2 lights?

What has been the experience of CPF'ers regarding using _two_ lights taped together rather than a single larger light?

The intention is to create a significantly larger spot _and_ spill for a wooded environment that is not achievable by any single 200-300 (listed) lumen light. In this application, the need is to find the often unknown target, and then illuminate it and the surroundings to see what else is nearby. I have found that a pair of P3D-Q5's work very nicely when taped together. Any light with parallel sides (head and tail) such as the P10A2 or P20C2 should also be satisfactory in this application. A light with a flared reflector will not work, such as the T10C2 or any of the lights with large reflectors. and no, a pencil beam that would light up a newspaper a thousand meters away to normal reading illumination is not useful. eg: most HID lights.

A paired (or more) light vis-a-vis a single 400-700+ lumen light that uses 1x- or 2x-18650 Li-Ion cells, or some number of RCR123 cells, has other advantages. The most important is the security of having two lights on the target just in case a Li-Ion protected cell decides to cut out due to low voltage. In that case, being forced to quickly deploy a backup light on the target is not acceptable since the target illumination was lost temporarily. The other advantage is size. Two P3D-Q5 or two P10A2 or P10C2 lights are still smaller than a 500 lumen light with a larger head.

Thoughts?

An obvious disadvantage to two lights taped together and switched on is the slowness of switching them off to avoid becoming a target - in-case-of...

I imagine battery changing becomes a pain also when the lights are taped together.

moldyoldy said:

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

In a wooded environment, I don't need more than 10 lumens. Should I tape 2 solitaires together? :laughing:

On my night walks, I'm often moving around with 1 lumen. Got within 25 feet of a couple of wild pigs last Wednesday, they never saw me coming. Lit them up with 100 lumens, froze them in their tracks for a couple of seconds before they went crashing off in the underbrush. I can still picture the fire of their red-orange eyes, spooky... okay, you got me, so maybe I can use 100 lumens every once in a while.

Tape...:sick2::green: - No thanks. I just use one light in each hand and bring the heels of my hands together. but I seldomly need that much light.

Just use a light that has a removable head/reflector assembly for bare-emitter use. 200+ lumens with no reflector is basically like having a garage worklight, 180 degrees of pure floodlight.

Tape them together? yeah, uh, er, I admittedly use only rubber bands, not tape. If there was anything more exciting, I would tape them together and then lanyard them to my clothing somewhere.

I did notice the CPF thread about using a wood form for paralleling 4 E20s together. The wood form avoids the different head/tail diameters and diverging beams. However, I would rather avoid the bulk of 4 lights.

As for range, 200 meters or so is about as far as I can see a typical 4 (or 2) legged something on a moonless night and understand what I am looking at, other than the eye reflections. The smaller 4-legged animals are often difficult to identify if they do not move much. A deer will stare at you as long as they do not smell you or you do not move or make any noise, although after about 5+ minutes the deer decide I am not a threat and walk farther in to the woods.

and no, I do not walk around the woods with the 200++ lumen lights switched on. I typically am walking with no light, or maybe a Nitecore on the lowest setting. However I have often wanted more than the usual 200-250 lumen illumination.

The environment ranges from dense woods with large clearings.