which led light casts the furthest beam?

I own the dorcy cool blue (turtle light 1). and wondering about the PT impact or impact 2. on whether they can cast a farther beam than the cool blue? their sizes are all pretty small and i love the push button on my cool blue but wondering if the impact can throw a even farther beam. And is the impact running on a pr based led like the dorcy which you can swap in a incandescent quickly for some serious trail hiking light with a very very long throw.

I just got two Streamlight 7-Led flashlights, which take 4-aa batteries. They throw a pretty good beam for an led light and the light is cheap. You can get them for about $28.00 shipped.

Want a flashlight that casts the BEST BEAM ?

www.peakbeam.com

I had one of these for about a year, loaned it to LA Country SWAT and showed it to the FBI

Mike
www.inretech.com

It also costs upwards of US$2000

Still, I said I`ll get one someday and no-one`s going to stop me.....well, maybe my bank manager......

How could you Loan a $2000 flashlight?????? that in and of itself is insanity. if i had a 2000 flashlight, i would get a built-in anti-theft device and never let anyone touch it!

It comes with an anti-theft device. You point it at the thief...you have to provide your own dustpan and broom.

I do like the belt battery pack for the Peak Beam.

If you are asking for LED beam distance, our Helios TRILIGHT chucks some photons down the road a fair piece. Last night I was getting bright blue reflections from three blocks out. At 100 feet it was illuminating the back of a two story church. I think that our standard TRILIGHT produces a very good light for standard work, though. I worry that incredibly bright lights, not in a smoke filled environment, are frequently overkill. When you accidently point one at a nearby relfective surface, you get blinded by it. In a smoke filled environment I want the power of the sun at my beck and call.

I would love to send you Helios beam shots, but there are inherent problems in taking pictues of a beam that intense. Seeing more than the beam, for instance...

I didn't have any problems getting it back from SWAT, I was down in LA during WESCON and picked it up.

Took two of them to the FBI range near Clackamas Oregon, and they wanted to take them hunting !

Its quite an impressive unit, a friend of mine borrowed the unit that I had and took it camping and was able to light up trees on the other side of Timothy Lake (about 1/2 mile wide)

One of my ham friends worked on the power supply for it, the bulb starts at approx 10kv, then 60v and finally runs on 12v

Mike
www.inretech.com

Trilight,
Now THAT is the light I am looking for! It is getting dark on my bicycle commute and my 18-LED rear red tailight and tire flys keep me from getting run over (it is so annoying that cars switch lanes)
My incandescent 5w pencil beam helmet mounted light works well but I want supplimental light proved by LEDs. Will the Trilight run on NiMH batteries? How much does that monster cost? (I can blow some cash as I got rid of my car) When will the Trilight be available with the Luxeons that are rated higher than 500 hours?
Trilights and Hokey Spoke LED lights keep dancing in my head!

Both the Princeton Tec Impact and Princeton Tec Impact II project a beam up to 50 yards through the use of special optics. The Impact uses four AA batteries and the Impact II uses four AAA batteries. The Impact II is about the same size as the Princeton Tec Attitude.

I have heard that the PAL light throws a pretty tight beam.

A torch is as bright as perception allows.
I did a test at Nant Gwynnant on several of my torches, and took another out on a long walk in darkest Lincolnshire.
Nant Gwynnant is a useful torch testing zone as it is in the mountains of Wales and suffers very little in the way of light pollution, and the road that runs through the place has good catseyes. The best time to go torch testing is late at night when there are few cars to either mow you down or destroy precious night vision with thier highbeam headlights!
The tests were as follows:

Nant Gwynnant:

Modified Benross 4033 with 2*NR86T Greens:
Catseye test: Counted >30 catseyes (torch shone s far as a corner some 5 or 600m down he road!
Mountain test: Torch lights up at least 100m into dense woodland.

BT2 Cyan:
This torch packs out a ;lot of brightness for such a compact lighting instrument.
Again it was able to light up all he catseyes for sbout 300m.
Mountain test: Works well in both open and wooded mountain regions. By far my favorite torch nd now is my EDC.

Modified 2D with 4 Toshiba green LEd's.
Catseyes: Thed torch lights about 15 of these. It has a diffuse beam and is a bit dissappointing for its having 4 LEd's. Makes a nice reading torch though!
The yellowish-green is not reflected very well by the trees but it does work reasonab;ly well on grass.

BT1 Green.
The very first prototype, now fitted with duracells but stil resistored to 25mA (my modern torches are run at 30mA).
This torch worked well in a campsite environmnt and its 30 degree beam projects enough light to pick out non-fluorescent objects up to about 15m away. Objects such as reflective signposts and car number plates were rendered visible at about 100 to 150m distance.

BT2 Orange:
This torch has a very narrow penetrating beam more like a fully focussed filament bulb torch. Reflective objects could be detected up to 1/2 a mile away.

BT1 White:
We like the daylight colour, but the torch just hasn't got the punch of the cyans and greens.
It lit about 8 catseyes on the Nant Gwynnant road and in our beam disatance test comes last! White Nichia technology has some catching up to do!

Modified Aluminium unbranded torch
This was the torch that travelled to the States with me, and this instrument performed very well giving a 100m beam! The mod is with an EMPOWERTORCH PR Bulb, and lasted all 3 weeks using cheap D cells! It still lights up pretty good now!

Electrolumens 4D-5C 5W Luxeon torch...I have one of these amazing torches on order... I'm sure that these will outshine most torches for years to come!

In my small collection of lights, I have incandescant lights with single LED replacement bulbs as well as those that were built as LED lights. In those two groups, my 2D Mag throws the farthest and tightest beam, followed by the Coleman Peak 1 Expedition Headlamp (also 2D). Both are focusing lights.

In the built as LED lights, my LS based lights throw the farthest.

Overall, the Mag w/LED bulb wins hands down.

A good test for me, is to see if it can light up the dark green trash can at the end of the drive, from the front door. Fairly large yard in residential neighborhood, with light pollution.

So I can figure that they will perform better with no light pollution.

cool guys, thanks for all the info. i was thinking luxeons not in focus with a reflector would just diffuse out and be useless around 30 ft or so. i'm gonna have to probably dish out some cash for a luxeon light since i have lots of leds and incandescent lights already.

Checkout our new product "TRILIGHT"

Mike
www.inretech.com

Both princeton and streamlight have led flashlights that use 4 aa batteries. I wonder if their performance is similar.

Raven

I've been thinking about the same PT lights "originally" posted about. Alot of other options got mentioned. Only one post made mention of a 50yd range. Isn't there anyone else who can comment on the specific lights mentioned? No offence intended, but i notice at times one can ask a specific question about a specific light and get 10 answers about 10 other torches. Don't mean to sound like I'm flaming or raving, just want to hear from those that have actually owned the light and can give some real world experience with it.

I have a PT Impact and a Techass PR2 equipped Energizer rubber flashlight with a nice deep focusable reflector. Both throw a good beam for 1x5mm LED flashlights. Here's the diff:

- PT Impact: Large "moon-like" and very even beam. Almost no falloff/sidespill. At 6', it has a 1' beam and a peak intensity that compares nicely with even an LI! (but the LI has far more light overall, of course). Its even beam is great for that "Alien Searchlight" effect

- Energizer (at tightest focus): Tiny, very intense spot (outshines even an Arc LS), broad but very dim sidespill. At 6', the beam is the size of an orange and is almost twice the intensity of the PT Impact. This sucker really throws, but its a ridiculously tiny beam. The quality of the beam itself is fairly representative of most adjustable focus flashlights and has that hole in the middle when defocused some.

I own an Impact...it's ok, but I actually liked the Brinkmann Long Life better for use around home due to the tailcap switch. I'm not fond of flashlights that require 2 hands to operate. To claim the Impact casts a 50 yard beam is not accurate in my experience. If the Impact 2 had been around when I got the Impact, I would have opted for it as it has the same collimator/led in an Attitude-sized package. The Impact is too little light in too big a package IMHO.

Slightly off topic:

Is it true you can see an LED from a mile away?

("Damn the TRO! I'm going to show you my Arc AAA whether you like it or not!")

Yes. Go somewhere dark...darker. No, somewhere where it's really really really dark. Now finish reading this post and turn your monitor off. Give your eyes 10 or 15 minutes to ajust to the darkness...turn on your Arc, jog a mile away, look back. See that itty bitty tiny little speck? That's your Arc.