1000W (90,000 Lumens) LED Flashlight | Hacker News Reader

1000W (90,000 Lumens) LED Flashlight

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28 pointsfilleokus14 comments

I'm going to pivot the conversation a little...

So LED lights have come a long way. We've used them to replace our bulb lights 1:1 and to create flashlights that provide the same or slightly higher lumens at a fraction of the power utilisation.

That being said, I am quite disappointed we haven't seen ultra-bright LED flashlights used for search and rescue. If you've ever watched body-cam footage from firefighters, even in small residential properties, you'll know that the smoke reduces the visibility substantially and even their already bright flashlights do little through the thick smoke.

So my question is, why are firefighters still utilising sub-400 lumen flashlights when they could have equipment that outputs 3000+ lumens that might have a shot of cutting through that smoke? If you go look up fire fighting equipment right now, yes, it is heat, wet, and shock resistant which is highly important, but the actual performance is worse than a $3 LED flashlight from China that gives several hours on a single AAA battery.

It really does seem like they're missing a trick here. A brighter light won't magically remove the smoke, but the higher intensity does help cut through it, you can see that yourself just by utilising a super-bright LED in foggy conditions.

Maybe because they could temporarily blind another firefighter if there was a gap in the smoke.

Additionally they could simply blind themselves with the glare from pointing a strong directional LED light towards dense smoke.

I would think the light reflecting back into your face in fog and smoke would be a bigger detriment than benefit. Utilizing high beams in snow and fog while driving is discouraged for this reason.

Rational conservatism. Dependability trumps everything else when you're crawling into a fire.

It takes a lot of engineering effort to design a flashlight that will run continuously in 500°F heat. It costs an lot of money to get UL, NFPA and MSHA approval. You can't just stick the latest Cree die into a metal tube and hope for the best.

As a firefighter, some of the newer lights include filters to change the color tone of the beam, so you have a clear filter, and orange filters, for a lot of the reasons mentioned. Smoke is thick inside a structure fire, and I'd gladly pay more for better visibility. Most people I know have typically two to three lights (I have two Streamlights on my helmet and one on my coat, see below).

- Streamlight Vantage http://www.streamlight.com/en-us/product/product.html?pid=19... - Streetlight Survivor http://www.streamlight.com/en-us/product/product.html?pid=30...

I'm rather disappointed in the white LED torches I've had. One LED fails then another. Before long you've got 1/4 the light you should have. These torches aren't even old or used a lot.

So, dumb question here. As I understand it, the main reason for increased efficiency in LEDs is decreased wavelength of light output, focusing in visible spectrum. The bulb itself is a bit cooler than incandescent, but LED bulbs have these massive heatsinks for the electronics. It seems like there is still a lot of energy being lost as heat -- is much of this expected to be recoverable, and efficiency to continue increasing?

Relevant recent xkcd http://xkcd.com/1603/

More power than sense

What an awesome project - I always wanted to do something like this in college. Apparently, I wasn't alone - there are whole online message boards focused on really bright flashlights

wouldn't want to be this guys neighbour...

TL;DR: Everyone went blind. The end.

I bet this will heat so much that he wont be able to hold it for 5 minutes.

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