What two lights are you taking with you for Alaska's 67-days of night?

As a flashaholic true-and-through you have an opportunity to experience several weeks of sought after 24 hour darkness. From lighting a path snowshoeing from your local village respite to photograph crystalline tree forests with aurora borealis as a back drop one day. To joining a salvage group to explore an abandoned ice breaker on another. To something as simple as descending down a naturally chilled and unlit food cellar for supplies. Rumor has it the village's lights flicker often... One thing for sure is - there are no such rumors about the desolate wintery darkness.

You know you're going to need the best in personal illumination. A main light and a backup light and a good number of cells to power them. Will they survive these next few weeks?

Considering the polar vista and the limitations posed by battery chemistries, which two lights are you taking and why?

Edit: Plan for up to four weeks out of the season.

I dont know why anyone want to experience 67 days with darkness. Exept the aurora is often visible. Trust me it`s a time of the year where it`s easy to catch a "sesonal depression" hehe. The summers with 24 hour daylight is way nicer up north
Bring some of your best headlamps, a good handheld, and the most throwy toy you got. The toy is there to make you smile if the lack of daylight and the cold gets the better of you. If you want to take pictures, bring a tripod and good camera. Aurora borealis pictures are hard to capture. Almost impossible with a handheld camera.

I can't really narrow it down to two, so I'm going to cheat slightly

1. Muyshondt Aeon - its titanium, lithium powered, and sits next to my skin (nice and warm), around my neck so should be good to go all the time - its the one light I always have with me, and is treated as Flashaholic Jewellery more than a light (which is how Im going to cheat here)
2. Surefire Minimus Vision - 1x CR123, plenty of runtime, a nice floody useful beam, perfect for anything that needs two hands.
3. A Surefire 9P with a Malkoff module (I don't have a Malkoff yet and I don't know which one I would pick, reasonably bright and throwy, with good spill though)
Reason for the 9P is its a good size to use with gloves, can be tucked under an arm, is stupid simple to use, and can run 17500 18500(bored, like mine) and 3x123, and in a pinch, 2xAA cells (which will be dim, and not work for long, but in a pinch, i will try it)
The Moddoo 1000 lumen triple dropin I currently have in my 9P draws too much current to be safe on anything other than 18500 cells

I would drop 4 spare 123 and 1x CR2 in a SF spares carrier too (the one designed for 4 cells and an E1/E2 bulb, modified to take the CR2 instead of the bulb), one reload for each light, and enough light for a few days, carried in a Jacket pocket.

Of course being a full on flashaholic, I would take more than two lights, so I would add a RA Twisty, and SWM V10R (rounding out my standard EDC)
a Surefire M4 as a long range spotter
And a Maxabeam - for those times when you need to reach out and light something (also makes a fun toy to shine up at the sky, and make light saber noises with)
and of course all my Jackets have a Photon attached somewhere.

Born there, where it stays dark there's nothing to see, vast desert of snow and ice, scrub, mountains...

You want a headlamp because you'll be using gloves and mittens. Lithium batteries to cope with the cold. You'll want long run times because batteries are expensive (heck everything's expensive) once you're away from the big stores.

You'll want a UI that's easily manipulated with gloves and mittens.


Tapatalk

Malkoff M361N in a SureFire G2 host and Malkoff M61NL in a SureFire G3 host. Polymer should be much friendlier than aluminum lights in this environment.

Owh, with plenty of CR123 primaries to go about.

^^^^ Similar thinking.

My main light would be the hi-cri ZebraLight H51C headlight. Running clipped to my front shoulder strap I'd mostly use mode M2 14 lumens (+30 hours) with AA Energizer Lithium Ultimates. 14 night adapted lumens should be enough to see where I'm placing my feet and what's immediately approaching.

My backup would be a SureFire 6P extended with a Malkoff M61WLL (70 lumens). I would put the body of the host into some foam pipe insulation for a thicker insulating grip and run it in direct drive with two AA Energizer Lithium Ultimates. It would come out only for longer distance spotting.

Snow glare issues are solved with the warm tints and chemistry issues are solved with the primary lithiums.

No other lights needed since that was the originally stated challenge.

Any critique to this setup is welcome. I guess one can say a light with throw and emergency blink modes should've been considered, say if we're adventuring within village limits.

Good suggestions above, and here's mine:

Surefire Minimus (or other extremely high quality headlamp)
Surefire G2 or G3 with Malkoff M61L 219
Box of 72 Surefire primaries

The nitrolon bodies won't get cold like the aluminum bodies of the 6P/9P lights.

An interesting question. According to the specs weight is not a big issue, so, I'll forget all the small lights lights and go for 18650. Lithium has good performance in cold and 18650 has some a good amount of power. Also, I don't like to use primaries and I would especially dislike the idea in environment, where I need to use the lights constantly (AND there is electricity available, at least mostly).

My first choice is rather easy. Spark SD6-460NW with all accessories.

• A good push button, easy to use with mittens
• Good modes ranging from 0,5 lumens (3 months runtime according to the manufacturer) to 460 lumens
• Multiple ways to carry: headlight, necklight, can be hung up to tree etc. from the headband, can be attached to camera tripod, has a magnet, etc.
• The full flood beam is perfect in power outages and for work, and also for some photography purposes. And when I need some throw, I could use the (accessory) reflector.

The next choice was more difficult. I was thinking some kind of high quality 18650 flashlight with a somewhat throwy beam but I don't quite know Malkoff, Surefire, Mac's custom etc. lights and what they can offer. I also wanted the handheld light to have a very low mode. At the same time I wasn't quite sure whether SD6 is good enough in quality or not (how many times I can drop it before it breaks, for example). So, I decided that my second light is... another SD6-460NW! This way I would have a backup. I could also have one with floody beam and another with the reflector (and if it is allowed, I would take another screw in reflector and modify it to make it more throwy, hence having 3 beam shape choices - of course, I could make even more of them, for example, sandblasting the glass of another screw-in-reflector would make it semi-floody etc). I would also have some extra headband mounts that I could put (for example) to backbag straps, allowing me to carry the light there, too.

Of course, the lights and accessories should be accompanied by a good charger and plenty of the best 18650 batteries that fit to the lights.

LOL

I don't go ANYWHERE with just two lights.

1 = 0

2 = 1

and so forth...especially for mission critical scenarios.

I like light, even in the daytime, we often have lights turned-on inside the house.

On my first read through this I thought that, mine was going to be the ONLY light for 67 days and nights for a total of 67* 24 hours or 67*16 hours (deducting 8 hours a night of sleep) for 1072 hours of light needed/wanted. 100 lumens is comfortable for a number of hours, and even for short periods of time 12-25 lumens are fine. If i'm going to be with out light for 2 months, plus, I don't think I would want much less than 100 lumens when ever I am awake. An 18650 will generally deliver 100 lumens for eight hours. So if recharging was not possible, that would require 1072/8 or 134 fully charged 18650 batteries.

Assuming, worst case scenario, we're off in a cabin, with a wood stove, and no electricity, and the truck is out of gas, I'd need a way to charge batteries because I don't own 134 18650s.
I'm thinking that solar chargers won't work too well.

I'm thinking thermoelectric generation and battery charger....

When you want the best in thermoelectric power,
The Eagle-1 TE Battery Charger by TEG Power is specifically designed for charging 12 volt DC batteries at much lower temperatures than previous models. Easily generate power from any heat source capable of heating the bottom hot plate of the TEG to 200F / 93C or greater. <snip> simply place the TEG unit on a wood stove, camping stove or other heat source and hook the clamps to your battery.

Click to expand...

I'm not recommending the above product, it is just one of the first that came up on a search.

Sooo.... down to two lights.
As suggested by others a good headlamp. Perhaps a Surefire Minimus and 5 RCR123s or maybe one of the Zebralights that will run on an 18650, (but I am tihnking that the UIs might be challenging to do with gloves on).
and for a flashlight, a TK35 it's big enough to handle with bulky gloves/mittens, and the two button UI can be operated with bulky gloves on.
12 lumens for 170 hours, and 109 lumens for 16 hours each on two 18650s. But it still has the ability to do some nice area lighting in the snow.

cland72 said:

Good suggestions above, and here's mine:

Surefire Minimus (or other extremely high quality headlamp)
Surefire G2 or G3 with Malkoff M61L 219
Box of 72 Surefire primaries

The nitrolon bodies won't get cold like the aluminum bodies of the 6P/9P lights.

Click to expand...

+1

This combo is exactly what I would probably choose to take with me.

I should edit and clarify the challenge not expecting to stay the full 67-day duration.

Just 4 weeks.

ledmitter_nli said:

I should edit and clarify the challenge not expecting to stay the full 67-day duration.

Just 4 weeks.

Click to expand...

OK... so four weeks.
Do we have electricity some of the time? or none of the time? What percentage of the time of interior lighting is expected to be performed on battery/flashlight power?
Do we have fuel to power vehicles so that we can charge rechargeable batteries?
It seems that you set the scenario - to staying within the village, and that we are going on day-trips.
How many are in our party, and what kind of lights are they carrying?

I'm sure I'll have more questions, but answers to these should give us a good starting point.

That is a very wild scenario.

24/7 darkness is sure different from needing some light at night, after being able to read and work and play in the bright sunlight all day long.

I would have to work on having some bright light for the main area, my normal preparation of having all the 3 or 4 lumen type lighting and diffusers that I need for sustained blackouts, wouldn't keep a person from going stir crazy in 24/7 hour darkness.

Poppy - your village respite has electric replenishing capability. If you are trekking away from the village's ambient lighting limits for 'night' photography for example it's whatever you have with you. Say 1 mile away. It's not a survival situation, people will know your general whereabouts and there's an established communications plan. Checking out an abandoned ice breaker, if it's much further you'll have a small party and snow mobiles. In general most destinations are reached by snowshoeing. It's whatever you desire. Or only stay indoors if you like.

The challenge is to be a minimalist and pick 2 lights that you feel will cover a good cross-section of snowy scenarios during your time there. You choose the best two lights to satisfy not only your requirement to see, but to feel good as well about your choices in beam shapes, run time, tints and everything else that's a reflection of your hobby. It's really a testament to ingenious flashaholism.

I'd go for a G2 Nitrolon or Solarforce P1 body+tail, with a stock Solarforce L2 head, and a solarforce lantern head and standard bezel ring. That way the light serves as a lantern or a flashlight. Put a HiCRI XM-L2, 4 mode driver (moon + LMH) with smooth reflector drop in, and it would be great.

My other light would be a headlamp, probably either a minimus vision or a Zebralight H501w/502. My ZL H501w is my most used light.

Cheers,
Alex

Check out LightForce's ArmyTek Predator thread that shows some somewhat uncommon tints being used in snow.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ne-place-Updated!-Over-80-beamshots-and-GIF-s!

ledmitter_nli said:

Check out LightForce's ArmyTek Predator thread that shows some somewhat uncommon tints being used in snow.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ne-place-Updated!-Over-80-beamshots-and-GIF-s!

Click to expand...

+1

Armytek Predator is reliable light. One of its technologies lets to emit light during 120 days. I think this light fills all needs to survive.

jorn said:

Trust me it`s a time of the year where it`s easy to catch a "sesonal depression" hehe.

Click to expand...

Some say that bluer light hitting a certain part of the retina has a positive effect on SAD. So, from an efficiency standpoint AND a mental standpoint, maybe cool white would be good light to have?

I like the dark, but I'm starting to have trouble seeing in the dark. Better eat more carrots!

I'd have my Surefire EB1 back up & the new Surefire E2D Ultra they both use the same batteries & they both tick all of the boxes for me