I feel slightly insane as I've just ordered 4 plastic button type keychain lights and the total cost is $50 :)
I needed to order something a little different (for me) so I ordered 4 Photon Freedom keychain lights. One has a red LED, one is cyan, one is infrared and one is UV and since I ordered them from Battery Junction I get a free button style keychain light as well :) and a discount by using coupon code cpf2011 :)
There was some logic to all this. Having a red LED for preserving night vision is always a handy thing to have around. One of my headlamps has this feature but the rest don't however I've always got my keys with me so...red LED keychain light!
The cyan one is just an experiment. I've heard that under some circumstances cyan is better for preserving night vision.
I really have no need for the UV and infrared versions but this is the cheapest way to add those lights to my "collection". The UV light might be entertaining for a while as far as looking at anything that glows under UV light.
I don't have any infrared cameras or night vision scopes but I know that some cheap digital cameras don't have good filtering for the visible spectrum and can pick up some infrared so this will be an experiment. I will use my digital point and shoot screen as the receiver and see if I can "see" with the infrared keychain light. I did test this theory out somewhat with my TV remote in a dark room and I can see the remote when I push the button using the camera.
So, I'll have one or two useful lights from this order and one or two that I'll be able to experiment with from time to time. You never know when you might wish you had an UV or Infrared light source :)
You'll notice that I didn't order a white LED version. The free one that Battery Junction sends out is fine for that :)
Look at it this way for $10 where else can you get a UV light or an IR light? Or where else can I can a red LED in a light this small? Or in a cyan light this small?
I could get 5 Sipik SK68's but I would have just more of the same (and I gave my last SK68 away anyway).
The lights in and of themselves are somewhat interesting. I got them with a "covert cover" which is removable I believe but is to eliminate spill. Good especially for the UV one. They have blinky modes (4) and I think the brightness is variable. I think it's programmable. Not sure about the details as that's not why I bought them and the details were sketchy on the BJ site.
Still $50 does seem like a lot of money for plastic button keychain lights :)
I found a review so here's some more info. They have a removable battery cover, have an electronic switch, comes with a keychain with a spring loaded clip so the light itself can come off easily. It comes with a hands free holder that clips on to a cap and has a magnetic edge to the clip so that it can be placed on a metal surface.
You can configure the light to come on and off with a single click or to come on in low and ramp to high or come on in high and ramp to low. It can be set to momentary or stay on mode. The flash modes are like the Proton Pro it looks like. If you ramp from one end of the range to the other and keep holding the button down for a few more seconds then it will go to the strobes otherwise it will not.
This may seem like a lot of functionality for a light that isn't that bright but I think it's interesting for several reasons. Depending on which light you get you may want to configure it differently. Personally I'm not going to configure this to be a headlamp because I'm sure button batteries are expensive for what they are (and I don't wear baseball caps).
The red LED version and the cyan LED version are for preserving night vision and to do that they need to be low so the ability to have the light come on in low and ramp to high is nice.
The IR one is just an experiment but since I can't see if it's on it will be nice to have that set to momentary mode. The same would apply to the UV one.
For hiking I'd probably wear the red one on a string around my neck.
Relax man you don't have to explain to us why you spent $50 bucks on key chain lights, but we do expect at least a mini review. Battery junction has some really cool stuff but there shipping is kind of expensive and that bothers me because they are almost driving distance for me.
Their shipping was $4.50 or something like that for first class mail. There was a cheaper $3.50 option as well. The cpf2011 discount was enough to cover basic shipping.
I am relaxed :) but will give a mini-review when they come. I had no idea you could get UV and IR keychain lights for around $10!
Just about anywhere in China, for about 1$-2$ a piece, but probably not the same quality. (And if you can't find a suitable complete solution, you can just mod the simplest keychain light with a cheap 5mm LED, they're available cheap for the types of lights you bought. Again, probably not the same quality.)
If you're willing to do some surgery, you can pull out the IR filter from cheap web/digital cameras and get this effect. You can also pick them up complete with a few IR illumination diodes at the usual places (DX, ebay, etc)
I hesitated as I used that abbreviation but I didn't I didn't want to have to write out Battery Junction yet again in that thread At least the predictable occurred and now I can forget about my poor choice in deciding to abbreviate :)
Don't worry bryan, you're not the only one that thinks you're slightly insane. :)
I got a microlight. Had a few of them actually. They were TITS back in 2004. It has a clickie and it can ramp up or down which is pretty cool for a button light (although what's the point of having less than "not enough light" lol) Some hidden flash mode I can't remember how to activate (or care to figure out). I also have a Swiss Army Knife button light. Looks really cool with a white cross and red background. It's in my drawer right next to my Photon.
Haha...yes, guilty as charged. I got a little carried away. Actually, I'm glad I ordered the red and UV one but I don't really need the IR one and I have no idea why I ordered the cyan one!
I don't have any interest in the more popular items of today...large XM-L lights so I was attracted by the gadget factor :) I know they've been out a while but they are still somewhat unusual :)
Being able to dim a dim light is a bit funny however I had astronomy in mind for the red and cyan ones so there was some method to the madness :)
I should have looked for a 1 AAA version of the UV one also but I was on a roll!
Problem with cheap UV is they are usually 390 nm and above meaning there is far to much light in the visible spectrum an almost nothing at 365 nm were you really want the output to be.
Most of the light for these is supposed to be outside the visible range (370nm) according to Photon. There purple lights are just inside that range and can be used for some similar purposes.
I think I may have lucked out. I received a message from the company today saying that they hadn't charged my account and were holding the order to wait for the IR model to arrive. So I changed my order to just the UV and Red model.
I don't know if they will get my email in time since the IR model was supposed to arrive today or tomorrow but hopefully they will and I will just get the UV and Red model which were the only practical things I ordered :)
