I need a good light for our farm, ideas?

I'm looking for a good light for our farm. Our grain bins and some outside equipment is about 600 feet from our house. We have had problems with neighbors and others trying to get into things and it's difficult to see that far with what I have right now. I have an Olight T10/15 for EDC and a Black & Decker spotlight. The B&D is bulky and doesn't have good battery life. The T10/15 won't throw that far. I have been thinking about the Olight M20 or 21 but want to find out some other options first.

I'm also wanting something that isn't too huge so I and attach it to a rifle if I choose to.

All opinions are welcome, thanks.

The TK20 is a good thrower, but I don't know if it will light up things 600 feet away.

For that distance, look at a light with a warm or neutral color temperature LED. You'll see in the specs a loss in overall output, but the warm/neutral color temperature means that differentiating colors at a distance will be easier. I would suggest the Jetbeam M1X. It only has 450 lumens, but I believe it comes with a neutral LED, and is apparently the best thrower of the multi-die lights out there.
Look at getting some Protected 18650 rechargeable batteries, a good quality charger, and you should be set. The protection circuit in the batteries will prevent the batteries from over discharging, reducing the risk of damaging the capacity of the cell, and having your flashlight turn into a pipe bomb.

There's no need to grope around in the Dark, John -- sorry, couldn't resist the pun -- Selfbuilt has already done your homework for you: www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=255044

I realize this is a flashlight forum, but you might want to look into a night vision system of some kind. The gen1 stuff could work that far and it won't give away your position. A light will alert everyone to your position and give them time to hide so you never see them. NightVision will let you look around and find them, then point any light at them to scare them off. ....or what ever you want.

Martin D. White

A propane cannon on a remote would scare off any "varmits". aThen you could wait until daylight to clean up the chocolate you scared out of them.:devil:

The Stanley HID. You would be able to see everything.

The best commercially produced LED throwers are these in no particular order:

Dereelight DBS
Tiablo A10, A9
Jetbeam RRT-1
Raidfire Spear
Solarforce Skyline
Lumapower MRV?

I know there are more out there but these are off of the top of my head and also some of the most popular. Keep in mind the Dereelight DBS is made in such a way that you can continue to upgrade it for much less cost than always buying a new light when new LED tech comes out. I hope this helps.

As strinq already said, you should go the HID way for 600+ feet.

it doesn't hurt to put up some digital game cameras either. They take SD cards, and will certainly help you prosecute much easier when you have pics of them on your property, in your pole barns, and tippin' over your cows. (Sorry, country humor).

ekengle said:

I'm looking for a good light for our farm. Our grain bins and some outside equipment is about 600 feet from our house. We have had problems with neighbors and others trying to get into things and it's difficult to see that far with what I have right now. I have an Olight T10/15 for EDC and a Black & Decker spotlight. The B&D is bulky and doesn't have good battery life. The T10/15 won't throw that far. I have been thinking about the Olight M20 or 21 but want to find out some other options first.

I'm also wanting something that isn't too huge so I and attach it to a rifle if I choose to.

All opinions are welcome, thanks.

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Get two or three of these and your problems will disappear instantly

http://www.nasrn.com/

Thanks for all the great ideas.

I have been thinking about the night vision approach for a while. I'm not sure it would work for where I need to see though. There is a pole light about 200 feet away from the front of the house that is in the way and would wash out the night vision.

More animals are out of the question as well. We already have 3 dogs right now. They aren't watch dogs and they come inside at night since we have a pack of coyotes in the woods. The grain bin is across the road and isn't fenced in (yet) so there would be no way to confine the dogs to that area anyway.

I really like the HID lights but they are way too much money right now. My wife would kill me if I spent close to $500 on a light. Does anyone have a comparison of the Olight M20 or 21 and the TK20 that was mentioned above? I'm still looking at the others that were mentioned as well.

I know you don't want anymore dogs, but these dogs are guard dogs, they don't need to be confined, or come in. They guard, that is what they do.

Read about them just for the heck of it.

Good luck, I hope people stay away from your property!!

Tony

Are the Thrunite Catapult SST-50 and the Jetbeam M1X out of your price range? Those seem to be the best smaller handheld throwers.

brad

The Stanley HID is only like $60 or so. I believe it has a mechanism to negate the warm up that most HIDs have, but I could be mistaken. It would definitely be worth a try IMO.

Olight M20 is a good light with decent throw, and it gets an even better throw with smooth reflector, and you can buy rifle mounts for it.

Also you should install a fixed light with motion detector.
It will most likely scare the intruders, and secondly it will alert you that someting is going on.

Just buy a dedicated thrower :

I got one recently , and 300 yards is not out of the question , that should be like 900 Feet , 600 Feet should be a very easy task for a thrower .

I have the M20 personally I think you will need the M21 to be able to see that distance. I know you cant really mount the Fenix TK40 on a rifle but I dont think this light should be ruled out either. The TK40 WILL WORK! :twothumbs

I also have a Microfire HID 3500k that will do the trick too. I understand about the price though. Think about the TK40 you will be impressed!

Hey what about the Raidfire Spear. I also have this and it is a better thrower than the Olight M20...

how bout some solar- powered, motion sensor led lights on the buildings?

mounted up high, anyone/thing approaches and they turn on.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001PENCNW/?tag=cpf0b6-20

for example?
that is just the first one i found with a quick qoogle search, im sure theres some here that can recommend a good one.

The digital game cameras actually sound like the best idea. They will capture pictures of the intruder that you could potentially take to the police or a lawyer to file suit against so called "neighbors" that don't stay out of your property. The flash will let them know they have been caught. You would want to mount them in such a way that they can't quickly get to them and break or steal them.

As for a back up flashlight to that to let them know you are coming and that they won't have time to try and break or steal the game cameras I would go with the Thrunight catapult as having great power and fairly tight hot spot beam or the Dereelight DBS V3 or latest upgrade and the aspheric adapter. They will know you are serious when they see that beam coming at them and may give up trying to make a habit of coming to your place. Another thing would be to have a good laser pointer. Let them see the beam and have to guess what may or may not also be pointed in their direction with it. Especially a green laser. Doesn't have to be all that powerful but does need to be good quality to keep the beam tight and small at that distance. They will know you mean business and probably will stay they heck out of there after the first "visit".

ekengle said:

My wife would kill me if I spent close to $500 on a light.

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The Stanley is $79 on Amazon. Bang for buck.