is it red or Infra-red?

I was at my local G.I joes tonight doing some shopping and ran across a "micro torch" from coast cutlery. I think its basically the same as a "micro lenser". Anyways, I knew that it probably was pretty useless but the super small size piqued my curiosity. I was right. its pretty much useless. Very dim, square shaped red beam. My question is this; whats the difference between a infra-red led and a plain old red colored one?

Thanks,
bhds

It's an early red LED. IR would not be visible to you.

The big difference is that you can't see the light from an IR LED. It's beyond the 'visible' wavelength. Remote controls use IR. IR also is radiated heat. I just can't see an LED actually putting out enough IR to detect any change in temperature.

Thats pretty much what I figured. I just thought that there might be some "visible" red. Like some of the UV leds.

The flashlight is probably a "Micro Opto E-Light" (or "Cigerette Light") from Zwiebruder Optoelectronics, aka. LED-Lenser Optoelectronics.

The tiny little flashlight runs from a BR435 lithium cell (used in some types of lighted fishing lures), and produces a predominantly red square beam with a ring around it.

The LED in mine appears to be right around 630nm, which is just a slightly orangish tinted red color. I would describe the color as "HeNe Laser Red", as the emitted light color is very similar to that produced by a red helium neon laser.

It's not very bright (when compared to other LED flashlights), but you can use it to illuminate keyholes and the like after dark, or use it as an emergency light if you had nothing else handy.

Yup. Just opened it up and it has a br435 batt. Has anyone tried to mod this light? I keep playing with it hoping that maybe I didnt have it all the way "turned" on /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif If nothing else its a cute little play toy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

bhds