A Co-worker's first reaction to LED flashlights....

One of my part-time co-workers saw me unpacking some LED's i got from a trade with Nikon, and he had some questions....

"those are LED's, right?"
yes
"My car has LED's in it's third brake light, they never burn out do they?"
well, depends on how much voltage you push through them, they're generally reliable, but they can burn out if they're over-volted
"so, what makes LED's better then?"
durability, mainly, filament based incandescent bulbs can burn out if dropped or abused, however, LED's are more rugged, try doing *this* with a filament based light....

I grab my Fenix E0 off my keyring, twist it on, and toss it in the air, about 10 feet up, and let it freefall to my linoleum floor, it impacts and skitters off into the corner, still lit up.....
My Co-Worker's eyes got as big as saucers, but i wasn't done yet....

heck, i can even do *this*...
i throw the light at the floor, it hits, bounces and skitters away, still lit...
Co-worker's jaw hits the floor
i hand him the light, he looks at it in awe
"That's *amazing*, this thing can take some serious abuse"
meh, that's nothing, that's just a normal, mundane 5mm LED light, but try doing either of those things to an incandescent bulbed light and you'd probably be replacing the bulb

.....at some point, i'll show him my modified SureFire E1L-SR, that oughta' blow his mind.....
(no, i won't torture-test it like the Fenix, even though i'm sure it could handle it.....)

If people hang around me, their first comment regarding LED flashlights is usually in respons to me lighting something up with an L0D-CE (w LiIon) on low, or medium:

"Wow, that thing is amazing, is it an LED?"

followed by me switching the light to high:

"Holy ****, I've never seen so much light come out of such a small thing!"

Though I'm certain that light is more durable than any small incan light, I would rather not risk popping a solder joint in the circuit board by throwing it to the ground as part of a demonstration.

That magnitude of light ouptut is simply impossible from a AAA sized incan light though, the smallest incan light that could match the lumen output is probably a 2xCR123. If people think the L0D-CE gets hot, imagine trying to cram a 100+ lumen incan filament in the same size package!

In one case, someone thought that my Lumapower M1, was incandescent at first -- because of the long throw, and the fact he could "feel the heat" coming out the front (even visible light will heat skin up if there's enough of it in a tight spot). I then point out that it's actually an LED, and runs for 4 hours on high, then switched to the low mode and mentioned it ran like that for over 24 hours.

Those two lights are generally the LED lights people are most impressed by (especially the L0DCE), and [probably not] coincidentally they're my two most expensive lights.

It's amazing how much "wow factor" my Draco creates. I have Mag mods approaching 1,000 lumens, but this little guy draws the most attention. Like the LOD-CE on li-ion, it's mid blowing how much light comes out of something so small

I showed off a few of my stock CREE and Seoul modded lights to a coworker, and he was blown away by them (Jetbeam CL-E, LOP SE (SSC), Nuwai AXL-332L (SSC) and a few others). After asking questions about throw, battery life and color of the light, he promptly had me build him a Seoul Mag, driven at 917mA. He uses it nearly every night, and tells me often how glad he is that he has it. He is hooked, and he doesn't even know it yet. :laughing:

datiLED

Damn, this means I really need to get an L0D-CE. And an L2D.... and mod my mags...*see sig*...

Yeah, I love it when people see my Peak Rainier in action. Just as 2xTrinity experienced, many think it is an incan because of the throw. They are amazed at how much light comes out of such a small package.

MacTech said:

[...]try doing *this* with a filament based light....[...mayhem ensues...]

Click to expand...

Heh. Reminds of my college days...back when I bought my first programmable calculator (HP 25...non-"C" version...that should date me). The HP sales man, after pouring coffee on the calculator (membrane under the keys), threw it in the air and let this $200 device fall to ground. *I* was impressed. (Bought one, and one night sat it on top of may car and drove off...still worked after that, too)

Anyway, years later (about twenty-five), I'm telling the very same story to some cow-orkers, and one quips, "Hell, I can do that with my $10 Wal-Mart LCD!" and proceeds to toss it in the air. ...It never worked again. Knocked the little display's carbon microconnector foam thingy out of alignment.

Um, so, I guess the moral of this story is, uh, well, I guess...be sure whatever you're demonstrating can take it! (I guess...) :thinking: :shrug:

MacTech said:

try doing *this* with a filament based light....

Click to expand...

I once did just about that with my first SureFire to show just how tough they where. I ended up misaligning the filament and had to contact support for a new lamp assembly. Still, it didn't fail.

I've done water resist testing by taking my P1 and tossing it into a fishtank

My story isn't quite so dramatic, but the other day I may have made a convert. I was trying to look at some stuff in heavy shadow inside a rack (in a data center) with a coworker, so I pulled out my Arc AAA-P, turned it on and had a look. His reaction was "what is *that* little thing?"

I explained. He found it hard to believe that it would run, that bright, for 5 whole hours on the same battery. Imagine if I'd had a *bright* light.

I was in an airplane the other day when the guy in the seat on the far side of my girlfriend starts frantically looking around and under his seat. It seems he lost the rubber seal from his expensive ear-canal earphones and they are worthless without it.
He finally rummages through his bag and brings out a flashlight larger around than a AA Maglite and about 2/3 as long and starts using that to look. I stifled a laugh--it was putting out a beam that a candle would have put to shame!
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a AAA Arc with luxeon by MillerMod, turned it on high and passed it over.
His first comment after finding his earbud rubber was "What the f*** is that, it's so bright and so small!"
I felt great! and my girlfriend now has evidence as to my genius!
Greg

GregWormald said:

..........and my girlfriend now has evidence as to my genius!
Greg

Click to expand...

I'm married, so it's too late for my wife to recognize my genius.:sigh:

Yeah Greg, don't you just love it when you can do something like that for someone and get the reaction every flashaholic dreams of? It's great....

my mom delivers newspapers early in the morning so she keeps a cheap multi 5mm led light with her. Another delivery person needed to adjust something under his hood , mom pulled out the light he said that little thing won't give any light. She beamed it at him and she got the WOW thats bright good thing me and my surefires were home in bed (he'd still be seeing spots)

customh said:

Damn, this means I really need to get an L0D-CE. And an L2D.... and mod my mags...*see sig*...

Click to expand...

I hear ya. I just need a light with either a cree or seoul. Jeez I feel like I'm in the stone-age with my luxeon light.

The three things with LED lights which impress people the most with LEDs are the sheer amount of light for a given package size, the smoothness of the beam, and the whiteness of the light compared to incandescent. For much of the general public, flashlight means Maglight, which in turn means dim, yellow-orange light, and more artifacts an ancient tomb. Small wonder a decent LED light will impress the hell out of most people.

It was LEDs which got me reinterested in lighting in the first place. Small lighting applications such as lighting models, bike lights, etc. remain my primary interest. However, until the advent of LED there was really only one solution-incandescent. Fluorescent just couldn't be scaled down to fit inside a model train, at least for a reasonable cost. Incandescent in these applications had so many drawbacks I just plain gave up, and turned to the dark side instead. Around 2000 or thereabouts I bought my first white LED from Hosfelt. It was impressively bright compared to the indicator LEDs I had been used to, although horribly dim by today's standards. And it gave a nice bluish-white light, much better than the sickly orange grain of wheat bulbs I was used to. While at $3 it was cost prohibitive in the numbers I needed, I reasoned that within perhaps 5 years these would get down to the ten cents or so which indicator LEDs cost. Knowing what I do about electronics, I also reasoned that these white LEDs could one day exceed fluorescent lamps in efficiency. I just never dreamed it would happen as rapidly as it did. Here we are 7 years later. I can buy all the white 5mm LEDs I want at less than ten cents each, and way brighter than my first one. Both 5mm and power LEDs have already exceeded the efficiency of CFLs, are currently challenging linear tubes, and in the future may well approach 100% conversion efficiency. Besides that, it is becoming increasing possible to tailor color temperature/color rendering. The biggest plus is properly applied, they last tens of thousands of hours. What's not to like? I like how LEDs impress even everyday nonflashaholics. This bodes well for the eventual adoption of LED for general lighting as the negative associations which hurt CFL adoption simply aren't there.

I had no idea the P1-CE was effective as an attention grabber. anyone I know on campus knows I'm sorta flashlight obsessed. few ever notices the ones hanging in my belt but when I threw this around my neck :wow:

some people just stare in shock since to many lights that can give out this much light with the form factor is near impossible....and of course not sold in stores