My ignorance

How many versions of the PAL Light are there? (Not color types.)

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb

I think there are three, the PAL Survival with always on, dim, bright, and flash; the standard (?), without the flash, and maybe without the dimmer setting, but it returns to always on after 30 minutes automatically; and theres there's PAL Gold (I think), it's supposed to be brighter. I don't remember the different sttings for it.

I also think there are 3 basic models. The Pal Survival, Pal Gold, and the Pal Sure. As far as I can tell the Survival and gold are identical except the beam is much tighter on the gold model. So if you flip the lens on the gold, you have a standard survival, but I don't know if it works the other way around. The sure just has on and off and also shuts off after 30 min. The sure has the wider beam.

Brock

Thanks. That clears things up. I thought there was only two models. Which do you think is better for all around daily use?

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb

I think I would go with the gold and then you have the option of reversing the lens for a tight spot or a normal size beam.

Brock

I agree with Brock, the Gold seems to be the better light for general use. I have two of the Survival lights, and would like them to be a little brighter. I haven't used the flash setting and don't think it's really that useful.

I agree, I haven't found a use for strobe mode, mostly I turn it off and set it down, only to see it start strobing. I presonaly would like a true off, very dim, normal, and bright settings. But I have gotton used to it now.

Brock

According to the PAL website, both standard and Gold versions exist for the Survival (multi mode) and the Sure (Bright and very dim with auto off). Look under "ordering" on http://www.lightechnology.com/.

I'm not sure which one I ended up with. It has a gold band, bright, dim, flash and always on. It's ok. The gizmo factor is high with the multiple settings.

I like it but not totally enthused by it.

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb

I always thought the flash mode would be fun to use to find the car after a long, rough night...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ted:
I always thought the flash mode would be fun to use to find the car after a long, rough night...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've had my Pal Gold since last April, and I have yet to find a use (legitimate or not) for the Strobe mode. Like many others, more often than not I'll use the flashlight for something, push the button until it goes off, set it down, and come back later to see it happily blinking away.

Strobe mode might be more useful if the pulse rep rate were faster and the pulse width were narrower. Make it a near-true strobe - this might find some use in the rave or club scene, or for actually attracting somebody's attention from a distance (like summoning a firefighter to your burning apartment to come get you out). The way it is configured now, the strobe function isn't all that useful except maybe to make your nylon tent emit a brief glow every couple of seconds to help you find it after a nighttime trip to the latrine. This assumes you took another flashlight with you, of course.

http://ledmuseum.home.att.net



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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ted:
I always thought the flash mode would be fun to use to find the car after a long, rough night...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I suppose that being able to walk through the dark with a strobing flashlight without falling flat on one's face would amount to a pretty good sobriety test...oh, or did you mean leaving the flashlight INSIDE the car?

Slightly more seriously, I did find one use for the flashing mode: I set it up on the porch on Halloween, to flash toward the door, to make the place look a little bit more creepy. I stashed some red LED flashers left over from Burning Man into the shrubs, too, which some of the trick-or-treaters seemed to find interesting...