A fun new light

Hi, this little light just might make your head turn. Let's have some fun and see who can guess what it is, and why I had it custom built for me. If you really know your lights, you will recognize its heritage.

BTW- there is no prize for guessing correctly. If you have inside info on this particular light - it is not fair to post, at least until the guessing has gotten fun.







hint - This light was kindly created for me by the originator of the body design. No, I am not planning on selling it, but maybe he will make one for you once you figure out why I had it made.

Just for fun, lets see who the real flashaholics in the crowd are, and see who can identify the following items:

- Body - Karlthev - CNC -123 from Photon Fanatic
- Finish - 270win - HAIII
- LED Brand - 270win - Lux III
- LED type (no, not the bin, but maybe that would be fun) - DatiLED - R/O
- Driver and why this driver - Icarus
- Reflector / optics - DatiLED - Khatod reflector from Photon Fanatic
- Battery compatibility - Icarus
- Why the heck would HarryN have a light like this custom made - open -

saved for later

Cool light!!! :thumbsup:

The reflector looks like the stippled 17mm Khatod Seoul reflectors that PhotonFanatic is selling. I also happen to know that Seoul makes a red high power LED, because I just spent some time researching the different colors available in the Z-power line.

With the cooling fins, the head bears a resemblance to a Pierce M10.

Other than those simple observations, I do not have a clue.

datiLED - Nice observation power. You are dead on for the reflector. It is a real bright red (actually R/O) LED, but not the SSC. Your post contains all the hints you need to almost slam dunk it.

Yeah, that's a Fred Pilon creation for sure.



Karl

I'll take a stab at the purpose: a light like this ought to be effective for penetrating smoke...

karlthev said:

Yeah, that's a Fred Pilon creation for sure.

Karl

Click to expand...

Yup - Photon Fanatic CNC-123 body and he was the builder of this custom light.


Mudmag - I will have to test that out. Actually, I had it built as an experiment for a different reason, so keep guessing.

OK, here is a hint - read the very first sentence of the very first post.

AFIAK the only company that offered non-5mm LEDs in color like amber was Lumiled.

I think I'm wrong but hey what do I know.

Also if it's anything like the prototype you made, it might be a CR2-compatible.

The Red LEDs sometimes have lower Vf, maybe AAs are compatible with it as well?


The finish looks a little different from the black HA shown on Fred's website. it's almost like a cross between a NA HA and BK HA.

Light is made by PhotonFanatic and CNC Dan that's for sure!
Driver is the new two-stage buck/boost driver from The Shoppe.
You have to turn the head for low/high like with the HD45.

Almost forgot to say it runs on 1x CR123/R123.

270 win - you get the line for guessing Lumileds. It is actually the R/O Lux III, which is a huge die, can be run up to 1.5 amps, and put out R/O like there is no tomorrow. Fred / Photon Fanatic sells these.

Icarus - you really have your flashlight hat on today.
- CR 123 (primary)
- AW protected R123 (specially bored out a bit larger to fit by Fred)
- And - very impressive - uses the new shoppe sandwich with buck / boost. AFAIK, this is the ONLY driver that can run this combo of LED, primary, and R123. I am not sure if it is 2 stage or not, as I asked Fred to make this a "one click on / one click off" only light.

Finish wise, this is a bit deceptive. In person it looks fine to me, but the picture is not that clear. Since this light will get dropped and dinged, and it is an experimental mule / every day carry, I told Fred to use a body with a blem. I cannot find the blem, but he probably can. It is HA III, which is can be a challenge to make perfect.

So, now we are down to just one open line question

"why the heck did HarryN have this light custom built ? ". The answer is NOT - "because he needed another flashlight".

Hmmm... then it isn't two stage... I expected it to be more innovative...
Why...? :thinking: I can easily think about thousand reasons why one want a new flashlight...

You mentioned it is for experimentation... will turn heads... and R/O LuxIII's are insane bright... :duck:
I guess you need it for something unusual... but have no clue... :shrug:

I think we need another hint...

Hi Icarus - let's see if this story helps.

My son lives in San Francisco, and goes to SFSU. One morning, I received this email from him

(note, he normally types fast and nearly perfect )

____________________________

Hi Dad,
I got mugged on my way home from Diana’s on Friday (I’m fine, just a black eye and some bruises) but I don’t have a phone anymore. Will you please ask Mom if we had any insurance on the phones so I can get a new one? I don’t have my ID or anything either because my wallet was stolen so I think I will need Mom’s help to go to Cingular and get another phone. The police think they have the suspects (they have 2 guys but I was jumped by 6-8) so I guess it’s a good start. Anyway, let me know by email.
Thanks,
Scott

_______________________________

He had noticed the 6 guys get out of the car as he walked by, but he had not viewed them as at all dangerous - they looked like regular SF people (well, ok, how can you tell anything there).

In any event, they knocked him on the back of the head, and then the 6 of them kicked the __ out of him, and took his stuff. BTW, he is fine now, but had some amazing bruises.

Rest of the story

He had noticed the 6 guys get out of the car as he walked by, but he had not viewed them as at all dangerous - they looked like regular SF people (well, ok, how can you tell anything there).

In any event, they knocked him on the back of the head, and then the 6 of them kicked the __ out of him, and took his stuff. BTW, he is fine now, but had some amazing bruises.

Ever since then, I have been thinking more an more about how to do "something" to reduce the chance of this happening again.
- A gun permit in SF is almost impossible, and there is always the risk of it being used on him. Even with permits, etc, I would like a more general solution for my wife, etc.
- Knife - same as gun challenges
- Stick / baton - same and too large to always carry

So, of course, this led me back to flashlights. I remembered that SWAY built a multi R/O m*g which was able to make people throw up if he shines it on them, so this seemed like an interesting place to start. A 2 C m*g with multiple R/Os would work for sure, but probably would be too big.

Photon Fanatic (Fred Pilon) offered to help build an "experiment" light to see if this concept will work in a smaler package. I just received it this morning, so it has only been tested on outdoor daytime adjusted eyes - and it is still dang bright. The actual experient remains untested on night use eyes - not fully adapted.

:wow: ... what a story... Good to hear your son is ok now.

Street crime is becoming more and more a problem here too. So, I'm very interested in the outcome of your experiment.
Also because I'm travelling regularily in different parts of the world and it's always good to carry some legal defensive stuff.

What current is the Wiz2 driver set to?
Supposed the results are good what about a Tri-R/O Aleph3? :duck:

Hi Icarus - yes, it is quite a story, but it actually could have been a lot worse. My son more or less rolled up like you would for a bear attack and they went away (bored I guess).

I don't consider a flashlight to be a real defense system, but at least it might give him an extra few seconds to get away. Worst case, if it did nothing, at least it would not be a substantial danger when thy got ahold of it. Annoying, but not dangerous.

I turned it on last night. Well, it is REEEEAALLLLLY bright. How bright - well, if you look at a normal 60 watt home incan bulb, it is a lot brighter than that.

Test 2 - I came out of an "evening lit" room - not dark, just not blazing lights, and shone the light (away from me) down a dark hallway toward a white door maybe 2 meters. I could not stand to keep it turned on. I repeated this after coming directly from a very well lit room, all lights on, and I could then see the beam for a "white wall" test (2 meters) Still was dang bright.

Test 3 - Yes, I did it, I tried to purposely shine it in my eyes from an arms length after modest dark adjustment. It is so painful, even with my eyes shut, that I could not hold it there for more than a fraction of a second. No puking.

Test 4 - If you hold it against your hand, it will shine through and let you see blood vessels really well.

Test 5 - I was showing the light through the hand trick to the family. My 12 year old told me that the reflection (from a small sidespill leak) was making her stomach hurt. - maybe this will work after all.

BTW - this is a Lux III R/O running at a mere 1000 ma vs its rated 1500ma. Not bad for 3 watts. :laughing: I am reasonably sure that the Lux III is the brightest R/O out there - the die is quite large.

The driver is a GD (buck / boost) set to 1,000 ma from the shoppe. That is pretty close to its limit. Here is the link

http://theledguy.chainreactionweb.com/product_info.php?products_id=961

The reason for using this driver
- The Vf of the R/O is approx 3 volts at 1000 ma
- A primary cell will go from approx 3.7 V to about 2 volts during discharge
- A R 123 goes from approx 4.2 to approx 2.5 during discharge
- I think this is the max or nearly the max current for this driver.
- At 1000ma, the R/Os will not heat up much, which is important for that technology as efficiency starts to fall fast with R/O and temperature - much worse than blue / green / white.
- It is the right size for the PF lights

Fred also had in stock the R/O Lux III emitter in a very bright bin, as well as reflectors with a reasonable chance of working with a large die.

I am still playing with mirror finish vs slightly non mirror for beam, but this is just playing around.

I am pretty sure Photon Fanatic bought some extra sandwhiches from the shoppe so he could easily build up more of these. He was pretty impressed with the output as well.

Icarus, this light is an "experiment", so I am not really ready to give advise on how someone else should set one up just yet. I will say that the ability to use the light as a "time to escape" item seems to be very "individual" oriented. Now that I have this "basic light' to work with, I can play with other effects.

On a small sample of 4 people (my family)
- Me - I can stand to ignore it relatively easily out at 2 meters. At 1 meter, it is too painful, even with my eyes closed. (The R/O goes through the eyelids) I am not getting sick with this light (so far)
- Son 10 - he shines it at me - enjoys every minute. I would doubt that he could take facing it at 1 meter either.
- Daughter 12 - She becomes substantially ill (not throwing up) even if I just shine it for a few seconds at a wall in a different room, but the light can find its way into where she is. Clearly some kind of color related effect, as a similar "apparent brightness" Lux V white flashlight is fine.
- Wife - has been 39 for a while now - Thinks flashlights are stupid, but less cash wasteful than some other things I do.

I have some more optics / reflectors to test, including some I built for my "breeze" project. That should be interesting as well.

________________
jcompton - I don't disagree with you on the ideal defense system vs a flashlight. This may turn out to be useless, other than now I have a nice flashlight. Worst case, I can get another driver and pop an X bin Lux V white in there.

This is an experiment, based on a fellow flashlight poster who built a multi LED R/O light for fun, and just happened to observe that when he shone it on his "friends", even for brief periods, they threw up.

When I started this project, I had two paths under serious consideration
- Photon Fanatic built - The single cell, single LED small pocket light which "might work"
- Third Shift built- A 2 C size m@g body with multiple LEDs run on 2 C size AW LiIon cells. - almost a copy of a proven performer concept.

I decided that my son was less likely to cary the larger 2 C size light "always", but "might" carry this small light "nearly always", so I went down this path.

Frankly, both of these guys can build nice lights.