I’m a middle aged guy from Arkansas who has been fascinated off and on with flashlights ever since I was in the 4th grade and carried a PR13 bulb, a 9V transistor battery and a scavenged reflector from a 2xD flashlight. My politically savy friend dubbed it the “Ronald Ray Gun” (This was in 1976).
Today I’m an analytical chemist and my doctoral dissertation was in Near-IR spectroscopy. Glad to have found this forum as another forum I had found seems to frown on any flashlights under $50 USD. I don’t have a single flashlight above $50 unless you count the HeNe laser tube I bought many years ago for $59. The brightest flashlight I now have is an Aurora SSC P7 C-bin emitter powered by a single 18650 Li-ion cell that I bought from DX for about $30. (I estimate maybe 600 lumens OTF) They don’t pay analytical chemists enough to go around buying many $50+ flashlights. Especially chemists with a wife and 3 kids to feed!
I look forward to making contriubutions here.
I have an idea for a simple, inexpensive relative lumens meter using only a largish photovoltaic cell and a digital multimeter. Any ideas as to the best place to post that?
Welcome! Sounds like you’ll fit right in. I’m actually heading down to Arkansas (Eureka Springs area) tomorrow for vacation. I don’t know how you deal year round with all of the critters down there — I can only take a week of it
