C
Cosmic Superchunk
Guest
Picked up this new little torch by Gerber at a Military Supply shop yesterday. It's called the Recon:
Think if it as a modified Gerber Infinity. The primary feature on this little flashlight is what Gerber calls a Rotating Color Lens System. It's basically a rotating dial mounted on the head of the light which contains 4 filters giving the user the option of selecting either White, Red, Green or Blue light. Sorry for the fuzzy pic.
Just like the Infinity, this unit runs on 1 AA battery which powers one 5mm (Nichia?) LED. The package states that it has a patented Diode Setup Regulator circuit and advertises this light as having a 100 hour battery life.
A size comparison of the Recon with a Gerber Trio and LX3:
As the name "Recon" suggests, Gerber has made an attempt to market this light to military personnel as the package states that the lanyard hole accomodates 550 parachute cord. It's subdued black matte finish does give it a military look and feel that should appeal to troops.
As far as output is concerned, this is still very much a "task light" suitable for closeup work only. Gerber advertises the white light as giving 10 feet narrow focus visibility. Since the LED itself is white, the blue, red and green filters produce adequate illumination for upclose use, but not as bright as a blue, red or green LED would be.
Why not just use 4 different LEDs you ask? It probably would have made the mechanism a bit more complicated which would add to the overall cost of the light. Still, it's a nice little light and is the only LED flashlight of this size that I know of which comes with built in color lens filters. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Think if it as a modified Gerber Infinity. The primary feature on this little flashlight is what Gerber calls a Rotating Color Lens System. It's basically a rotating dial mounted on the head of the light which contains 4 filters giving the user the option of selecting either White, Red, Green or Blue light. Sorry for the fuzzy pic.
Just like the Infinity, this unit runs on 1 AA battery which powers one 5mm (Nichia?) LED. The package states that it has a patented Diode Setup Regulator circuit and advertises this light as having a 100 hour battery life.
A size comparison of the Recon with a Gerber Trio and LX3:
As the name "Recon" suggests, Gerber has made an attempt to market this light to military personnel as the package states that the lanyard hole accomodates 550 parachute cord. It's subdued black matte finish does give it a military look and feel that should appeal to troops.
As far as output is concerned, this is still very much a "task light" suitable for closeup work only. Gerber advertises the white light as giving 10 feet narrow focus visibility. Since the LED itself is white, the blue, red and green filters produce adequate illumination for upclose use, but not as bright as a blue, red or green LED would be.
Why not just use 4 different LEDs you ask? It probably would have made the mechanism a bit more complicated which would add to the overall cost of the light. Still, it's a nice little light and is the only LED flashlight of this size that I know of which comes with built in color lens filters. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif