I just had to share this little story!

Hi Forum.

I simply had to share this with you fine people that can really appreciate this story. My wife's response was "What ever ...".

Anyway, my 10 year old son went on a school camp last week. He told me there was going to be some night bush walks, so naturally I had to equip him with some reasonable lighting (AA batteries only). I gave him a Thrunite 1A with a Fenix Camping Lampshade as a backup light.

As his primary light I gave him my trusty old ITP A6 Polestar. Nice size and plenty of lumens on AA's.

Well, he got back Friday and he simply couldn't wait to tell me what happened on the night bush walks! What a champion little up-and-coming flashaholic!

All the kids had a competition to see who had the brightest torch. Out came my sons Polestar, on low, and he said not many were impressed. Then he said to them "Oops, I better turn it up, that's on low". All the kids were pretty impressed. He then said to them, "Oh, how about I move it off medium and try out high!". He said all the kids were saying "WOW!, HOLY SH.T!, CRAP, WOW!". Even the teacher was impressed. It out-shone and out-threw everything else.

Needless to say he was leader of the pack on the night walks, lighting up the way, completely obliterating all the other torches.

Like a true little flashaholic, he ran it on medium most of the time to conserve batteries, except when the others kept begging him to really light it up on high!

Brought a smile to my face as he told me the story!

Regards all.

Good story.
Since he set a precedent, you know he'll need some lumen upgrades for next years camping trip!

A future CPFer, for sure! Very nice story.

That is a great story! Thanks for sharing. I am training my 4 and 6 year old daughters to appreciate a quality flashlight as well!

Nice story! It made me smile and think back to the time I did night walks with friends and school...
I never had any decent flashlight back then, though.

This will be a lifelong cherished memory for your son, and it might make him a flashaholic for life.
Imagine the two of you 'competing' who has the best/brightest flashlights in about 10 years from now.

Good job preparing your son. I'm sure some other young flashaholics were born during those night walks.

Geoff

nice story, thanks!

bedazzLED said:

Even the teacher was impressed. It out-shone and out-threw everything else.

Needless to say he was leader of the pack on the night walks, lighting up the way, completely obliterating all the other torches.

Click to expand...

these days flashaholics profit from the informational and technological advances and the common citizen is ignorant about "our products" (typically made in China) and the state of the art. however i believe that soon in future 500+ lumens hand-held lights bought off the shelf (of Walmart, Home Office, Office Depot, Buy More, ..) will be a rather common thing in society. And cheap as well.

we can already buy 20$ lights (Ultrafire, ..) which surpass the 500 limit, Maglite has just released a crazy bright LED light (Pro+ model), so non-flashaholics will be able to compete soon. Rayovac has Michael Jordan and the Indestructible series.

We'll be the pioneers and dinosaurs with our expensive Nitecore's, Fenix's and Jetbeam's. People will then point at us and maybe even laugh about the prices we paid in the early days.

It's a market development similar to IT technology, CPU's and laptops. Once upon a time only few of your friends owned a Pentium I or an IBM laptop. Nowadays IBM notebooks dont exist anymore (sold to Lenovo Corp.), and we can laugh about the prices all of us PC freaks paid for a Pentium III when it was released at that time and a selling success for several years (and when people were still typing on their Pentium I).

Our lights age at some slow pace while the cheap lights, mass Cree power LED produced China lamps, are flooding the markets at a fast pace.

Fenix is a big company and 100% Chinese with worldwide distribution, they can adapt prices and strategy. I just hope that the many smaller companies (incl. 4Sevens) can stay competitive in the growing market of power LED hand-held lighting products, that is, flashlights..

Again, nice story. I am thinking that in 5-10 yrs school kids in camps will have a harder time to produce such a great story. (in that case, better dont tell the kids how much you paid for the Nitecore's, Olight's, etc. )

Nice story! By memory the A6 is only 400 OTF lumens? Long way to go for upgrading lumen wise! But i understand, kids like to shine into their eyes, its better to start low. A future cpfer definitely!

My first read for Saturday morning. Thanks for posting,

Great story, thanks for sharing!

Good story, and good lights. However, it is a shame that the kids are using that kind of language. Bad Parents?
Jerry

Good story.

But in the ongoing arms race of the best and brightest, there are other factors to consider.

For example, if you equipped your son next year with a 4sevens Mini 123-X or Olight i3 with an RCR, he would have basically the same 3 relative output levels as the ITP A6! oo:. In fact, even the beam profiles are very similar (slightly wider spill on the Mini 123-X/Olight i3). Imagine the response of the other kids to have virtually the same functionality in that size. :laughing:

Of course, i am not seriously suggesting you send kids out with overdriven Li-ions. But it does go show you there are lots of different aspects people will find impressive. I definitely recommend you stick with AA/AAAs ...

Next time, give the junior a TN11 with 3xCR123A configuration. Excellent output and throw in a nice little package. I use mine every night in 2xRCR123A configuration, and it never ceases to freak people out.

Or you could go nuts and hand him a TK70, RRT-3 or TM11. Instant daylight.

Nice story! Kinda reminds me of my own youth when I did not have the best flashlight like I do now, but I did have some pretty nice Halogen flashlights that were considered very bright Thanks for bringing up good memories!

Hi all, I have an update on my budding little flashaholic.

We went out last night to test out some of my other lights. I think he is now definitely hooked!

He was eye'ing off my UB3T, along with my T40CS, T20CS and he really liked my DEFT-edc, so it seems he is developing a taste for throwers. I've told him he can look after the A6 Polestar and my TK41 to keep him happy (for now).

We have a small valley across the road from us, so I pity those poor Kangaroo's over the next few nights!

All good fun!

bedazzLED said:

Like a true little flashaholic, he ran it on medium most of the time to conserve batteries, except when the others kept begging him to really light it up on high!

Click to expand...

Hi bedazzLED

Great story and you're from my neck of the woods too, but if you had wanted him to become a true flashaholic, shouldn't you be teaching him to have it on high ALL of the time. :naughty:


Phil Ament :wave:

next step.... 35w HID maybe? :naughty:

great story. had me smiling and laughing as i was reading it. :devil:

Phil Ament said:

Hi bedazzLEDGreat story and you're from my neck of the woods too, but if you had wanted him to become a true flashaholic, shouldn't you be teaching him to have it on high ALL of the time. :naughty: Phil Ament :wave:

Click to expand...

Hi Phil Ament.Hello to another Melbourne flashaholic!As for teaching him to leave it on high all the time; not while I'm paying for the batteries Regards.

Great story, now i wish i'll have a 'who has the brightest light' contest in any trips I go to in the future.