Need to wear small LED flashlight on arm for crawlspace work...suggestions?

I've had to do a lot of work under my house, in a seriously undersized crawlspace. So tight you have to expel the air out of your lungs to wriggle through places. Since I have to do soldering under there, it's good practice in confronting a fear of dark, tight spaces, spiders, and burning alive (if I catch something on fire with the propane powered solder torch) all at once. And it's in California, so it's a hoot to contemplate the consequences of an earthquake while you're down there.

But I digress. Crawling means you need both hands for movement, so you can't hold anything. (I tie a line to a box of tools and drag it behind.) The only thing not in the dirt is your forearms, shoulders, and (with luck) head. I've been using a Zebralight Q5 headlamp with good success...it's a great, floody light (except it invariably runs out, in the middle of something important) but I would also like to mount a small flashlight on my upper forearm near the elbow. Such as a Fenix L2D or L1D. Since you crawl forward with forearms extended, this would be very helpful.

But I have not been able to find a solid, quality mounting option to get a light attached to my forearm. Can you help me out?

I've never tried this but it seems like it would work. You know those wrist support bandages....they are like a tube made out of Ace Bandage material and cover from your knuckles to the middle of your forearm with a hole for your thumb to stick out ?? If you wore one of those you could clip the light to that, or slide it inside the bandage.....or how about a headlamp ?

One of the guys on Ghost Hunters actually uses a series of (velcro?) straps to strap a flashlight to his forearm, and he uses it like Batman uses his wrist tool... I thought it was interesting, and potentially very handy for situations like that you describe...

Look at Walgreens for arm straps that you could potentially use...

Or Home Depot / Lowe's have velcro straps of varying sizes you could size yourself to fit a light to...

I think a longer running headlamp might be a better choice. Something like the Energizer Hard Case Pro Cree headlamp. You can run it on high for most of an entire shift without too much worry.

For forearm light mounts I'd say this may be your best bet.

Then just add on a nice 1 or 2xAA light from Fenix, Jetbeam, Olight, Liteflux, Nightcore, etc. Not sure if you can fit a bigger 18650 light in there for more runtime or not.

I've been meaning to get a Zebralight for a long time but haven't yet. I know you mentioned Fenix, but out of curiosity, would the Zebralight strap cinch down small enough to use on your forearm? And have the lamp turned to shine down your forearm as you're crawling with your arms extended? You could have your main Zebralight on high and the forearm Zebralight on low or medium, so both will never run out of juice at the same time.

Anyway, I digress. Blackhawk makes a forearm magazine/light forearm holder. You can see it here. $15

Edit: whoops, PhantomPhoton beat me to it!

Ah, I finally remembered where I saw this a long time ago. Here's another possibility--the Flashware Hands-Free System. Gotta love the little lightning bolt logo. Makes you feel like a superhero.

Seems secure. Unlike the Blackhawk holder, the Flashware holds the light mounted a small distance off your arm rather than being strapped right to your forearm. It may help minimize the beam from being blocked by your arm or hand and casting annoying shadows. Then again, in super tight spaces, it may tend to snag your light more often on things because it sticks out a bit.

PhantomPhoton said:

For forearm light mounts I'd say this may be your best bet.

Then just add on a nice 1 or 2xAA light from Fenix, Jetbeam, Olight, Liteflux, Nightcore, etc. Not sure if you can fit a bigger 18650 light in there for more runtime or not.

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Hmmm, might have to pick one up, so I can look like a super hero come Halloween... :naughty:

When I rewired my house I'd crawl with a 100 Watt caged bulb (with hook and half reflector designed for auto work) on a hundred foot extension cord that also powered my tools.

Hi - checking in ... first of all, you guys are the best. I'm looking for something just like that, and you found it within minutes. Thanks!!

I also appreciate the other suggestions, I'm not stuck on a forearm light...it presents its own set of problems, such as migrating down to your wrist, or rotating around to the wrong side of your arm...I've also considered two headlamps running simultaneously. Perhaps I should give a little more detail of the challenges.

When you go "down under" the house for moving pipe around, it can be for hours at a time. It takes you ages to crawl to where you need to be so once you're there, you stay put till the job's done. You need a floody light for general orientation and crawling around (the Zebralight) but also a thrower for finding things at a distance and/or giving lots of light for a specific task. I have previously been crawling around with Zebralight on head and trying to hold a P3D in my hand, and the light-in-hand is NOT an optimum solution...it grimes up the P3D and makes it really hard to crawl, you crawl with your palm and your wrists give out. Neither can you put it in a pocket...for some reason pockets magically empty themselves when crawling on belly and back. I've spent hours retrieving valued tools that spilled out of any pocket I'd put them in...that's when I came up with the "drag a box behind you on a string" idea, which works well.

A shoulder light would be great, if there were such a thing. But maybe what I really need is a longer running headlight like Marduke suggests. Or maybe I should go plugged instead, altho my tools are cordless. Suggestions appreciated.

My solution when caving is to use three lights.

First: Zebralight H30. This one is constantly set to medium, and is strapped to the middle of my forehead. Great general navigation, performing tasks, etc. Also, if you're using the AA version of the light and are having battery life issues, you might give lithium cells a try. They should provide you with a good deal more runtime.

Second: Inova T1 (2008 version) in a NiteIze headstrap. This headstrap velcroes around your head, and holds the light at the side of your head, so that you still have room for the Zebralight at the front. Not sure where I could send you to get one online, but I got mine in REI, so I'm sure it (or something like it) should be findable somewhere out there. Also, this headstrap was designed for the Mag 2AA, so it'll fit anything of approximately that diameter (Fenix L1D, P3D, NiteCore D10, even a SF G2 will sort of fit).

Third: SF G2 with Malkoff M60LF in a holster on my belt. This didn't see constant use, of course, but it was nice for any situation where I wanted light from a source other than my head. And of course, this could be any light of your choice. I find the G2 (or G3) to be nice since it holds up well to being scraped against the ground, it's got good grippiness so it doesn't fall easily out of your hand (even in gloves), and it's easy to clean the grime off.

I just did some rewiring work in a very tight attic crawlspace, and have found that the absolute best solution is to use my little Fenix L0D-Q4 AAA light attached to the side frame of my eyeglasses with a rubber band.

The frames on my glasses bow very slightly, so the L0D ends up angled inward slightly, which puts it in the perfect position to illuminate anything I am looking at a few feet in front of me. If your glasses have straight frames, and you want to adjust the angle, you can use a small wadded bit of paper under the tail end of the L0D between the light and the frame to tweak the angle slightly.


Having the light in this position gives optimum shadow-free illumination; wherever you look, the light tracks perfectly, so you don't even have to think about it.


The L0D is more than bright enough for close-up work, even when it's set to it's power saving medium setting, and at this level it will run about 2 hours on a fully charged 1000mAh NiMH cell. If you want a much lighter package, with even longer runtime, a L92 lithium AAA cell is a great option. The L0D with an Energizer L92 lithium cell is so lightweight that you would barely notice it, even if you wanted to use a pair of them so you could have one on each side.

You can also find ready made safety glasses which have little coin-cell 5mm LED lights on each side, but I find that even a single Fenix L0D gives much broader, more even, and whiter light, and runs longer.

Use Sharkbite fittings so you don't have to solder. It's safer given your cramped workspace and you'll be in and out of the crawl faster.

did someone say duct tape?

been there
done that


perhaps a shovel?

hire a crackhead ? (skiny)

lose a few pounds?

cut salt out of your diet to reduce water volume?

oh yeah, those shark fittings

ok... I think I'm done here :shakehead

OceanView said:

Ah, I finally remembered where I saw this a long time ago. Here's another possibility--the Flashware Hands-Free System. Gotta love the little lightning bolt logo. Makes you feel like a superhero.

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Hahahahah, this is the funniest Mall Ninja picture I've seen in a long time:
http://flashlightsunlimited.com/images/Flashware/FlashwareKitInUse.jpg

gratewhitehuntr, what is the point of your post? Are you rambling or are you saying sharkbite's won't work?

Valpo Hawkeye said:

gratewhitehuntr, what is the point of your post? Are you rambling or are you saying sharkbite's won't work?

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man I wish someone had told me about sharkbite fittings a long time ago
those things are great
assuming we are talking about the same thing

hiring someone skiny is an option

cutting salt out is also an option to make a better fit
I eat MSG and gain 10 pounds for 2 days
I swear off salt for a week and drop 15 pounds

I've been under one house so tight I carried a garden trowel to make more room going under the larger beams

and everyone knows duct tape IS an option
and a cheap one at that


BTW :shakehead

Double post.

Get a small, bright LED like the JetBeam Jet-1 Pro and carry a spare battery. You can run this light on high for over two hours on two cells or at 50% for more than two hours on one cell. An AA-size cell is small, and two are smaller than two 16340 cells or one 18650.

I dunno. I'm in crawlspaces all the time for work, and I've never felt want for having a light strapped to my arm like that. I highly recommend getting a good headlamp - the zebra seems a solid choice, you just gotta turn down the brightness a notch to get decent runtime out of it.

I tend to carry multiple lights when I'm crawling under a building. The headlamp is always with me. Then I typically have an Inova Bolt 2AA in a sleeve pocket on my coveralls, sometimes augmented with a Task Force 2C in the thigh pocket. In that tight of a scenario, you're better off keeping the secondary lights handy to grab, but secured. Having a light strapped onto your arm is just asking to get hung up wriggling through a tight spot.

Yes, often the bigger lights get pushed along the ground in front of me. They're tools, not shelf queens. Let them get dirty if you have to. Definitely recommend getting a lanyard if you can attach one onto the light. I can't tell how many times I've had to let go/drop a light moving around. Better to have it dangle than lost down a shaft.

If you absolutely need to have long runtime with a bright light, you'll have to carry something around in the toolbag you drag behind you. You're just not going to get 100+ lumens for more than a few hours in a handheld AA-type light. Crawl where you're going, then pull out the light and do your work. Back into the bag, then crawl to the next location.

Hope that helps. Good luck!