Roadside emergency LED flare

ROADSIDE EMERGENCY LED FLARE

Brightnorm

But see, that only works for people that avoid strange flashing lights in the night. Most of the folks here, myself included, would go right over the cliff to get a better look /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Looks cool, but I have a hard time believing that it is more visible than a regular flare. Flares are pretty bright, plus being a fire they attract more attention than yet another light. I'm dubious but still curious.

If you need flares often enough to spend $50 on one of those I think it's time you start investing a little bit of cash into your car... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I would want to know how many LEDs, and of what kind. And how much current drawn from how many of what kind of battery. Or at least how long the thing will keep flashing before the brightness falls off to half level.

Ah, but the average consumer doesn't ask those questions, and the average retailer doesn't have the answers anyway.

Perhaps someone here will want to do a review of this device. . . ?

Too bad it doesn't run on AA batts. Then we could put lithiums in it and not have to check the battery status so often.

The SOS Turbo Flare is an alkaline (read: civilian) version of the Turbo Flare which incorporates 20 LED's and uses 4 "C" cell batteries. The rechargeable model, called Turbo Flare, also incorporates 20 LED's and runs on 5 "A" cell NiCads. Police, fire and state highway maintenance here in The Netherlands use these things. I've seen them "in action" a couple of times and can say that they are quite bright, though I've never seen them in daytime. Out of the 20 LED's it activates a couple of them many many times per second which creates a spinning or rotating movement, so it basically looks like one big rotating LED beacon.

You can read more about it here http://www.turbo-flare.com/

Velcro

Yes! Thanks Velcro. That info is exactly what I was looking for.

The SoS Turbo Flare takes 4C cells but the cell pack is designed in such a way as to accept 2 AA cells in place of each C cell. I have not checked to see if it can use lithium AAs (a very good idea by the way). The flare is not small by any means but it is extremely rugged. You really need a minimum of two for roadside emergencies. You also have to have nerves of steel to place them at recommended distances from your car without worrying about them being stolen.

I have one and it is quite visible at night and the rotating pattern should also help during the day. Fortunately (or unfortunately for the flashaholic in me) I have not had occasion to use mine so I can not give you a definitive review of its capabilities and usefulness.

Be forewarned loading the batteries the first time is a royal pain in the ash. It turns out that the battery holder was designed to accept AA cells as alternatives. Unfortunately this was accomplished in such a way as to make loading C cells somewhat difficult. This is further complicated by the fact that when you take the thing apart to load or unload batteries you have to disconnect and reconnect a lead wire. Very strange design.

Overall I am happy to own mine but wish they had invested more time in designing the thing to be more user friendly. Surely at that price better instructions could have been provided. The instruction sheet was not at all very helpful.

Cheers.

I've read unsubstantiated reports that drunk drivers are drawn to flashing objects, so this may not be a good idea.

Plus when you put something unusual like this on the road, drivers may not know what it is and gawk at it, causing more problems.

I was looking for a link to a nifty red LED flasher that Garrity made, it has 8 LEDs in 4 banks that make for a rotating red strobe effect through a prismatic plastic diffuser, and has a krypton bulb on the top, with a magnetic base on the bottom. Doesn't look like that's made any more.

But, I found the motherlode of LED strobes:
http://www.lshlights.bigstep.com/category.html?UCIDs=1167811

This might be a good, cheap solution for highway safety:


Highway Safety Light

18 LED's, built-in magnet, road stand, steady and flashing light modes and runs off 4 AA batteries. For more info on this light,check out this link: http://www.bhsi.org/lights.htm

There are some other neat looking LED safety products here:
http://www.cmistrobes.com/cmi-auto.htm