Ever needed a long-running EDC?

Long runtime is one of the desiderata that always comes up in EDC discussions. I'm wondering if any of you have stories about any times in real life (not just contingency planning) you've actually needed a long-running EDC, or at least had the long runtime come in handy. Let's say this means you needed at least 1 hour (extra points for needing over 2 hours, and lots more points for needing > 5 hours) of runtime from your EDC light in an unexpected situation (because if it was expected, you'd have brought extra batteries or a longer-running light) where you had no reasonable way to get more batteries (which probably means it happened away from home, since you probably have lots of other lights and batteries around the house). 1 hour, 2 hours, and 5 hours are the runtimes of a Surefire E2e, Arc LS, and Arc AAA respectively. I'm also interested in hearing how much brightness you needed. Maybe you had a Surefire, but would an Arc AAA have been enough?

Me, I've EDC'd at least one flashlight for many years before becoming flashaholic, and can't remember any times (including spending months at a time travelling with a backpack) when I needed more than a few minutes of flashlight runtime on any single occasion. Even that story the other day of a power failure in the NYC subway would just mean having to walk through a dark tunnel to the nearest station. That might call for a brighter light than a typical keychain LED (since it has to light the way for a large group), but since the stations are just a mile or so apart, the nearest one should be within 1/2 mile, no more than 20 minutes or so of runtime should have been needed.

So I tend to think carrying EDC lights with many hours of runtime in case of emergency is somewhat overrated. If anything, I'd want an emergency EDC to be reasonably cheap and easy to replace, since I might have to lend it to someone and might not get it back. I'd rather that happen to a PT Blast than a McLux /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif.

This happened a few years back in a government building I was working in. It was about eight pm, when we lost all power (even phonelines) and for some reason backup power did not come on until more than an hour later. And this building has very few windows, so even during the day we'd be plunged into darkness without electricity. I was in the basement at the time making a bad situation worse. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and I had NO light on me. I had to use my lighter(I was a smoker then) to find my way to the staircase and back to my department. Going home was not an option as I was on department duty. The guys who were supposed to get the power back on took quite a while so those of us in the building were in the dark all this time. Pratically nobody had lights, not even candles. I bought my first maglite the very next day.

A small led floodlight with several hour's runtime would have been nice, like an Arc aaa or CMG Infinity Ultra.

Interestingly enough, women were not permitted to work later than 6pm because there is a long winding road we have to walk to get to the main road that is practically unlit, so some genius decided that it was too dangerous for women to walk through in the dark. When whenever it was a female co-workers turn to do department duty, we knew that one of us will end up taking over anyway, because we were supposed to stay until everyone in the department is gone, and never has the department been empty before 8pm, heck sometimes till 11pm. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Interesting story, and what a pain they made you stay at work with no lights and no phones. They could hardly have expected you to get any work done. Really, a government building like that should have emergency lights though.

I think if I worked in a building with no emergency lights, I'd leave a cheap 2C or 2D light in my desk. That wouldn't be an EDC though.

There was a several hour power failure in a building where I used to work a while back. Light wasn't a problem (the building had emergency lights and anyway it was daytime) but none of us had any idea how long the power would be out, or whether the failure was city-wide (all the nearby buildings were also blacked out). Instead of a flashlight we found ourselves wishing for a battery powered radio to get some news, but nobody had one. I bought one the next day and left it in my desk til the job ended. I still have that radio and don't think I've ever used it.

This is one of the many reasons I jumped on the L4.

For the most part,,, I dont need light for more than 5 minutes at a time. Sometimes for only one minute.

I EDC an Arc LSH-P. The Very Best for EDC in my opinion.
Usually, when I want light, I want it at least as bright as the Arc LSH-P. But, the LS is more than bright enough 90% of thte time.
While camping, the LSH-P was actually TOO bright. We were down by the creek, getting water with our water purifier. Well, we couldnt really see what we were doing, so I turned on my LSH-P... BAM!! My friend said... "Damn man! Turn that thing off, its too bright." LOL ... i was actually kinda glad to hear that. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif He then turned on the low led setting on his Petzl Dou. Which wasnt too bad. I now have a couple Arc AAA's on the way to use as this low light level light,, great for not killing your night vision, and reading maps and such at night.

Thats why you need at least 3 lights. One very low output (Arc AAA), one medium range (Arc LSH-P), and one HOLLY CRAP THATS BRIGHT, the paint is melting off the walls light (5W Direct Drive) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Runtime: Well, for the most part, as I said, I dont need a light for long periods of time. Unless camping and hiking at night. A light that gets about 1 to 2 hours of light for EDC is pretty good. But, I just dont like lights that only run for about 30 to 45 minutes. Especially off 123 batts. Thats the main reason runtime is important to me.

So,, in conclusion.,,, I carry an Arc LSH-P, for very useable, bright light, for about 2 hours. And an Arc AAA for dimmer, LONG running light.

It's why an ARC AAA (with a spare battery carried in my pager) is always on my person!

I have my Madmax Mini for brightness! (and at least 2.5 hours of runtime)!

Hello paulr,

We have a series of forts that were put into place during WWII, I think. They were to fortify the inland waters of Washington state. The area is now a state park and you can "explore" the storage areas and bunkers. Our Boy Scout troop had a camp out there and we discovered at lights out that several of the older scouts were not in their tents. We caught wind of a "plot" to surprise the adults, and thought that we would turn the tide and "surprise" the scouts. Out came my PT40 and away we went exploring the various bunkers in the area. I do not know what the run time of the PT40 is, but I ran the first set of batteries down, replaced the batteries then proceeded to run those batteries almost flat. The night ended up with one ambush after another until all of the scouts and adults had been ambushed to death. Lots of great hiding places. We all finally stumbled into bed at around 2:00am.

This story comes to mind every time I throw the EternaLight in my pack for camp outs.

Tom

Back in December last year, I went on a little hiking trip, about 4 days/nights. I thought I brought everything I needed with me, but after arriving at our location in the Redwoods, I found out I didn't bring my small pouch that contained my flashlights or batteries...

I started panicking, as I forgot all my lights, until I looked down and realized I inherently had 2 lights, my Arc-AAA on my keychain and my CMG Infinity Ultra in my jean pocket... Every night, I figured that either one of those lights would give way out on me, and I'd be in the dark, save for the propane light we had at base camp.

Fortunately, the batteries in the ArcAAA and InfinUltra were super long lasting, as I went through those 4 nights with much worry, but in the end, all for not, as they both lasted well into the camping trip...

I can say it's the one time where I was really banking on my lights to last longer than they were intended, or to last as long as they were advertised. And it's certainly one of the few times I actually needed a long running EDC...

Jtice, the Arc AAA is a great light but I wouldn't call it very dim! You might find that it's in fact still too bright to not mess up your night vision. It's about 3x as bright as a CMG Infinity (not the Ultra) which some people say is about right for close-up stuff at night. Me, I use a red Photon II as I mentioned. If I walked around at night more I might get a red Infinity.

Thanks for the good stories everyone! Keep them coming!

On two occasions over the last years I ended up with unexpectedly needing light for a longer timeframe - one being the climb out of the Maui walk-through vulcano when we ended up being much later than planned (don´t ask why) - and the other time when we were walking back through the Ardèche valley in south-france after a longer than planned stay in the near-by city and both times getting caught by night on pretty dangerous / steep territory to walk through - both times having at least one standard MiniMag with us (didn´t knew better then) which then soon ran out of juice and the Solitaires we had with us on the second trip didn´t helped much either - glad we made it back safe both times but tools like the ARC AAA and ARC LS (which would be certainly with us on such occasions now) would have made both incidents so much safer and less risk.

Klaus

My EDC a couple of months ago was a BB500 (now a BB400 w/Q3) After a work day of using my light several times for short periods I decided to stay late and help a coworker install an alternator in a Ford Probe. The small light was a lifesaver! Made an almost impossible job just possible. Extra runtime for my light was more that an hour. Most of this required use of rubber bite ring to free hands while laying on my back under the car. At work we are furnished cheap D cell lights that carry the logo "Rubber" that have almost dead heavy duty batteries, so when someone needs a light it's always mine.

BB500/Minimag/Kroll,
Used that puppy in N Iraq and Turkey for two months. The base was Army special forces (I am an AF medic) no lights or AC in the living tents. Actually, no lights anywere when the sun went down. The BB500 worked well, great amount of light, did not attract bugs and with regulation, stayed very bright.
I generally used it for an hour or two per day with the longest being 5 hours. Did my laundry by hand for an hour with it lighting the way, walked across the base to get a shower for another 20 minutes of run time. Took the head off and put it in candle mode for an hour of spades. It then switched to "moon" mode and I hung it up on a tent post so we could stand around and BS. I went through dozens of batteries in 5 weeks of Iraq. People would follow me around to light the way due to broken bulbs or they liked less bugs buzzing around.
If I head out to another Army camp, I will have the Elektrolumens Anglehead 2D regulated light, Brinkmann 2AA BB400 Q3L, 2D light with 30mm optics R2H LS and BB500 regulator board, Mini-LGI and a red LS light. The keychain will have the Micro Illuminator as always. The point of so many lights is to lend them out to people in need. The Mini LGI filled that purpose very well and lasted for days on 3 AAA batteries.
OK, I will also bring the 5D 5W Cyan LS with 30mm optics to win flashlight fights (have to do something out there) Think of camping for months on end and you will see the need for a long-running EDC!

No stories right now, but lately I have been EDCing my E2e, LSH-P, and Arc AAA to school. This is an excellent combination for just about all situations, but I haven't had to use them yet. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

for me the ideal combo of brightness, runtime and wow-factor is the Arc LS and soon the Firefly, although those are a bit bulky in the pocket (I carry them on my keyring in the front pocket).

on most occasions, runtime is not too important, but should be there "just in case" you need it.
unfortunately we don't have any power outages here in Europe, or almost none ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

bernhard

on the other hand ... have a look at
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB3&Number=297762&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=&PHPSESSID=
bernhard

No stories from me, as I am at home 99 percent of the time. When I do go out, I always have my Ultra with me, and usually and extra battery. Haven't needed it, yet. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif