Another Personal Challenge to the Mod men. The Mini Tac light.

JonSidneyB

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I have noticed that some led lights are more disorienting than some brighter incandecents.

I carry alot of items on my person and want to reduce the size of my tactical light.

I Carry an Arc-LS and Arc-AAA so my utility white light needs are covered.

I want a miniture replacement for a 6 volt SureFire Tac light.

I have seen where some colored 1watt high-domes beat 50 lumens.

The light I want to replace a 6 volt SureFire would be based on an E1e.

I have a bezel down clip for the E2e and would like to move it to an E1e Tac light.

I don't know what color would be best for the job.

Heat should not be a problem for this light since it will be used for only a few seconds at a time. Battery life is not a concern since after just a couple of uses, the battery would be fed to an ARC-LS.

Who can make the most uncompromizing single purpose tactical light for life or death situations based on An E1e and single 123? Being upgradable would be a plus so it could be upgraded and technology improves.

If such a 15 second use light were built....should it have a stepup? I would assume so. Should it be a Red or Red/Orange HighDome 1watt Ls or some other color? Or should it be a 5Watt LS?

I would like to have something like this built.
 

McGizmo

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I would suggest a red or red orange side emitter in the Ex head using it's reflector. I think you will get the best results from overdriving a 1 W instead of trying to squeeze the power required out of a single 123 cell into a 5W. Bench testing on a specific LED would tell you whether direct drive or a step up would yield the most current to the LED itself. I would expect the Vf of the specific LED as well as the voltage drop of the battery, under load will have significant bearing on this.

I am assuming that you are after an "in your face" disorienting defensive device here? One additional consideration that goes against the use of red is the fact that presumably one's night vision is least effected by red light. This gets into the pros and cons of the various colors used and touted for night vision retension. If you buy into the red is good camp, then perhaps a cyan LED will not only disorient your target but take longer to recover from. If I understand the the physiology of vision correctly, I would opt for the cyan because I think a high level of light from this color would signal the eyes to go into "daylight" mode as well as overload the optic nerves. I suspect this condition would require more time to adjust from back to night vision.

If you were to opt for cyan, then you would want a step up driver. You could check with Wayne Y. on whether a mad max or BB would be best at max current from presummably a fresh 123 cell.

I had some C bezels from turbo mods that are now on a couple of E2e's so I have a spare E2e bezel. If you are interested, I have red and cyan 1W side emitters and I could make you an Ex head with LED module included; using the existing reflector. If you are interested, send me an e-mail.

- Don
 

dat2zip

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For me I would suggest a red/orange HD. This LED to me is the brightest and most annoying one I've use. It seems that my pupils contract to bright red for some reason and even side lighting or reflected light from one of these tends to shut my eyes down.

McGizmo made me a nice Red E1E mod and I eventually sold it for the above mentioned reasons.

For a 123 E1 style Mod you can go direct drive and use a 1 ohm resistor to be on the safe side. So, that's pretty cheap and it may turn out a simpler mod than with a converter.

The other color that seems extremely intense is the RB or Royal Blue. For RB, Cyan, white, green you will need a BB500 for proper drive.

OK, re-reading the first post. Skip the 1 ohm resistor and go full throttle direct drive red/orange. That's my recommendation and I'm sticking to it... (A single 123 that is...)
 

evan9162

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Royal Blue all the way!
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Just a 1W with the stock collimator is enough to really mess with your vision. Even looking at the light from off axis causes the rest of my vision to dim out - full on even just for a second makes everything in the background go dark, and my vision to be completely covered in a blue hue. If you RB'ed someone with a 5W they'd be confused.
 

MicroE

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JonSidneyB---McGizmo is right (as always). I dropped a 1W LS Cyan onto one of Wayne's BB500 modules and it is quite bright. People do not expect a bright blue light and always (initially) turn away from it. The problem is focus, or lack thereof. The SF E1 and E2 reflectors don't collimate the LS beam well so this light really isn't a great "weapon". You'll have to be really close to disorient anyone.

I have now set my sights on underdriving a 5W SE on a custom-made heatsink attached to a BB500 in an E2. This should be twice as bright as the 1W but must be made with 2x123's. Wayne (and Ohm) proved to me that you can't drive a 5W with a single 123 using his BB boards.

Maybe Dat2zip will chime in here.---Marc
 

McGizmo

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Jon,

My thoughts are simple, at best
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I don't have an amber LED, do you? I have no idea which LED would be most effective at satisfying your criteria but expect that the amber might work??
I have been working with the SF reflectors as I have found them to provide cleaner and more even beams than the Lumiled optics, especially with the colored LED's. However as MicroE has stated, the optics do keep the light confined to a tighter, more concentrated beam, albeit, not a very clean beam but perhaps best for what you have in mind.

Candidly, I have a full plate of projects as it is and posting my offer here on the CPF to you has opened a new can of worms for me.
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I hope to satisfy the requests of those who have already contacted me as well as possibly aid you in a solution provided I can work with materials and designs I am already familiar with. I don't know if Lambda is doing anymore of his CP's for the E1e but he has a great design utilizing the Lumiled optics and this could very well be your best solution.

One parting comment with color and size aside; I gave my wife an E2e with C bezel and P61 LA as a multi function tool with one primary function similar to what you have in mind here. I don't think this is the solution you are after but I still think it is a viable solution and I think the more photons you can get off within a blink of an eye, the more effective you will be. Well beyond my scope and knowledge may be another solution. Has anyone messed with a high output strobe focused to a tight beam? Seems to me that it would be very effective to have something the size of an E1e with a capacator and strobe in a tightly focused delivery. Of course if you miss with the one shot, forget about reload time.......

- Don
 

dat2zip

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I carried a camera flash around many years ago when I went out for halloween. One was for the cool effect lighting up the whole street, two, a personal defense weapon. If someone ever tried to attack me I was ready to flash them. I never ever fired the flash off in or at anyone intentionally.

I have no idea how you would mount one or keep it charged up all the time.

Wayne
 

Mike Painter

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Originally posted by dat2zip:
... two, a personal defense weapon. If someone ever tried to attack me I was ready to flash them...
Wayne
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The flash might startle them but is to fast to have any effect on vision. They do *not* blind you (and it's why we have red eye in photos.) When that finally sank in to the law makers we got strobes on emergency vehicles.
 

JonSidneyB

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wants more input on this potential light. It seems that Surefire thinks that 65 lumens is the floor for a real tactical light. Can an E1e be modded to meet or beat this if all the stops are pulled out?
 

McGizmo

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Jon,

A 5W Luxeon is rated with as much as 120 lumens. However, this is unlikely to be seen as net light output from a flashlight. Forinstance, currently, SF is getting top quality and bright 1 W luxeons which can have a purported output of up to 39 Lumens. What does SF rate the output of the KL1? Answer: 18 lumens. If the 5 W's perform comperably, then one could expect 60 lumens and maybe more from a fine specimen. Now the problem. Ther SF reflector in the Ex series concentrates the light of the incandescent into a beam with a definate hotspot. This hotspot is the tactical tool you are after. The only hot spot of similar intensity to an E2 that I have seen is from putting a 5 W in a turbo head! This is a far cry from the form factor of an E1 with 1" OD bezel.With a tightly focused and seriously overdriven 1 W Luxeon, you might get a hot enough center spot in an E1. I don't know.

Perhaps your solution is a green laser and a darn good aim!

- Don
 
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