Tactical Light Concept

I am a Federal Tactical Officer on an SRT. I have been playing with this idea for some time but am no investor, electrical engineer, or CAD artist. I am just trying to get someone to take this idea and run with it. Any comments, suggestions or possible parties interested would be appreciated.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGao40AIejk&feature=youtu.be

Good concept! I am not a any kind of a trained military or law enforcement person, but I do see your point here.

I hope a rep from a company will see this.

Some of that "expensively priced" flashlight's cost is to recoup research and development investment costs, production tooling, materials and of course investment return without which nobody would bother... what makes me SICK is comparing a dime store flashlight to a highly R&D'ed flashlight, that would be akin to me comparing a Nerf gun to your assault rifle, I mean both fire projectiles right?

Oils ain't oils... know what I mean?



That said, your conceptual requirement might be addressed by a wide angled emitter coupled with a shallow reflector, however such flood would be achieved at the loss of throw (or beam distance), a highpower LED in a custom P60 host sounds like it would be worth a least a look-see... just a thought




BTW welcome to the forums :thumbsup:

That's definitely a valid concern and an interesting concept for fixing the issue and I have a few thoughts on some of the things you mentioned. From what I have seen of MOUT operations, once through the door the weapon is up and scanning and not at the low ready. With the threats they are facing and the necessary fast reaction times I have a hard time blaming our guys for occasionally sweeping civilians instead of spending extra time coming up on target. That said, I understand that it's a completely different ballgame for LEO and agree that the liability of pointing a weapon at civilians vs positively identifying them needs to be better addressed. Like M@elstrom said, a good floody light could help a lot but instead of mounting it on a weapon at a specific angle that might only be useful when the weapon is held a certain way, why not mount it offset on a helmet? SRT/HRT/SWAT/etc. should all be using decent helmets anyway and with a proper mount for the standard MICH/ACH or even older PASGT helmets a CREE XM-L headlight (or in this case helmetlight,) could be the fix when combined with a standard "throwier" weapon light. On the civilian side I am a fan of the strobe and move method for safely clearing which helps some with minimizing the dangers of sweeping family members and such but even still there does not appear to be a perfect equipment/tactic combination for eliminating that danger.

Low ready, with a light facing at a downward cant. But, when going to high-read/muzzle forward, that secondary light is now bouncing off ceilings, walls, etc. because it's aiming at a 30 degree upwards angle.

A normal, forward facing light at the same angle of the barrel, but with a better corona (I.E.) a reflector, not optics) would be a better option, IMO...

cheesycook said:

I am a Federal Tactical Officer on an SRT. I have been playing with this idea for some time but am no investor, electrical engineer, or CAD artist. I am just trying to get someone to take this idea and run with it. Any comments, suggestions or possible parties interested would be appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGao40AIejk

Click to expand...

I think you definitely bring forward some valid points regarding tactical weapon lights. With that being said, I think that the idea of having two beams (one forward and one at a 30 degree angle) has two potential issues:
1. As dano pointed out, when you bring your weapon up, the 30 degree beam is now shining on the ceiling. It bouncing off the ceiling is going to not only light you up, but mostly likely the rest of your team as well.
2. When your weapon is in the lowered position, the forward facing beam is now shining brightly on the ground in front of you. I would imagine that this is going to negatively affect your vision.

To overcome these two obstacles, the weapon light would really need to be able to turn off one or the other (either automatically or by the operator) depending on the position of the weapon relative to the ground.

RobertM said:

To overcome these two obstacles, the weapon light would really need to be able to turn off one or the other (either automatically or by the operator) depending on the position of the weapon relative to the ground.

Click to expand...

Considering things like the Nitecore SENS with ADT, this should be entirely doable. The biggest factor, as mentioned, would be cost.

If the goal is an oblong beam, that can be done with a single LED/head:

http://www.carclo-optics.com/opticselect/intranet/optics/details/index.php?id_optics=62

allyourblood said:

Considering things like the Nitecore SENS with ADT, this should be entirely doable. The biggest factor, as mentioned, would be cost.

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I agree. Petzl recently released a new headlamp with similar functionality (Petzl NAO). But as you stated, I'm sure a weapon light with these abilities is going to be quite expensive. Personally, I feel that an automatic system like Nitecore or Petzl is overly complex for a weapon light. I tend to subscribe to the idea that simple=reliable.

RobertM said:

I think you definitely bring forward some valid points regarding tactical weapon lights. With that being said, I think that the idea of having two beams (one forward and one at a 30 degree angle) has two potential issues:
1. As dano pointed out, when you bring your weapon up, the 30 degree beam is now shining on the ceiling. It bouncing off the ceiling is going to not only light you up, but mostly likely the rest of your team as well.
2. When your weapon is in the lowered position, the forward facing beam is now shining brightly on the ground in front of you. I would imagine that this is going to negatively affect your vision.

To overcome these two obstacles, the weapon light would really need to be able to turn off one or the other (either automatically or by the operator) depending on the position of the weapon relative to the ground.

Click to expand...

allyourblood said:

Considering things like the Nitecore SENS with ADT, this should be entirely doable. The biggest factor, as mentioned, would be cost.

Click to expand...

Just a regular level sensor would do to switch between the heads, no need for fancy dimming functions. I could see the need to have both heads on at the same time at certain angles, though, and the top head should be floodier or just have more spill.

A helmet light or angle light on a jacket would not have the advantage of turning on/off via a remote pressure button, but I can imagine there are situations where that could be practical.

Klarus makes a flashlight on which you can angle the head at 45 or 90 degrees. It might be a good idea to make a few tests with one of those plus your usual flashlight first. I don't know if they're shock proof for weapon mount, but at least some simulation tests could help reveal other caveats.

Something I hadn't thought of last night when I replied was the weapon muzzle (or body) would at some point partially block the light being emitted due to close proximity (weapon mounted light), this would have a negative effect if mounted under the barrel and the weapon in a 30 degree "ready" position... twin offset lights with flood design could achieve sufficient light from their corona at 30 degrees (angled down).

Cataract said:

Klarus makes a flashlight on which you can angle the head at 45 or 90 degrees. It might be a good idea to make a few tests with one of those plus your usual flashlight first. I don't know if they're shock proof for weapon mount, but at least some simulation tests could help reveal other caveats.

Click to expand...

I was going to suggest a pivoting head as well, maybe you could use a thumb switch or lever to flip it from the angled position to the firing position. Or perhaps simpler, attach a small mirror under the bezel at an angle to reflect the light upwards, but figure out a way to quickly flip it out of the way when forward facing light is needed.

Have you seen the future Surefire wrist light? It has an accelerometer in it to determine the light's position... maybe something like that could be used if you are going the two-headed route, to switch one head off and the other one on depending on weapon orientation.

First we have to ask if there is REAL and significant safety problem to the current tactics of sweeping rooms with lights attached to the weapon? There are hundreds and hundreds of tactical teams around the country and the world that use current methods but are they seeing accidents occurring? Concepts to theoretical problems are nice and never ending, but I believe the tactical light industry would respond with solutions if there was a great need to address some of the concerns in the OP.

ElectronGuru said:

If the goal is an oblong beam, that can be done with a single LED/head:

http://www.carclo-optics.com/opticselect/intranet/optics/details/index.php?id_optics=62

Click to expand...

That seems to be doable, since all that's really needed is to replace the optics or make a head that would go with these TIRs.

I thought about using a 2D accelerometer, but there might be delays for the accelerometer to catch up to sudden changes in orientation.

Then I came up with this;


Pivoting angle grip with the light unit attached to the side.

It's probably the fastest and most reliable way for the operator to adjust the direction of the flashlight's beam, and should give a beam that's pointing straight ahead regardless of what angle the operator is holding the weapon in standby position.

I don't think an accelerometer would work, since the weapon is not always pointed horizontally and the user could be standing on a sloped surface and the target could be downwards.

My AR light has a momentary tape-switch...problem solved.

I'm not familiar about tactics and guns, but how well would a light that takes P60 drop-ins work? The body can be well made and you can get many different kinds of outputs and beam patterns. For a room clearing device, you could get a wide, floody, XML drop-in to light up everything in front of you at once. The wide beam angle could allow you to see even with the gun at the low ready position. Would this work or would the wide beam disperse the light too much to be effective?

As for price, would a normal flashlight with a weapons mount work? Some lights you can even get tape switches for. A P60 host comes at various different build qualities and price ranges, and many are under $100, same with the drop-ins, so that could solve part of the price issue, if it is as reliable as the "gold standard".

enomosiki said:

I thought about using a 2D accelerometer, but there might be delays for the accelerometer to catch up to sudden changes in orientation.

Then I came up with this;

Pivoting angle grip with the light unit attached to the side.

It's probably the fastest and most reliable way for the operator to adjust the direction of the flashlight's beam, and should give a beam that's pointing straight ahead regardless of what angle the operator is holding the weapon in standby position.

Click to expand...

This seems like the simplest solution. I thought of some form of attachment where the light would stay parallel to the ground on its own, but that would become a headache when moving around or if you need to see down stairs. This way, the user has complete control.

Creative solution enomosiki but in the lowered "ready" position the muzzle & fore section of the weapon would block light casting a shadow, something the OP wanted to avoid, twin offset light/lenses would negate this...