Daily use light

This is not to be confused by a daily carry light, this is what I term a daily use light around the house. It is a light used when you walk around the house from one room to another, or when you shut off lights and need to keep from stubbing your toes, or looking way in the back of the cupboard for the something. Generally where you do not need a lot of light, just a bit, and it fits in the pocket of your tshirt, or shorts, or sweat pants.

Of course you have other lights all over the house in nooks and crannies, brighter lights in case you need one, and you ALWAYS need one at some point.

I have come to the conclusion that in this case, brightness is secondary to battery life, at least in my opinion, no sense in wasting batteries when it is not needed. I know I know, that is herecy... but generally it is true, all resources are finite, and money does not grow on trees and all those cliches which happen to have a bit more truth than we might like.

Anyways, what light do I use for this? I was using a River Rock AAA as it was plenty bright and had really decent run times, then I modded the AAA Minimag with the MJLED, and found it has up to 31 hours life and looks visibly, at least to my unscientific eyes, as bright as the AAA River Rock. It really does work well in this task, and I am glad as I had relegated it a long time ago to desk duty. Size wise it fits in a t-shirt pocket at the bottom very nicely and you forget its there, or shorts pocket. Will it last in this role? Who knows, there are so many lights and so little time to try them all out...

What is your daily user and why?

I often refer to this sort of thing as a "night stand" light. My 9v based PAL light is just the ticket because the "glow mode" makes it very easy to find in the dark. Right next to it is an Inova radient 2xAAA. I used to keep a River Rock 2xAAA there but the square design of the radient keeps it from "wandering" around on the nightstand and I have a lot more confidence in the weatherproofness of the the River Rock so the Inova stays in and the RR goes out.

I use my HDS U60 GTXR. I see this light as the jack-of-most-trades of EDC flashlights. It can go VERY low in output and is very pocketable. When you need high output, it's there. A big plus is that it can use rechargeables. Also a big plus is that you can now buy longer battery tubes to fit 2xCR123's or an 18650, which makes this light even more versatile.

But then I have my new McLux III-PD and I'm finding more and more use of this one. For now, though, the U60 sees the greatest utility.


:thumbsup: WP

I have a few favorites... in no particular order:

A plastic light from Walmart with a PR base. I replaced the incand bulb with one of the Sino Union 5mm 'bulbs'. Reflector is faceted, then I sputtered it for an even smoother beam. Runtime is... REALLY LONG. 40+ hours for sure. Large hotspot, nice spillbeam... one of the few lights I've ever owned that had a wider spillbeam than the Infinity Ultra. Very white.

Speaking of which, the Infinity Ultra is way up there. Don't care for the blue in the middle, green on the edges tint, but... I haven't got around to modding one with a better LED yet.

The 0.5W River Rock and Nuwai lights (as well as the 0.5W lights from AdvancedMart as reviewed by UnknownVT) and the MJLED/SMJLED modded Minimags are great for such uses... Tints on the River Rocks tend to be consistantly blue while the Nuwais range from blue to violet to blue with green.

My current favorite light for such uses is a Solitaire I modded with a Nichia CS B0 LED. Sanded it down to give a huge and very even hotspot... it's pretty much ALL hotspot. It runs direct on a 10440 LiON cell. All the brightness I need, and though throw isn't as good as the 0.5W lights, it will cast light from my living room to the far wall in the hall bathroom so it suits me just fine. Only drawback is since it's direct drive, it initially pulls about 170ma from the cell while at about 80ma, it seems about 90% as bright... so if I could that initial reading down to about 70 to 100ma, I should get closer to 5 hours of runtime.

And it easily fits in a pocketwatch pocket!

I use a TNC Keylux-AA with an LDF lens on it for a bit more flood. It puts out plenty of light for around the house use with a NiMh AA cell and I don't mind leaving it on since I have plenty of NiMh AA cells to feed it and a 15 minute charger. The Fenix L1p would serve well here too.

HDS U42 or Surefire L1.

For some time now I've been carrying around my old brass Matterhorn 3LED for my prowling light. Been rotating NiMH batts through it and the 3AAA Metal Gear back door light. The Matterhorn's focused enough to not wake the sleepers and bright enough for most after hours uses.

Geoff

With a LOT of high dollar lights, I'm almost ashamed to say my most used light is the cheap 1AA/8LED Xnova (high output). Have the blasted things scattered everywhere.

They always work, and all are still on the original battery.

Me too. Exactly what JohnK says. A perfect application for these little lights from Lighthound

JohnK said:

With a LOT of high dollar lights, I'm almost ashamed to say my most used light is the cheap 1AA/8LED Xnova (high output). Have the blasted things scattered everywhere.

They always work, and all are still on the original battery.

Click to expand...

JohnK said:

With a LOT of high dollar lights, I'm almost ashamed to say my most used light is the cheap 1AA/8LED Xnova (high output). Have the blasted things scattered everywhere.

They always work, and all are still on the original battery.

Click to expand...

+1 on the Xnova for a "daily use light"....its replaced my beloved Infinity Ultra G as my indoor "go to" light once the sun sets on the Pacific coast.

-Regards

My "Daily use light" is my U60 in my back pocket.

Everyday use around the house, shop day or night is my 3[M]iniMag and second is the McLux.III.PD.

Simplicity of use, fit and feel. Uses rechargeables!

Interesting thread.

Mrs Umbra and I have both spent enough time in technical theatre to have a deep appreciation for dim lights. We invariably use dimmer lights than most (though probably not all) here at CPF.

For shuffleing around in our own house we don't need much (we know where everything is. ) My favorite sweat pants lights are (from least to most favorite):

• ARC AAA Turquoise -- crazy bright!
• Old CMG Infinity blue/green -- great runtime but still too bright.
• Pak-Light Turquoise on low -- great runtime but still a little too bright.
• Rigel Systems MIL-Starlight Mini (blue/green LEDs)
• Photon Freedom NV Green fed on a single cr2032 -- the only light small enough that I've ever been able to wear on a neck lanyard. Unbelievable runtime at low levels.

EDIT: I know this all sounds crazy -- but they are my favs.

I've been using the .5w Advancedmart CR2 (the smallest .5w they have) and it is great, with a right balance of small size and decent heft. Just got my Nuwai .5w AAA yesterday and have been playing with that. Though longer than the CR2 .5w, it is smaller than i'd expected from the photos, and very nice looking. The output seems the same as with the CR2 .5w, which surprised me b/c the FLR review for the CR2 said that it was much less bright compared to the other Advancedmart .5watters, like the AA one - supposedly b/c the mfr spec'd it to be able to handle RCR2's w/o blowing, and I was just running it still on the original chinese lithium cr2. I have a Juice CR2 on order from Amazon, and if it makes the CR2 significantly brighter as I anticipate, I'll probably stick to the CR2 for ed'h'c (everyday home carry). I'll probably pick up another one too.

Once I get my li-ion rechargeable AAA's from AW though, I'll have to run a (highly unscientific) throw/output comparison w/ the CR2... Definitely the CR2 has much better color rendition (slightly yellow-green, renders colors much truer than the slightly blue Nuwai)...



Question: I'll be making a big order w/ Shenzhen soon, so plan on picking up a few good lights. I had my eye on the XNova 5-led AA, in particular b/c I really like the form factor and straight cut design; but most of the glowing reviews I hear are of the 8-led version, which is a little bigger and has a bulbous head. How do the outputs compare? Would it be viable to mod in, say, 5 Nichia CS's into the XNova-5 and run it off the alkaline, for better output?


Also, SUB_UMBRA: any particular reason you (as a professional) use blue/green lights for backstage low-light work? i got an Infinity Ultra in the red led version for backstage/sound board work (we put on a show or two a year, usually a Christmas pageant), but was wondering about your usage...

thanks!

Pal light by night stand gets daily use when getting up before sun up on work days. More than enough light for dark adjusted eyes,and wont wake up my wife.

I would probably use one of my Photon IIs for this also but I tend to stick them all over in pockets, of jackets, coats, pants, found one white one in my suit coat when I put it on last time.

They are just too handy to stick places where "surprise" you can have a light when you least expect you will need one. Plus they are so small that I tend to lose them if I try carrying one every day in my sweat pants or Tshirt which are both loose baggy pockets. The minimag has enough heft that it stays put when wrestling with the wife, Ummmm or something like that, or just vegging on the couch, I mean sitting and reading education biology and physiology magazines on the couch, cant tell the number of times I have found a photon under the cushions with the change in the couch.

to me, a light that's not bright is like a rifle that's not accurate. Just not that interesting.

mcmc said:

...Also, SUB_UMBRA: any particular reason you (as a professional) use blue/green lights for backstage low-light work? i got an Infinity Ultra in the red led version for backstage/sound board work (we put on a show or two a year, usually a Christmas pageant), but was wondering about your usage...

thanks!

Click to expand...

Actually, almost all the theatre techies I've ever known use blue lights. I used them for years. It takes some getting used to but at least in theatre, a techie is familiar with his own surroundings (sort of like being at home) and the techie has the advantage of being able to rehearse, so color rendering isn't an issue. I've never read a technical explanation of why blue is used so much in technical theatre but IMO it is easier to hide the use of blue light from the audience. That would make it a masking issue. Blue light does not seem to 'bounce around as much' IMO. EDIT: I only got into the greens after I left the theatre.

Anyway, after years of working with blue lights I read that the human eye is able to utilize the green, blue/green part of the spectrum more efficiently than any other part of it. I found out that green is unsurpassed for shape recognition. That really got my attention.

Then I found out that there is another HUGE kick to green light. Many here know that there is really no such thing as a "white LED". What we call a white LED is really just a monochromatic blue LED that has been doped with some kind of phosphor to make it emit a whitish light. (That's why many 'white' LEDs have a lavender center.)

So, here we have something very interesting going on inside a 'white' LED: a conversion from blue to white. As with most other conversions anywhere, there are losses involved. Long story short: because of the human eye's inhanced sensitivity toward the greens and the conversion losses involved in making a 'whitish' light out of blue, a green LED light will seem ~70% brighter than a 'whitish' LED light, all other things being equal. (voltage, etc.) I find that compelling.

Since I had already spent years adapting to a monochromatic blue light in theatre, I thought that I should try out the green LED lights as it seemed that they had more brightness and shape recognition to offer for the same power consumption than anything else. I was not dissapointed.

I would not say that they are for everyone, however. Color preferences of working lights seems to be highly subjective and personal. I really think that my years of experience dealing with blue lights in theatre helped me a great deal in my adaptation to the greens. It's not for everyone.

I like bright green lights for some things that would not be appropriate for others. If I were a LEO it would be important to use a bright light and be able to report that the man I saw running down the street had a blue sweater on. I don't need to know what color the sweater is. I'm content to have a light that has a green beam and is ~70% brighter than any white light in the exact same package.

If you ever get the chance, compare an ARC AAA with a white LED right next to an ARC AAA with a turquoise LED -- it's unbelievable -- same model, same cell type, same electronics -- only the output is different -- wow.

I didn't mean to go on so long but that's where I come from on this.

RR AAA does the job nicely when walking around the house at night. The blue tint is only noticeable on a white wall, but not so much on other objects

Sub_umbra: neat, thanks for the explanation! I'll have to mod some blue and green led's into some cheap hosts then (perhaps KevinL's fauxtons, or a Dorcy AAA if I ever get around to going to walmart).

Do you mod your own lights? and where do you get your led's? I actually have a pair of blue led's from the dollar store fauxtons (they sucked as fauxtons, the entire body was floppy plastic and it came apart so easily in the pocket - but it's a buck for an led and a 2016, so what can I say =)

thanks again for your detailed response. i'll have to try it out for myself and see what works well...I'm guessing red isn't as necessary (for preserving rod sensitivity) since it's not pitch black on stage anyway, w/ the spots and ellipsoids and shinbusters etc... i can totally see what you mean by blue being easier to mask. it probably blends in better w/ the black backdrops, perhaps?