The Lambda Has Landed - (Pics)

The doorbell rings, pulling me out of my graveshift-induced coma. There stands the familiar figure of Diane, our Japanese postal carrier, with the usual package in her tiny hands. Except this is no ordinary package, because glancing at the sender's address as I sign for it, I recognize a familiar name, one Kevin Fritz!

Bid her a hurried goodbye, shut the door in her face even before she turns to walk back to the mail truck, and already I'm tugging at the pull tab on the red-white-blue Priority Mail box.

Nicely held tight still in its original formfitting clamshell pack, my Olfa® Touch-Knife snicks through the little strips of Scotch tape holding it together, and finally it is in my trembling hands -- the vaunted Lambda Illuminator, chaser of darkness, maker of Legends, and - and - and so dang small? How can this be?

After a tight squeeze, it even fits in my leather MiniMag case:


I dump out the two AAs that came with it and pop in fresh ones and then, making all kinds of clackety sounds as I gather up the other LEDs in my arms and storm to the laundry room (for complete darkness even in the middle of the day), I set up the lights two by two on a padded stool and go about snapping comparative beam shots from 24 inches off the wall (the Lambda is on the right in all photos).

Here it is against the first pushover, a Dorcy Cool Blue with original single white LED:


But things get a little closer against the LightWave 3000:


And it's just about even against the 3000's big brother, the LightWave 4000 -- the 4000 puts out a broader, more diffused beam, while the Illuminator has a noticeably brighter hotspot (this is just the pic, you hadda be there):


But unfortunately for the little Lambda, it was no contest against the ElektroLumenator DirectDrive MagLite 3C:


Here it is with the Dorcy Cool GREEN (by replacing the Cool Blue's single LED with John Bechtold's overdriven 4-green-LED cluster):

The Lambda's beam is obviously brighter and more concentrated but the CoolGreen has four LEDs each pointing straight ahead, making a bigger light footprint.

But this little Lambda is certainly bright for its size. A review I read about the Photon keychain light said that it was super bright for its size, but it was too bad that LEDs didn't scale, meaning they didn't get proportionately brighter as the physical size of the flashlight got larger.

He must have written that before the Lambda landed.

MR Bulk™

Glad it finally arrived; and DON'T pitch the batteries that were in it! I do a 2 hour burnin test, then put fresh, new batteries in!

Lambda

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by lambda:
MR Bulk™

Glad it finally arrived; and DON'T pitch the batteries that were in it! I do a 2 hour burnin test, then put fresh, new batteries in!

Lambda<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for warning! And thanks for the Lambda!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MR Bulk™:
The doorbell rings, pulling me out of my graveshift-induced coma<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't ypu just hate it when the $()#*#& doorbell goes off right when you're having the most fantastic dream?!? You struggle to get up and answer it, cussing under your breath, even though you know that behind the locked door is someting really cool?

I had a dream this mroning that I had just gotten a brand spanking new Pride Celebrity scooter in a sparkling candy-apple blue, and then the you-know-what goes off. :-/

You know you're really getting old when you get excited when you have a dream about a wheelchair.

Have you seen those wheel chairs that can walk up stairs? That guy who made those stupid segway scooters made it...I forgot what it's called though.

Mr. Bulk,

Congratulations on your new acquisition! You have a nice collection building up!

Aloha

Craig,

Waking up from dreaming didn't seem to bother me much this time -- because I was probably dreaming about Diane! Haw! That and The Arrival.

BigHonu,

Well, the collection might be building up, but the wallet is building...down! And my wife is just so thrilled about all of this... :=(

Got my #8 on Friday. Didn't have much chance too play with it in a dark enviornment, but it blows the attitude and Opalec away.

Lambda could you compare using NiMh's vs Alkalines in the light? Also is there a low voltage cutoff built in to protect the NiMh? I thought I read something about this.

Yes, it should cut off at ~1.4V (.7V/cell).

I don't have any way to measure light output, but run times for the NiMh I have are about 80% of what you get with alkilines. Your milage may vary.

Congrats on recieving your Lambda, Mr Bulk!! You will find that it will quickly become your favorite light. Lambda has really done his homework on this one, and built an EXCELLENT light. I cant wait until he squeezes one of these circuts into a mini-mag.

Eric

Eric, I can't tell you how happy I am to have this device. I have bigger lights, brighter lights, longer lasting lights -- but the Lambda is a jack-of-all-trades that does everything just about well enough, in an easily pocketable EDC light.

If I had to get rid of every LED flashlight but two (and we ain't just talking whimsy here, the wife's been hinting up a storm), they would be this one and my MagLite 2D/3C LS DirectDrive -- one for the house, and one for the pocket.

PICKING ON SOMETHING ITS OWN SIZE

I tried putting up the Lambda against lights of its own size, and here it is (Lambda on the right) against a factory stock MiniMag at tightest focus with fresh batteries:


Then it went against my standard work-issue light, the StreamLight Poly Stinger with a fresh charge (rated at 15,000 CP):


You know, I am beginning to respect this little Lambda in the most major way. And that tailcap switch -- having never hands-on experienced a Legend of any sort (except the LX but with the rubber dome switch, which is not a good design IMHO), the Legend AA simply has a great switch, and I'm not even talking about the lockout feature yet.

I have not had the opportunity to use it at work yet (except turn off the lights in my office and shine it around on the walls) which is actually a good thing, because it means no death and destruction has happened which would necessitate me going out and taking charge of a scene, etc.

Thanks again Kevin! You Da Man...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MR Bulk™:
Craig,

Waking up from dreaming didn't seem to bother me much this time -- because I was probably dreaming about Diane! Haw! That and The Arrival.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Diane?
Wife? Daughter? In-law?

Got woken up from another dream this morning. I seem to dream about the oddest things. There was this little digimon (artifical life form from a TV show) I think it was MarineAngemon, that was holding one of Wayne's "Elecktro-Blasters" and I had a whole mess of lights on me - maybe even my whole collection. There was an earthquake, and all the lights went out and all of my flashlights turned themselves on automatically, and the little digimon started reaching for his Elektro-Blaster. But then the phone started ringing and woke my *** up. Next time I'm taking that sucker off the hook. I wanted to see if the Elektro-Blaster was going to out-do all of the other lights in my collection combined.

Well, enough off-topic for today. Time to self-moderate I guess.

As for the new topic that got started "if you had to sell every LED light but two", I listed the Elektro-Blaster and the Arc-LS prototype kit. If I never had the Arc prototype, then I'd elect to keep the Lambda Illuminator instead. It's a great light, and it's just the right size. Plus it has a comfy grip and a nice switch. I'd use the much larger Elektro-Blaster when I needed a lot of light.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MR Bulk™:
BigHonu,

Well, the collection might be building up, but the wallet is building...down! And my wife is just so thrilled about all of this... :=(<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tell me about it...my wife thinks I'm a geek to be into flashlights (not to mention my trips down to Radio Shack) on top of not being happy about the $ spent.

She tolerates my knife collecting though so I can't complain.

Aloha

Craig,

Glad to hear you'd make the same choices if not for the "proto" value of the Arc. of course, all this is just until next month when the colored LS 5-watts come out, and then right after that we'd probably all change again when the white LS comes out. Sheesh.

BigH,

So you collect knives, too? Check your e-mail...