Has anyone ever heard of being burned by a flashlight?

Has anyone ever heard of anyone being burned after holding a flashlight up against their skin. Particularly, a Stinger brand flashlight? I am being told it happened and can't believe it.

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Watch this video of a custom built flashlight! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Aw8nH9IrM

Incans can get really really really hot! I have 4 on hand here within sight that can easily burn the crap out of you in no time. I have a lens here that can make an otherwise stock 6P light up your smokes.

On the body, I haven't heard about any, but by the light(well mostly IR) emitted, I don't see why a less then smart can't be burned by a powerful hotwire.

:welcome:

My wife left her L1 on and stuck it in her pocket and forgot about it. She said when she did feel it on her leg it was her hot and hurt, no injury though.

Sgt. LED said:

Incans can get really really really hot! I have 4 on hand here within sight that can easily burn the crap out of you in no time. I have a lens here that can make an otherwise stock 6P light up your smokes.

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Sgt. LED where can I get one of those lenses at? And where in WV are you located, I live in Mineral Wells, Wood County.

Yep, you can even get burned by a Stinger, especially if you touch the head after it's been on for a while. Stingers are closer to the low end of the spectrum when it comes to bright lights and the heat generated by them. In fact, Stingers actually come stock with a plastic lens. Now, when a light requires a glass lens, then you know getting burned is a real possibility. Over all, though, I'd say just about all us know about the possibility of getting burned by the heat generated by a flashlight. Maybe, some of the LED only guys may not be too aware of it, but you can bet it's second knowledge to the incan guys.

This was an instance where they held the light against someone's skin for a few minutes to illuminate the veins.

That makes sense. At first, the heat was probably a non-issue, but after a few minutes the light got hot enough to burn the person. I believe their is a warning in the Stinger's instructions about the possiblity of being burned. Most high powered lights, in fact, have a similar warning in their instructions, or in some cases, right on the light.

american lockpicker said:

Sgt. LED where can I get one of those lenses at? And where in WV are you located, I live in Mineral Wells, Wood County.

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I'm in Huntington.

From Surplus Shed Catalog:
Cat No / Diameter / Focal Length
DCX (Double Convex) Lenses:
L5132 / 25 / 28
L4401 / 26.1 / 28
L7224 / 27 / 28
Mine is one of these, just don't remember which anymore.

My L2D was left on turbo accidently in my very well insulated coat pocket for a while. I could have been burned if I had been stupid enough to touch it. It was HOT.

I`ve found out not to show your Draco to a large group of people. By the time you get it back in your control you`ll find that little beauty will be quite warm.

If you leave a surefire or other high power incan lens down on a surface, if it has a plastic/polycarbonate lens it will melt anywhere from a couple minutes to a few seconds. So yes, they certainly can get hot Some of the more powerful incans can't even be used with a plastic lens or plastic aluminized reflector as the heat from the bulb will melt them within seconds.

Welcome to CPF!

I once bought a Brunton LED lantern/flashlight thing and it turned out to be a piece of fecal matter. Yeah, I got burned on that one!

kelmo

My daughter is a little earwax machine... she makes a lot of the stuff. I periodically sweep around the outside of her ears with a q-tip. Of course I use a flashlight to peek around:sick2::green:, and my 6P-incan being the light of choice for its superb color rendition. She instantly complained about it being too hot, tried it myself and WOW. So now I use my Cree lights for that.

Yes, flashlights can burn!

My hottest one is my 3 million candlepower Vector Mega Sport spotlight. Its beam is so hot it hurts to shine it on my skin, and after a few minutes of continuous use the lens gets hot enough to burn you, and is also a fire hazard.

I also have a light called the "Task Force CREE" and when it is left on continuously it gets almost burning hot. I left it on by accident once and I couldn't believe how hot its metal body got!

Bruce, first off welcome to CPF. Second, let's put this in perspective - a similar flashlight made by Surefire, the 6P (we use them as a benchmark, as they're mostly unchanged after several decades and some minor cosmetic stuff - the one big exception being when they went to glass lenses) has laser-etched into the bezel, the following quote and a pictogram: "CAUTION HOT SURFACE"

Modern incandescent flashlights can run quite a few watts, and after a few minutes, this means they get rather unpleasantly warm. If they held it up to someone's skin for a few minutes to find a vein... well, it'll start feeling rather warm after three seconds, by my count. I'd suggest they switch to something LED-based for that sort of use... but modern LEDs also run a few watts, and all that energy's gotta go somewhere... and basically all energy eventually ends up waste heat, quoth the laws of thermodynamics. It won't heat up as fast, though.

There is a significant difference between incan and led.
On incan's most of the heat goes out the same ways as the light (As IR radiation).
On leds the heat stays in the flashlight and heats it.

This means that an incan beam is much hotter than a led beam, because it contains a lot of IR heat radiation. Sometimes this has been demonstrated by using incan beams to ignite paper.

brucebrown said:

Has anyone ever heard of anyone being burned after holding a flashlight up against their skin. Particularly, a Stinger brand flashlight? I am being told it happened and can't believe it.

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I had bookmarked a YouTube video of an Aurora MiniMag starting a newspaper fire. When I clicked on it the site said the video had been removed. Not as impressive as the video of FRANKVZ's Hotwire fire, but still a newspaper fire. I vaguely remember it taking 15 or 20 seconds. The Aurora MiniMag uses a Streamlight TL3 bulb. That flashlight is much larger than a MiniMag. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it. A real TL3 might not start fires, but I have no trouble believing it would burn you.

Streamlight's site lists a TL3 as having 11,500 candlepower and a StingerXT as having 15,000. I've never seen either one of these but it sounds like the StingerXT is more powerful.