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--- gear:flashlight [2024/09/23 17:32] – [Suggested Models] spicci
+++ gear:flashlight [2025/12/02 04:09] (current) – removed Humphrey Boa-Gart
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-====== Flashlights ======
-insert intro sentence or paragraph here
-===== Fundamentals =====
-The following factors determine brightness levels, beam range, and ultimately how well your flashlight serves your purpose.
-==== Brightness ☀️ ====
-Key takeaways about flashlight brightness:
-  * **Lumens** are the measurement of the total energy output from a source of light.
-  * **Candelas** measure how intense or focused a light output is.
-  * A **lux** is a proportional measurement that calculates the amount of light on a particular surface.
-  * **Watts** are a measurement of the power consumed by a product.
-==== Lumens vs Candelas 🕯️ ====
-**Lumens** //(lm)// are a measurement of the total energy output //(or total visible light)// from a light source in all directions. Lumens help you understand one crucial piece of information: how much light is emitted by this flashlights
-While lumens are a good understanding of the total output of a flashlight, it doesn’t help us understand how intense or focused our flashlight might be. By understanding **candelas** //(cd)//, we can get a good idea of whether or not our flashlight will have a “floody” or “focused” beam.
-If you’re shopping for a flashlight to cut through fog and smoke or want a very hot center to your beam, you’ll want to pick a flashlight with a high candela rating. Conversely, if you plan to do a lot of up-close work or need to evenly illuminate a space, you’ll want to stick to a lower candela rating.
-A flashlight with high lumens and a smaller candela rating suggests a flood beam that might be useful in lighting up larger areas at a close distance. Conversely, a flashlight with a lower lumen rating and a higher candela rating may provide a tight, focused spotlight better suited for specific tasks or long distances.
-The tightly focused beam wins, even though both having the same lumen output!
-==== Beam Distance 📏 ====
-The following features influence the beam distance of a flashlight. And often it’s a combination of several of these factors to achieve the farthest beam:
-  * The size of the reflector //(the bigger the reflector, the farther a beam can travel)//
-  * The size of the LED die
-  * The type of TIR optic //(there are many TIR optics ranging from 140 degrees width, to 10 degrees, the narrower, the better)//
-  * The divergence of the beam
-  * The type of light source //(LEP flashlights can throw farther than LED flashlights, even with the same flashlight dimensions)//
-==== Batteries 🔋 ====
-It’s important to note that to reach the full potential of your light, you need to ensure you are using the recommended battery type. Some dual-fuel lights can take AA/AAA/CR123 batteries but at the cost of performance.
-These factors determine brightness levels, beam range, and ultimately how well your flashlight serves your purpose.
-===== Tactical Flashlights 🔦 =====
-//**Disclaimer:** BONK may not work wit pocket flashlight// 🔦
-//"Tactical"// has lost almost all meaning due to excessive use in marketing. Most "tactical" flashlights are just a generic flashlight with a tail switch and a strobe mode, and they aren't meaningfully better than any other flashlight for defense.
-A tactical EDC light is first and foremost a utility tool, not a defensive tool. Any features that add to its usefulness as a defensive tool should not take away from its usefulness as a utility tool.
-EDC-sized flashlights aren't intense enough to temporarily blind an attacker. It's just not a thing. What you can do is shine the light in their face so they can't see anything except your light.
-**What you really need:**
-  * **A tailswitch:** I find that EDC sized lights with tail switches give me a much better grip than EDC sized lights with side switches, so I look for a tailswitch.
-  * **High intensity:** I look for the highest intensity //(candela/throw)// light I can get, not necessarily the highest lumen output. In the size of light I like to carry, 20,000 candela is a good high number to shoot for.
-  * **Quick access to turbo:** It's important to be able to get to max brightness really quickly in a defensive situation.
-  * **Momentary on:** This can be useful when you only need to turn your light on for a brief moment. Great for signaling, and most of my EDC uses for a light are just for a couple seconds so momentary on is handy.
-  * **Quick access from the pocket:** It's important to be able to access defensive tools quickly so I like lights that can be snatched out of the pocket fast.
-A couple more points of advice:
-  * **An overly aggressive bezel:** EDC size lights don't have very much mass so I don't think they're especially effective as striking devices. Super aggressive bezels can tear up your pockets more quickly. Having a strike bezel won't disqualify a light for me though.
-  * **Zoom:** Zoomable lights are hugely popular right now, but they are a really poor solution. A zoom mechanism adds many failure points, compromises water and dust resistance, and makes the light less optically efficient (light gets trapped inside the head). A well designed fixed flashlight beam gives you a bright hotspot for throw as well as wide spill for flood without having to zoom your light in and out. Zoom disqualifies a light for me.
-===== Suggested Models =====
-If you don't know where to begin searching for a flashlight of your own, the following flashlight models have been evaluated by AMI faculty members:
-  * [[https://everydaycarry.com/news/streamlight-protac-2aa-x-usb-flashlight/|Streamlight ProTac 2AA-X USB]] - insert description here
-  * [[https://maglite.com|Maglite]] - obligatory, insert description here
-{{tag>Gear}}

everything capn knows

everything capn knows

(aka 'the best point military institute')

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