An introduction is in order.

Exactly! He’s practically our gate keeper haha

I like Raccoon already. I think I have found my first niche I want to explore in the Flashlight world. Pocket Throwers. I seem to be naturally drawn to them.

Hello MikeAK00, welcome to this forum.
Pay attention that your pocket thrower does not become a pocket rocket.

Thank you very much. Yeah a pocket thrower becoming a pocket rocket would be bad. I have been on fire before and had to endure the pain of 3rd degree burns so it wouldn’t be fun. Skin graphs aren’t any fun either.

You shall not pass!

(Just kidding.)

Have a pleasant time at this friendly forum, MikeAK00!

My older half-sister lives in Western North Carolina.

She'll be visiting me and my family in Southern California later this month.

I wish I could live in Western NC. I love that part of the state more than where I was born and raised in NC. My knife maker friend that introduced me to the Emissar D4V2 lives in San Diego. When I get enough vacation time I want to go out for a visit. Does anybody ever put on meet ups for flashlight enthusiasts to get together, talk flashlights and check out each others lights?

Welcome! I haven’t been here very long, but I’ve already gathered a nice collection of lights. I’m even building lights and reflowing the emitters with the knowledge that I’ve gained here. Enjoy your stay.

I have a feeling I will end up doing the same at some point. I love working with me hands. My favorite job was as a Gunsmith. I specialized in AKM variants but once I get my shop set up I plan to get my FFL/SOT for manufacturing and branch out into other area’s of gunsmithing. A shop set up for gunsmithing and knifemaking would also allow me to mod lights and even make my own if I ever get that far. I plan to work on and make a lot of different things just in certain categories. Firearms/training, knives, survival/bushcraft, flashlights and pens. Did I mention I am really into computers and cyber security as well? One nice thing about being into these things is I never get burned out because I generally cycle through them every so often so burn out doesn’t happen. I love learning and paying attention to detail. That might be why I have so many things I love to do and work on. I don’t know why I wasn’t more into flashlights before now. I remember a childhood memory of wishing my maglite at camp was brighter and had better run times. If I had these D4V2’s and Spyderco folder’s at camp 26 years ago I would of been the coolest kid at camp. Ok back to using the search function and reading. Thank’s for the warm welcome my friends.

I have one question for you. Who would win in a fight? Violet/Vi vs Alice?

Welcome to the forum! That’s a great introduction to enthusiast lights. Less money, more features, nicer and/or more light…usually. If you haven’t already you might like to check out the various woods with a 365nm ultraviolet light. Seems like mostly legumes which you probably don’t cut in the mill very often, but lots of them will glow with a yellow or green in the heartwood. Things like sumac (the shrubs, not the poison-ivy version) glow a nice green plus the fresh pith in the twigs is a really bright golden yellow. Can’t remember but black walnut might show a little something, too.

Hank’s D4SV2 is the big brother to the D4V2, four emitters, and takes the larger 26650 batteries (closer to D-cell size). If you like heft and something to fill the hand, it’s a great choice…and if you wanted to dive in a little further there is a new-ish larger cell, 26800, that he makes a battery tube for…much longer run time (especially if you were to order that light with his new boost driver…regulated output…a tad less bright but steady lumens). That would be an investment for all the stuff plus batteries and a small charger that can take those long cells. The Convoy M3C is similar with a single emitter, still great quality but just a small notch lower than what’s in Hank’s lights.

Yeah my buddy just got a D4SV2 today so he has been sending me pictures all day. I never thought about getting a UV flashlight for that. You have peaked my interest so I need one of those as well. I did get the boost driver upgrade on my antique copper D4V2 with XP-L HI V2 5D 4000K. It doesn’t heat up as fast as my D4V2 with instant channel switching and W1 and LH351D LED’s. The D4V2 with instant channel switching get so hot so fast it’s been regulated to a novelty for light use around the house. The other one has become my EDC for now.

Next step…high CRI emitters. :slight_smile:

Convoy is kind of the default decent-quality option for good UV lights. Right now you have to order from China (best to order it straight from him although some other sellers/retailers sell his lights…including one or two in the US but they seem to be out of stock for awhile now). Here’s a link to his UV options. The S2 (or S2+) is an 18650 light, just a simple straight tube with a tail switch. His UV version of that is pretty good, much better than a lot of the junk on Amazon. Because of an irritating US patent, he can’t ship some of his UV lights to the US, and those that he does will come with just a normal clear glass lens, but you can purchase a black ZWB2 filtering lens to replace the clear one (easy swap). Those filter out the stray visible light and just let the 365nm shine through…most people prefer that but the emitter will fluoresce things either way. The lens for the S2 version is just a couple bucks. He has some triple emitter UV options now, too…also lenses for those. UV is a lot of fun, just keep it out of eyes and if you are using it up close or for longer periods of time you can get some eye strain that feels a little like welding flash (most eyeglasses and safety glasses will block the uv from your eyes…not super dangerous but a good idea to wear something while using these). If you have scorpions around those are incredible under UV light…lots of centipedes glow a little, some plants show up red or blue…mosses and lichens, too.

Here’s Simon’s official store on aliexpress. Right now you can kind of expect about 4-8 weeks delivery time since our postal service is a mess these days (used to be around 10 to 16 days).

https://convoy.aliexpress.com/store/1100591265/search?SearchText=UV

S2 light w/o battery and also the lens, in case that link above doesn’t work out:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832328791213.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832462967483.html

Some of our budget brands like Sofirn and Lumintop also make some small UV lights and those are on Amazon usually, and the ones from UV Beast and Alonefire are there…lower quality but they work and you can get them faster. But for general use you want the 365nm. Lots of lights are a barely-UV 395nm which isn’t quite so neat on many items (and some of the cheapies have very poor emitters and creep up above 400nm into the visible light range…avoid that junk).

I appreciate that my friend. I have bookmarked that and made a note for myself. I will pick on of those up for sure.

…be prepared to freak out like all of us have when you shine it around the bathroom or kitchen and find strange things in the wall paint. lol

So what you’re telling me is leave it at home when I stay are hotels or use public bathrooms?

Yes…and no. :slight_smile: Not everything that shows up is what people might think it is, but yeah…eye-opening one way or another. It’s fascinating to glimpse the “invisible” world around us, though. And that changes still when you play around with other specific wavelengths (different types of UV or even some visible light ranges).

You aren’t kidding. I still bring my UV light whenever I travel, but I don’t bring it into the bathroom, it looks like a crime scene. You’d be surprised how many of those decorative throw pillows they put on the bed and couch have been violated.

edit… And bed comforters.

Good question.

I haven't seen Ultraviolet (2006), so I'm not sure.

Alice has superpowers--I don't know about Violet/Vi.

Violet has super power as well. She isn’t the typical movie vampire but she has certain powers of one. Also she has future tech that is badass. The movie would have been a lot better, longer and rated R but Sony decided they wanted to be stupid so they shut the Director and Milla out of the editing room. They cut 30 minutes from the film and made it PG-13. Maybe one day we will get a Directors cut like it was supposed to be.

Yeah, the reason I have avoided Ultraviolet is because I heard it wasn't that great.

If a Director's Cut ever surfaces, I'll probably watch the DC.