Does anybody use fall arrest for expensive lights?

So now I will own obnoxiously expensive flashlights and I have been known to be clumsy. Do they sell any type of bungy cord fall protection that u can clamp to your belt or something? I ain't trying to drop a $600 flashlight, not even once screw that.

Use a lanyard, hook it to your belt loop. Should do the trick.

Ah yes now I vaguely remember hearing people mention lanyards but I was busy researching lights, tunnel visioned, now I need to protect the lights time to look into lanyards thank you

Wrist strap? Just make sure that the strap will break before your hand departs with the light.

AnAppleSnail said:

Wrist strap? Just make sure that the strap will break before your hand departs with the light.

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yep,you may want to get a quick getaway blade,they are cheap http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10002793/1208200-smith-wesson-hrt-claw-knife-w-molded-sheath

Aside from lanyard, gear retractors will work, depending on how heavy the light is.

Lighthound sells quick detach lanyard accessories.

fireonhigh said:

yep,you may want to get a quick getaway blade,they are cheap http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10002793/1208200-smith-wesson-hrt-claw-knife-w-molded-sheath

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Nah, I work around machines with 300 kilo tension and 600m/min line speed. If the light gets snagged and the tether didn't break before I can think "Oh crap!" I'm already elbow deep in the next roller.

Thanks everyone now I know where to look! I don't have to worry about machinery but it would be nice to have it break at a reasonable amount of pressure, something unexpected & crazy can happen no matter what your lifestyle is

AnAppleSnail said:

Nah, I work around machines with 300 kilo tension and 600m/min line speed. If the light gets snagged and the tether didn't break before I can think "Oh crap!" I'm already elbow deep in the next roller.

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Wow...great point! I guess it's highly dependent on our environment but like you, I would much rather have the gear break away without any precision timing or extra thought necessary.

Patriot said:

Wow...great point! I guess it's highly dependent on our environment but like you, I would much rather have the gear break away without any precision timing or extra thought necessary.

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Surefire designs their lanyards (or lanyard rings) to break under tension. The lanyard ring on my Streamlight Night Com looks like it would release under tension. I suspect it's a common design feature for quality lanyards.

For most users a simple lanyard is fine...like you'd use for a camera.

I would NOT recommend a bungee cord, as if you were in the type of situation where you did drop it, it would then bounce back and whack you, and/or whack into other stuff....and on a ladder, deck of a boat, precipice, etc, that can get messy. A simple cord/non-stretchy lanyard so it would drop and just dangle is preferable.

When I think of it, I tend to use a simple version with it looped loosely on my wrist...if I WANTED to drop it/let it go, I just "point at the light" w/o my wrist bent, etc...and it can slip off.

More often than not, I just use the glow in the dark lanyards to see where the light is, but don't actually use the lanyard to secure the light...because for work I swap lights so frequently that its too much trouble.

The down side of that is that I DO drop lights, all the time. I've even had holsters rip and the lights tumble out, etc.

The upside to the down side is that I do tend to see which lights can SURVIVE being dropped.



The LAST one I dropped bad that way was a TN30 that the holster ripped while I was climbing....and it bounced off some stuff than free fell ~ 6' or so IIRC, and whacked solidly into concrete. It still works, but does have a little dent in the bezel where it landed....and some dirt that doesn't seem to want to get out of the knurling from the sludge it then skittered into after the fall, etc.

If I'd had a lanyard or keeper cord for it ATTACHED to something (Me for example), it would not have got slammed up so much, but, most of the new lights are pretty tough so far at least.




So, I mostly worry about LOSING a light more than it breaking.


If around the kind or machinery that can suck in loose clothing, hair, cords, lights, appendages, etc...yeah, no freakin WAY you want ANYTHING that will pull you in.

The force to break the lanyard, even a fused one designed to break away, might be too much to prevent you from not having a hand guided into the pinch point, etc. Those things tend to happen very quickly.

Most of the break-away type fuses are more so you're not strangled as far as calibration forces.

Lol bungee cord, I just make stuff up as I go, i would totally be the guy to get whacked in the face with my own light so scratch that idea. I feel pretty good about the fact that your TN30 still works after such a hard fall, #1 because it's big & heavy, and #2 because in a previous post I remember that people were ranking durability factor among certain brands and a couple people ranked Thrunite last out of some other brands (granted the comparison was to brands like Armytek and Malkoff, but still I think Fenix was ranked above it too). Hopefully the mere fact that i'm buying quality brands in general will forgive some of my clumsiness.

BeastFlashlight said:

Lol bungee cord, I just make stuff up as I go, i would totally be the guy to get whacked in the face with my own light so scratch that idea. I feel pretty good about the fact that your TN30 still works after such a hard fall, #1 because it's big & heavy, and #2 because in a previous post I remember that people were ranking durability factor among certain brands and a couple people ranked Thrunite last out of some other brands (granted the comparison was to brands like Armytek and Malkoff, but still I think Fenix was ranked above it too). Hopefully the mere fact that i'm buying quality brands in general will forgive some of my clumsiness.

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My Malkoffs are built very tough, but, ironically, I don't think I've actually dropped one seriously yet. I'm reasonably confident that they'd do fine though if dropped.

The larger the light, the harder it falls though, so a heavier light has to be proportionally tougher to survive. A wee AAA light has only to survive a force analogous to say being being whacked with a drumstick, but a SR90/TK75 sized light has to survive a force more analogous to being whacked with a baseball bat.

One thing for example about OMG Lumens/OSTS stuff, at least the mid to high range stuff from them, is that they pot the electronics and toughen up the light's survivability. So while a stock TN30 and TN31's did survive a decent drop or three, the modified TN31mb would be even tougher....as well as proportionally more agonizing to watch as its heading towards the ground, etc.



I find that I'm getting fairly good at predicting durability....if I look at details like the thickness of the Al, the amount/quality of thread overlaps and so forth, I can see some patterns that seem to bode well, or badly, for a given light.


I've had some DX-ish stuff literally disintegrate upon drops or from weapon recoil, etc....I end up with a small pile of parts instead of a light. The boards, etc, are barely attached, the soldering is iffy, there's little to no bracing/mount security, etc....they are essentially just a battery holder wired to light an LED, not a hardened package.



Some stuff I order to try out surprises me when I see that despite the price, the build quality is higher than expected. Crelant's for example: they upped their game a while back, and are actually pretty tough now. When I got a Klarus XT11 and XT20, I was shocked to see how thick the Al was, and the amount of threading, etc...and now I routinely throw the same damn XT11 against walls and bounce it off the floor just to demonstrate to doubters that its pretty damn tough.


So, your clumsiness will hopefully be compensated for by your light's durability.

That's great that modded lights also gain durability what a huge bonus!

Guys check this wrist strap out:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000H02B6O/?tag=cpf0b6-20

I have one on my Sony NEX-7, my NEX 5N, and most recently my Nitecore TM26 and it is great! Just the right length and strength. The wrist strap portion is neoprene too so if a pull was very hard either the strap or the buckle would yield.