Looking for a UV flashlight to find golf balls at night. Naturally I need something that floods bushes with UV light. Hoping to find something POWERFUL!
Any suggestions?
Keeping in mind that you’ll also be a bug-magnet for every creepy-crawly for miles around…
…get a Convoy S2+ UV with 20mm ZWB2 filter.
Have you tried the convoy S12 and D4V2?
Recently acquired a Convoy S12 UV and am pretty happy with it. High output, reasonable size, good price. Significant upgrade from the Wurkkos WK30 I also have.
It’s a good mix hotspot and spill, not a pure flooder per se, but the spill alone is bright enough to make artificial fluorescent objects pretty bright.
For flood-only the Emisar D4V2 in mule UV config might be best, but it’s significantly more expensive.
Note: The S12 UV is powerful enough to need eye protection.
I don’t think you want a flooder for this…you want a balanced beam. Else you are not going to have much intensity at distances that will be most useful to you. There aren’t many flooders anyway, and that D4V2 above is a mule (which is super floody, like almost no beam or distance…nothing to focus the light from the emitters).
The Convoy S12 UV mentioned is maybe the best choice but the smaller pocketable S2+ can really hold its own. If you’re doing this on a course where you might be out for awhile, carry a spare battery with you and if you can turn the light off and do scans instead of keeping it on all the time, that will really extend run time. UV lights kind of eat batteries and diminish output rapidly, just a nature of the beast.
Convoy also has a couple of C8 body UV lights and those probably aren’t going to be enjoyable for you to use since they are fairly throwy and you don’t get much benefit from spill with the UV emitters. His newer M21A with the zooty UV emitter is a real powerhouse and has a great boost driver for efficiency and longer run time (and has a 21700 cell) but there’s no way I’d want that for what you’re doing…although it could help from a distance and make any easily visible balls really stand out. But any balls that are concealed by grass, leaves, or duff….you’re still going to need to be much closer to them for the photons to hit. With any of those you’ll want/need to buy the black filter glass lens and swap that out yourself (because of a current US patent). Because of that patent there are several light models that you probably won’t even be able to see on websites or ship to the US. Amazon has some ok UV lights but they’re not a great value. Alonefire and UV Beast are the two brands to look at, and they work, but they use cheap emitters and drivers (most of them do come with the filter lens, though….for now anyway). Just stay away from the old bi-pin through hole emitters (like in the 9- and 20- and 51- led lights….).
EDIT: just noticed you’re in BC…you might see other models, lucky you! Check the Convoy and Sofirn stores on aliexpress, or see what all Banggood has to sell. I think Sofirn had a C8F triple UV that would certainly be worth a look if it’s still there…there other C8_ models probably not.)
One thing to look into would be if a LFP cell (3.2V) would work. It won’t be nearly max-power and then drop off, but it’ll be a VERY consistent output from start to finish.
My GTmicro works with a LFP 14500 just fine, albeit it’s not a screamer, but in a pinch, I could always use one.
UVLEDs might have a higher forward voltage, though, which is why I haven’t tried it yet, as I don’t have a LFP 18650.
Plus, UVLEDs are pretty high-strung even within their rated output. Pushing past that can easily damage them fast, or at least degrade the UVLED’s output over time. So it’s sacrificing output for longevity (which, normally, I’m perfectly okay with).