An idea for making shock resistant flash light

I simply want a flash light to be tough -- warter resistant, and shock resistant.
The former feature is made into current products quite well, but why not make the flash light (more) shock resistant by adding a replace-able rubber armor?
This is simple and effective! The soft tongue will last longer than the hard teeth /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
I havent seen any flashlight has such armor, if this is not pratical, who can tell me why?

luxeon lights require a thermal path to the outside, to keep the led and electronics cool. using a rubber "armor" would insulate the heat, and cause the flashlight to not funtion properly.
the ls4 does have thermal protection, but that means that means using a rubber suit would insulate the light so that it either got too hot and simply shut off, or it only worked at a lower output.

as far as flashlights where thermal concerns aren't present, i would assume there isn't really much demand to make it worthwhile.

shrinkwrap has been used on flashlights like this in the past, but it should be avoided in luxeon lights.

There is another issue that some find annoying. The Streamlight Scorpion has a rubber covered body which is very grippy. Problem is it's tough to pull the dang thing out of your pocket. I have one of the rubber covered PAL lights. I can't take it out without the pocket being turned inside out and dumping coins keys etc onto the floor.

The led's are already shock resistant by their very nature.

GregR

They are out there, the Energizer "Impact" range is the most common I've seen (I have the 2D version), decent enough light, but seems pretty dim these days when compared to the like of the Nuwai AN606! Guess I should see how much heat the reflector can take by putting a more powerful bulb in...

What about rubber just around the edge of the head and edge of the tailcap? That's where most flashlights stike the ground when dropped. I doubt that would adversely affect heat transfer.

Tigerlight, you can hit it with a baseball bat and it still working good.

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Big_Ed said:
What about rubber just around the edge of the head and edge of the tailcap? That's where most flashlights stike the ground when dropped. I doubt that would adversely affect heat transfer.

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Wal-Mart does sell such an item in 2AA and stainless steel. I have one with a hopped-up bulb, and one with an everled. They are supposed to be waterPROOF, and FLOAT. Haven't had occasion to dunk them, for for about seven dollars each, I'm not afraid to.

I use one of the rubber shrouds meant to hold colored filter lenses on my E2e and my KL1 bezels and it performs exceptionally well at reducing the shock of impact when I've dropped either light. As for thermal issues, well on the E2e it doesn't matter and on the KL1 the cooling fins remain uncovered so it just doesn't cause any problems. Even if it did reduce the KL1's LED life by 50% because of thermal degradation that would still give me a 5000 hour LED life which seems ok?

Doug

Doug-

Even though I don't generally like the idea of rubber shroud, I guess I'm guilty here. I found myself doing just that on my E1e/KL1 combo to protect the bezel edges. I used the Mini-mag rubber filter holder if it's new it fits tight.

I got in the habit of doing that a few years ago when I worked in a haunted house during Halloween. We carried two mini-mags side by side. One was normal white light the other Red light for inside the house. Even though I replaced the mini-mags colorless lens with the red lens I still had to differentiate them by feel in the dark. So I put the filter holder in the Red mini-mag. Of course being nitpicky about the whole deal I bought a red colored body light for the Red light and a Silver body one for the white light.

GregR

Greg,

Great minds think alike, eh?

Doug