Stupid flashlight contest

Hi gang.

I have noticed some rather serious and unhappy posts and threads lately. Do we need Rodney King as a member?

I think we should have a mod contest open to all with a light side intent.

Suggested Criteria:

Flashlight should score high on some or all of the following attributes:

1) stupid and useless
2) silly
3) poor run time
4 ) inappropriate or poor choice of materials
5) austentasious (sp) or outlandish
6) rediculous beam in terms of pattern, throw or what have you.
7) High LOL index

I suspect the light should probably work or come real close to working.
Duct tape, bailing wire and hot glue (likely to fail) should receive higher marks than precision threads.

Some forinstances come to mind:

* Photon key ring light with 4" crystal ball for tight spot beam. (spandex holster would be a plus)
* Paper Towl Tube 3 x D cell light with hand formed aluminum foil reflector with integrated and side
mounted household toggle switch. ( 9" paint roller cover could be used for soft grip; I've seen a nice pink long knap model)

The prize will be the reward of fellow CPF'ers acknowledgements as well as the personal satisfication of giving birth to something
truely creative and stupid.

Any takers or modifications to the rules/ criteria are encouraged. I think there is potential for some strong and creative competition here!

Time to lighten up

Everybody take cover. I feel a new toilet light from Craig coming on!

You know, my *old* toilet light got squashed when the thread it was on got deleted. I'm not even sure I still have the pictures, or anywhere to put them. But let me check...

Inspired by the SureFire tactical lights, I decided to put a tactical light on my 45 cal Colt Commander. Couldn't afford one of the SureFire, so I found the little led light by Leupold and mounted it on the pistol! Well this light really sucks! The beam is so tight that you can't read but one letter at a time. It does, however, have a great throw! The beam is about 1/8 inch in diameter! Now I have to knock the thing off the pistol as it is attached with some type of two part industrial glue. Would have been better off sticking a MiniMag to the pistol!




Added:
Ergonomically the light works pretty well! It pretty much goes wherever the bullet goes. I just wish the beam were not so tight...makes it hard to see anything! The muzzle blast lights up the target better than the light does.

Hey Craig...

Using a 200 watt Weller gun with a broken tip, solder one of the LS leads to one of the wires that looks like its going to the flush handle switch.

Sounds about how I did my most recent, and first mod. Glad I had a breadboard, would have been a lot of soldering and unsoldering

Ensure that the soldering gun slips at least once and burns a hole in your shirt or in the Toylet itself. Be sure to lean in really close and inhale lots of burning flux.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm... fluuuuuuuuuuxxxxx...

Just know that the state of California advises that flux (and probably melting toylet) is known to possibly cause birth defects

I give you (da da Da DA!) "Empty Costco Brand Bulk Laundary Detergent Light"



Made from an ordinary laundary detergent bucket with a hole drilled the the bottom and a 6V battery, uhhhh,attached. Ordinary picture frame type wire is used on the negative battery terminal in place of much more expensive insulated wire! It also doubles as a support for the bulb. Insulated wire is then connected to the bulb. For momentary operation just touch wire to battery, for constant on attach using pre-installed electrical tape.



</font><ul type="square">[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Easily rewired to use solid state LEDs*</font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">18 million candle power! Brighter than a Maxabeam at a fraction of the cost*
</font>[/list]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Plus!
This no cost accessory will turn your bucket light into a tactical light, simply unhook the 6V battery and add this HA Lithium 123 battery holder complete with tailcap switch...


*Note: Some of the above statements may have been slightly exaggerated.

Group Buy

Originally posted by McGizmo:
I to would like to share my first entry:

12 volt solar charged lantern with single LED:
Please note carful attention to detail:

A simple sneeze will disorient solar panel.

Handy ergonomic quick connects to terminal posts in case you want to transfer light and charger to larger deep cycle truck battery.

Estimated runtime: couple of fortnights

Weight: yes

Cost efffective single LED light for under $200.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">A couple of fortnights?? I'd say more like a couple of years...

Durn it, why didn't someone suggest this before the weekend. Now I'll have to rush home tonight and do something silly. Not that that is anything new..

Graham

I'm still working on my little mercury vapor keychain light, which I have cleverly fit into an inexpensive wheelbarrow that I found.

What I'm looking for is a nice small belt clip for the car battery and transformer that I've selected to power it. I've pretty well given up on fitting that battery into my front pants pocket,-for the time being.

Any suggestions?
TIA

Well soudns like you're using some quality components for it so I'd suggest a SS Clip from berkeleypoint...that way if you tip the battery and it eats itself you'll have a perfectly nice clip left over

Nice thought Saaby but I think the mini clip might be a bit shy of the task. I would reccomend a three part lifting sling of 1/2" stainless chain attached to a nice stainless chain hook that could be attached to the belt loop.

Out of curriosity, Mr. Glow, how many keys do you plan to accompany the nice light with? Photos would be helpful for mod ideas. Will the wheelbarrow sport a nice GID coating as well so you don't miss it on the night stand?

Originally posted by McGizmo:

Out of curriosity, Mr. Glow, how many keys do you plan to accompany the nice light with? Photos would be helpful for mod ideas. Will the wheelbarrow sport a nice GID coating as well so you don't miss it on the night stand?

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Actually, since I like to travel light, I just use a mountain climbing carabiner for my 165 keys that I carry.

I've decided to use a neon UV lighting system to charge up the glow-painted surfaces. This of course can be easily powered with my Coleman roll-along gas 2½ kilowatt generator-which I would need anyway, to keep the main battery charged up. -Clever, huh?! :^)

Look! Turn your bucket light (mentioned above) into a tactical light with this no cost accessory...

Originally posted by The LED Museum:

Be sure to lean in really close and inhale lots of burning flux.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm... fluuuuuuuuuuxxxxx...

Looks like electric ****. At least it has the right color.

A shot of the Toylet splattering my ceiling with its urine-colored "light".

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">D*mmit Craig.....I fell out of my chair again laughing at your post. Forget a home made flashlight. Somebody make me a seatbelt for my office chair. I wonder if Peter will offer the new Arc LS3 with an "electric ****" or "urine-colored" l.e.d.?? Talk about a collectors item.

Dan out

Cutter I suggest the Corvette Office chair always advertised in the back of Car & Driver, designed to work not only with a seatbelt but a racing harness if you'd like, or this, which I came across as I was looking for the Corvette chair:

http://www.robotics.com/chair/

LOL......man....how comfy would that be for all of the long hours at the p.c. talking in the CPF?

Well I personally would go with a Saab chair, ya know, anti-whiplash and all but...

You've all seen those potato powered LCD clocks, right?

Well I'm thinking of a potato-powered LS mod for my maglight. Just wire a 50lb bag of potatoes all in series, and connect them to a MADMAX sandwich.

For this special project, I've selected premium HA III potatoes from tacticalpotatosupply.com. These are the ones with corrosion-proof gold-plated contacts, and they are darn near indestructable.

I'm going to see if maybe I can talk someone into machining a special battery tube for it so it can also be run from tomatoes too.

Let's test that fortnight scenario.

Let's assume the LED is regulated at 50mA

Let's figure that battery is about 80AH.

So, we get 20 hours of run time per AH of battery capacity.

That means we have 1600 hours of run time to the rated capacity. I would guess the light would probably glow (in keeping with how most LED light run times are spec'd) at least 2000 or 2500 hours.

So, it's more than a fortnight (336 hours) but less than a year (8760 hours). It would probably be close to three months of solid run time and closer to six months with a photo cell to turn it off during the day...of course, the photocells will recharge the battery...have we invented the perpetual motion machine?

Can the photocells recharge the battery from the LED <grin, duck, and run>.

Cheers,

Richard