall I was under the impression it was about 100-200 total (25-50 of each version)