strobe modes DO serve a purpose, actually!

This is absolutely not of importance; yet, I just felt like sharing an experience I have had about a two hours ago.

So- tonight, I had been assigned to this silly job of changing a few road signs in complete darkness - of course, I hadn’t been issued a proper worklight, no company car, and it happened to be a winding country road in the woods well known for DUI-boyracers speeding at night - and my SRK was at home on my desk. Bummer.

I had to use my car’s headlights to cast enough light on my site; but just letting it sit on the side of the road (in the middle of a curve!) wasn’t exactly save; not even with the emergency flashers on. For some odd reason, I did have my very first L2 with me, sporting one of their older three-modes XM-L dropins.

Set to strobe and placed on the ground, it highlighted my (white) car very well! (Disclaimer note: I never shone the light into oncoming traffic, the business end of the L2 was strictly aimed at my own car))

Every car passing by slowed almost to a full stop, then carefully passed in first gear. Even a couple busily geocaching (is that a verb, actually?) stopped and gazed in wonder for minutes. All they had was the older Mini M@glite LED (not the Pro+, not even the Pro!) and a LED-Lenser P4. Lensers don’t do strobe; we talked for a while and I showed them my mildly abused LD10 and the Convoy S2 with its super-warm, yellowish 5C tint.

Were my actions legal and conforming to traffic laws? Probably not.

Was it effective? Very much, so! :slight_smile:

That'll do the trick. I do wish these lights had a slower blink though. I think that would work just as well. Fortunately texaspyro is working on a SRK driver that will allow us to set our own blink rate.

In an urban environment like New York City,
strobe mode is helpful in making drivers aware
of your position.

a beacon like in nitecore also good.
faster than a beacon but slower than strobe is nice…

I set my XIAOZHI on strobe when I ride my bicycle .

It rides in my pocket unless I see a situation that I feel I need to be more visible , then I whip it out .

heh

Strobe is great for getting peoples attention. And I actually prefer lights that do have it. Strobe mode only annoys the user if the light has a poor UI that forces the user to activate strobe when he does not want to use it.

I think strobe is ONLY good for getting people's attention. That being said a hidden strobe is most definitely to be included. Or something that doesn't get activated when cycling through modes.

I've used the strobe on my TN31 a few times to signal my friends while fishing and let them know where I am every half an hour or so (this is at like 2am, when the sky is dark, the air is cold and so is the beer).

Supposedly, the right frequency of strobe will scare off most predators/wild animals. I run across feral pigs occasionally out here, but have not had a light with strobe available to test out the theory.

Where did you hear about the wild animals being scared off? I like to know a definitive answer with mountain lions.

I once encountered a javelina which was standing in the middle of the park road/trail blocking it, and sort of waiting for me. When I strobed it, that did not affect it at all. Not wanting to tangle with it, I slowly backed off, still strobing it. Would you believe the thing followed me! When I increased pace, to my great relief, it did not increase pace.

I used mine to scare off a coyote on two occasions about a month ago. The first was the largest damn coyote I ever saw…probably a cross breed, but definitely a coyote. He was taller than my dog and he’s a 120# Akita. The light confused him; he changed directions several times, and I thought he might run into us not knowing where to run. The second took off about 60mph like I hit him with 600 volts…Coyotes are awesome animals.

thats exactly why i keep a light that can tail stand in my car. i did the same similiar thing you did about a month ago.
i had to change a flat tire on the side of the road and the road was pretty narrow, and was pretty nerv racking. so i took out my sl3 and put it underneith the car near the trunk and shined it upwards.
the sheer power of 2000 lumens illuminated the ground like i had those ol’ school ground effects….remember how cars used to put these colored led lights under their car to look cool hehe.

A relative of mine has a newborn, I went to visit him one night and held back from calling him from outside the house or ringing his phone or doorbell in case the baby was asleep, so I used the strobe to alert him I’m there. Worked like a charm. I also use it when I pickup my g/f from the mall. The strobe instantly gets her attention instead of me trying to explain on the phone where I’m parked.

Mine hasn't worked on possum or skunks yet. Both just stop and stare at me.

I had a mountain lion that ran away as soon as I turned my light on...before I had a chance to switch into strobe mode. Since that worked, I kept using the normal high mode every time it returned.

Coyotes are very timid. I could see it confusing them, but every time I see a coyote, it's very happy to keep a healthy distance from me.

San Francisco coyotes aren’t timid at all. They’re used to idiots feeding them and treating them like pets. The worse are the coyote/dog hybrids…they show no fear of people at all. I drive to work around 5:30am and I often see coyotes wandering the streets looking for food. I’m always concerned that they’ll chase down and attack early morning joggers, the running motion triggering the attack reflect, etc.

Did the mountain lion return several times?
How close was the mountain lion?

It kept returning for hours. I had my food bag on a boulder next to my campsite. I wrongly assumed that I'd only have to worry about rodents trying to get to it, and I wasn't worried since my food bag was bear resistant. Oops. It was about 10 yards away.

Were you by yourself?

Did you wet your pants?

By myself, and it was worse for me because I was cowboy camping. I didn't mess myself, but I didn't get much sleep. I'm not a fan of seeing or hearing animals around my campsite at night.

Thank goodness, nothing bad happened to you. That was too close for comfort. Planning another camping soon?

Thats why I hate panthers. ( thats what they call them here ) D*mn sneaky things. Your eyelids seem to lock open when you see them. Its been a couple years but one killed a ladies German shepherd in her yard. Bout a mile from here.