Off Duty, Technology - Marine Corps Times

Shine on, you crazy flashlight

ORLANDO, Fla. — What we wouldn’t give for a set of night-vision contact lenses. Wander into your favorite gear store and you’re bound to find umpteen million flashlights in every size, shape, color, durability and brightness.

The options can be overwhelming, especially when you start talking about maximum lumen output versus maximum battery life versus necessary tactical features versus price.

Luckily, our favorite offerings on the flashlight front combine a variety of features into one tight, sturdy package. While it’s hard to find one light to do everything, these come pretty close to one- or two-stop shopping.

Until we get our X-ray specs in the mail, this is as good as it gets.

• SureFire Kroma. The company that revolutionized the tactical flashlight industry has done a lot to diversify itself over the years, but in the end, the SureFire team is known for its flashlights.

Unfortunately for the company’s bottom line, the new Kroma Milspec might be the last one you’ll ever have to buy.

Designed to suit most military applications, the Kroma Milspec is actually five flashlights in one. There’s a red light for field use, a blue light favored by medical personnel, a yellow-green light for aviators, infrared for illumination while wearing night-vision goggles and a dual-intensity white light. Selecting your preferred color is as easy as turning a dial, eliminating the need for colored filters.

The Kroma Milspec is powered by the same lithium batteries as SureFire’s other offerings and has a run time of four hours at low intensity and 1.5 hours at high intensity. Suggested retail price is just more than $300, reduced to about $250 with a military discount.

So far, only about 300 have rolled off the assembly line, and most of those have been sent out into the world for user feedback. Look for it to hit a retailer near you by early summer.

Until then, check them out at http://www.surefire.com.

• Petzl e+LITE. Petzl’s new e+LITE is a tiny emergency light that packs big beam.

Weighing in at just less than 1 ounce, the e+LITE isn’t designed to be the only light you’ll ever need. It is meant to hide in the bottom of your pack, ready and waiting, like a sniper in the bushes.

Then, when you need really need it — BAM.

About the size of a plastic bottle cap, the e+LITE comes with a neck strap and metal clip for attaching it to clothing or gear. It folds out on a small base and swivels 360 degrees, perfect for reading or rummaging in a pack.

The e+LITE has five illumination settings — red, red strobe, white strobe, bright white and economy white. It has a 10-year shelf life, so you can forget about it until you need it. Once you do fire it up, the light will shine for 35 hours at its brightest setting, 18 lumens. At the dimmer economy setting, its battery life is about 45 hours.

Waterproof down to 1 meter and economical at $29.95, the e+LITE is one of those items you’ll be happy you packed. It’s so light that even if you don’t use it, you won’t regret carrying it. Our only complaint is that it comes in only red and black, instead of black on black or tactical colors.

The e+LITE is available at sporting goods shops and at http://www.petzl.com.

• PentagonLight MOLLE. Hey, wait a minute, is that a ... ?

Nope.

Trying to cash in on the retro, new-but-looks-old craze, PentagonLight’s MOLLE steals its shape from the clunky, L-shaped flashlight everyone hates. Unlike those old standard-issue monstrosities, however, the new light packs some serious features.

The angle-head flashlight — small enough to ride inside your MOLLE gear webbing — is only 3.4 inches long and weighs a mere 1.5 ounces. It runs on one AA battery, and the high-output LED bulb will put out 25 lumens (or maybe 30, or maybe 40 — we heard three answers) for between three and five hours. (Again, it depends on who you believe. What can we say? It’s so new, it’s not even listed on the company Web site.)

A red-light filter is available for light-restricted conditions, and a rotating clip allows you to attach it to a pocket or belt. Best of all, it should retail for about $30.

Want to see more? The flashlight should begin shipping to retailers in February. Until then, keep an eye out for it at http://www.pentagonlight.com.

• NovaTac EDC120. Lumens are kind of like an octane rating.

Without getting too technical, lumens measure the perceived power of light. The more lumens you’ve got, the brighter the light you get. Use more lumens, use more power, use more batteries, use more cash.

This is the basic rule of flashlighting. Unless you’re talking about NovaTac.

The new flashlight company — created, in part, by the recent acquisition of boutique beam maker HDS Systems — is preparing to bring that small-time company’s products to the mainstream market in 2007 with a new and improved line of flashlights that blinded us with their versatility.

Our favorite, the EDC120, is a new offering in the “everyday carry” line once marketed by HDS. The 120 means — you guessed it — 120 lumens of peak power. It’s enough light to suntan a bowling ball. Imagine the brightness of that heavy, four D-cell light you keep under the seat to bash carjackers, squashed into an itty-bitty frame that weighs about 3 ounces.

Running on one standard CR123 lithium battery, the EDC120 will push 120 lumens for 30 minutes. Not much time, but luckily, the EDC line is fully customizable from 120 lumens on down.

The primary setting is 10 lumens, where you’ll get at least 18 hours of run time before reloading. Try other brightness settings until you find the right combination for whatever you do.

Did we mention that the lights are thermally regulated, so you won’t burn your hand after using it for a while? Did we mention that the suggested retail price for the EDC120 will be about $150, probably less for military purchases?

Did we mention that NovaTac tests flashlights by beating the crap out of them? One worn-out test model looked as if a tank ran it over and still blinded us.

Start looking for them in February. If you can’t wait, check out the company’s Web site at www.novatac.com.

• Premierlight PL-B 1 Watt. Ahh, those wily Brits.

They call their flashlights “torches.” They also call their pencil erasers “rubbers.” (Excuse us while we laugh madly at the thought of using a torch to find a rubber in the dark.)

Whatever they want to call it, the newest offering from U.K.-based Premierlight is interesting, to say the least. Known as the PL-B 1 Watt, the light features a central 1-watt LED that’s bright enough to burn your knickers.

It runs on two CR123 lithium batteries offering 15 to 20 hours of burn time. Beats us how many lumens it puts out, but it’s bright.

It’s not the most tactical of flashlights we’ve ever seen, but it does have an interesting feature — an “S.O.S.” option that allows you to keep signaling for help even if you’re too tired or wounded to keep pressing the button for yourself.

Oh, and the flashlights are affordable, coming in at just $24.95. Learn more at http://www.premierlight.net.

“We’re second-level, there’s no denying it,” said Stuart Radlett, a Premierlight spokesman. “We’re not a SureFire. But we appeal to the family man, not the connoisseur.”

So long as it gets us to the loo without tripping, we’re fine with that.