LazerBrite LB2

I got this from another Forum I visit

I first ran into this thing at work when a fellow NCO used his to mark himself during a road-march. The first thing I noticed... "hey that's ****ing bright for a chemlight"

OK, I've seen battery-operated lightsticks before, but this one is the cat's ***. The basic device is this: a hollow translucent tube threaded on both ends to accept screw-on LED lamps of varying colors. Cool.

As I was ****ing around wirth the light I noticed that he had two tubes for the set, one was opaque and the other translucent. The translucent tube is self-explanatory, the opaque threaded tube is used for directing light without showing the world where you are.

I noticed the lamp-heads leave the LED exposed above the assembly, I wanted some protection from bangs and dings and drops, so I just cut down one of the black tubes and viola! a lip to catch all that damage the LED normally would. Since I cut up one of the black tubes, I ended up with two different lengths for my lamps

When I first handled the LB2, my first impression was that it was built simply and solidly. The units are made out of polycarbonate and are o-ring sealed for limited waterproofing.
Each lamp is comprised of two LED lamps in color combinations of red, green, orange, blue, white, yellow and infrared. You simply twist to operate the light, the only downside to this is that if you twist too far, you start unscrewing the lamp head. If you're a little too tired and start unscrewing the LED-head, you'll expose the batteries. The upside to this, the CR 2032 batteries are held in pretty well by a pair of detents molded into the interior of the LED head. Unless you lose half of the lamp head, you'll keep the batteries intact. Ingenious.

decided I was going to test it against my little LED "rave" lightstick and a regular chemlight and see how they compare. Here's the photos, make up your own mind:

LED lightsticks are going to pretty much be on a level playing field when it comes to power-consumption, so I decided against a time-elapsed comparison and went straight to "which is brighter?"

No doubt about it, even resting on the floor, the LB2 puts out more than my beloved rave light. The difference between the two becomes way more dramatic as you hold them up and away from the floor. The biggest difference here was actually in the construction, the LB2 has an awesome switch compared to the rave light which flickers when you tap it with your fingers. It's also sealed much better than the cheap little rave light, I might dunk one of mine into the water to see how it fares... in the name of science of course.

The second comparison was against a red 8-hour chemlight. Now chemlights have a lot going for them; add a 1/8" rubber band and you have a handy room-clear marker or lift-and-shift signal. Once you crack that sucker, it glows brightly for the first twenty minutes (tops) and then rapidly degrades. Once you reach the touted 8-hour point, it seems visible only in a dark room or via night vision goggles. Not very dependable for say... an LZ marking light, LZ marshalling signal, target building marking, Identify-Friend-Foe signal, etc. The results of LB2 versus red 8-hour chemlight:

I'm pretty sure that I know the outcome of this one, after about three hours, the chemlight starts to lose. Not cool if you're doing a roadmarch or patrol that lasts over, say.... 12 miles. I don't know about you, but I didn't survive ambushes and IEDs to just come back and get hit by a car. The second benefit to using an LB2 over a chemlight here would be this: the LB2 has two ends... right? You could simply switch on both if you wanted to be a little more noticable, or when one LED starts to fade turn it off and switch on the other one.

The short answer (too late) is this: I think the LB2 is good for LZ marking/ marshalling signals, limited vehicle ID marking, great for IR identify-friend-foe markings, good for illuminating your tent and just plain awesome back-up light. The only drawbacks that I experienced were the assembly/ disassembly of the light until you get into a groove with it and settle on a favorite color combination (mine is red and IR with my home-made protective end) and the exposure of the LED when you reverse it. I paid another $2.25 for another black tube and just altered it to fit my needs.

I'm gonna wrap it up here, we're getting a tornado warning.

Rewiew written by Tweeter @ AR15

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