What is it about flashlights???

I’ve recently been asked by some of my friends, “That’s an interesting thing to be obsessed with… why flashlights?” And to be honest, I didn’t really have a good answer. After some thought, the best I could come up with was:

- I’m generally interested in things that light up or glow

- It involves new technology that I’m interested in

  • There’s something neat about being able to have light at your disposal at any time.

What are your thoughts? Why are YOU all so interested in flashlights?

That’s just like asking an alcoholic why he is alcoholic. :bigsmile:

For me, it hits a trifecta as follows:

First, I need a hobby that is affordable.

Second, I need hobby that challenges me. In a LED light you have numberous competing challenges. Thermal, Electrical, Optical, Chemical, Mechanical, Size and cost constraints, run time, modes, etc.

Third, I really like being able to shed actual light on a situation. Outside, blast it away on a big scale. Inside, get just the right amount of light, etc.

I guess there is a forth. I really like the community here and BLF. I want to contribute something since I learn and enjoy so much here.

Its primal, throws back to fire.

:beer: Ma :beer: rried :beer:

For me it is influence at a distance. To be able to “reach out” and change the environment at some point in the distance. When I was a kid, I enjoyed snowball fights because you could throw (there’s that word) a snowball have it affect someone off at a distance. There is something about extending your influence out as far as possible that had a great appeal for me. CB radio appealed to me for the same reason, years past. Wired connections like the internet or land lines do not.

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It’s like when you are interested in cars (expensive hobby), some model reach a design that were perfected with time.
There is luxury cars (Fenix, Nitecore, 4seven…) but budget cars can be discussed too (Convoy or Roche).
Custom cars is a big hobby too (like modify flashlight).

So there is good model that you can’t afford, some other that are cheap and meant to be used everyday and we love them because they are simply beautiful.

And then there’s Solarforce, the kit car of the light world. :bigsmile:

I think it comes down to what makes my brain different from most other people’s—the combination of the things that work the way they should and the things that don’t. Basically, I’m a little different, but I’m pretty cool with it at this point! :party:

I’ve always enjoyed complex machines/tech systems. Imagining how all the parts are interconnected and seeing processes flow from one stage to another have always fascinated to me. One thing that has constantly surprised me and astounded others is how quickly I will adapt to interface with a new system, piece of technology, or a machine. It’s hard to explain, but I quickly feel very connected. My mind tends to be a step or two ahead of my hands. As you can imagine, user interfacing/experiences are a huge part of my enjoyment or hatred of a product.

I develop deep attachments to products or systems, as I feel I can exploit them to make my life better. The only cars brand I will buy will be a BMW (preferably a lovingly cared for E24 :laughing: because I love the way German overengineering leads to buttons placed are exactly where I expect them to be that feel how I know they should feel, a steering wheel that is so perfectly weighted with a connection to the road that is unparalleled. I love my Surface Pro, because of how calculated and purposeful the magnesium frame feels to hold. I love the cherry blue mechanical keyboard for it’s satisfying pop-CLICK action that comes with every keypress. Hell, I even love Windows 8.1 for it’s incredibly useful start menu search functionality. With a high-performance SSD and the proper settings, a tap of the windows key and a quick blast of keystrokes will give me the app or file I want faster than the UI shows it in the list. It’s incredible.

I could go on and on about the things I use every day, I should probably start a blog.

Anyway, flashlights! The community opened the door, and the draw of modding and interacting with my lights (and eventually handing them on to members in the community or creating new ones) will keep me here for quite some time. But I love the way the premium lights feel. That doesn’t mean that I’m afraid to use them—none of my lights will ever become intentional shelf queens—I just have such respect for well-designed, thoughtful products. I want to use this hobby to teach myself valuable electrical and machining skills. I could see this developing into something larger (maybe I’ll pull a Richard @ MtnElectronics!), but I could also see it giving me the skills for a variety of life-long relaxing hobbies!

(Wow, that was a rant)

I don’t think I would have really gotten into if not for BLF. All I was doing was innocently looking for a light that could use some of my spare 18650 and 14500 batteries. The next thing you know I’m modding lights and now I’m hooked.

I just blame it on BLF, it’s all your fault!!

I think it’s a ton of fun for a not horribly expensive hobby. I’m an insomniac so I’m often up all night and having the flashlights gives me something to do with my nights.

That’s one of my reasons too. Also why my previous hobbies were airsoft and RC cars. I can control something or affect something from a distance.

I also just like building things in general and customizing things to work how I want it to work.

I’ve always liked flashlights for many of the reasons already stated.

But I didn’t really get into it as a hobby until about 5 years ago. That was about the time I discovered that LEDs were available in different tints and that you could build your own light with your choice of tint for a fraction of the price of a name brand light. I bought my first soldering iron at Radioshack, my first neutral XPG from Kaidomain, and there was no looking back.

As a child (’70s) i was always fascinated by powerful flashlights of all kind.
About 4 years ago i started Geocaching and needed a flashlight for night caches. After googling around some time, i found, the flashlights evolved to some sort of science of their own and started to investigate further. So i found this forum and meanwhile an impressive collection of lights is at my disposal that friends start joking about my obsession to flashlights.

That’s an additional point concerning to me. :wink:

I have no clue. I am just in it for the hat!

They have hats? :open_mouth:

Because I can’t see in the dark. Flashlights are tools that let me do things that otherwise I couldn’t, or could but only with the greatest difficulty. There are other tools I like for similar reasons.

I have biases toward long runtimes and rechargeable batteries. At a couple of points in the past, I sort of had a hobby of exploring indoors, in parts of buildings where the public wasn’t necessarily expected to go, so tended to not have lighting or power…. (It was actually a common pasttime where I went ro school.) Times like that, dependability and runtime matter more than output.

I remember the time I went into the caves behind the house when I was eight with only kitestring and a old 3d maglite (so I could club any critter that dared moved with my puny 8 year old arms), and the flashlight died before I even got to the end of the kitestring. Absolutely terrifying for a kid.Went and did it again a week later. 8) After that I went on the neverending quest for a good flashlight… or twenty.

also the search for the perfect edc

Sounds like Batman’s story. :bigsmile:

Speaking of perfect EDCs… I wonder which light he’d choose…

people accuse me of being “zany”, and really sometimes i am… BUT, often enough? I’m really just telling the truth. And? at 45? I have done enough soul searching, pondering, wondering about my philosophy, enough to say…

I am PLAYING with my flashlights! Wheee!

(god that feels good to just SAY it, LMAO… i am PLAYING most times.)

Yeah, i can gang my hat on the idea that i DO NEED, and actually NEED a “good” flashlight fro work, delivery driver after th sun goes down.

I actually NEED a flashlight to go thru the woods, or down to the river to fish at night, or cutting thru an alley sometimes…

but… I honestly dont “need” a thousand lumens, lmFao… i can reliably get by just FINE with probably 200 “good honet” lumens, and just th right medium and low settings… with a good reflector…

at THAT point? i’m plain just having FUN with it. I have fallen in love with a well focused emitter, and swinging it around on 1000 lumens, “looking for the house number”, hee hee snicker

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its getting a bit ridiculous now? i was looking at the 135 dollar “HID” lights someone posted about? If it wasnt for the 45 second warm up period, LMAO… i can just picture the look on someones face if tey saw me casually touch THAT thing off “to see house numbers” on a dark street, lmao…

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this all happened quite by accident. I was looking into building long range infrared emitters… which led me way from the laser sites, to the flashlight sites… and i guess i spent a couple months too many playing with LED emitters… i got hooked…

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but… i remember PLAYING with flashlights as a kid? and getting yelled at for wasting batteries. Older walking? i watched my ON battery usage as the alkaline costs add up…

i’m like a little kid with my lithium ion rechargeables now, honest to god… I can just PLAY, and it doesnt cost me anything extra, LMAO… (nickle cadmum sucked, back in the day… i honestly dodnt believe them when they said the new Nickle metal hydride was “good now”… lol

Oh good heavens! What a question! That's easy....

ummmm.....uh.....ummmm.... Uhhhh.... cause.... uhhhhh... Well, I .....uhhhhh...

Dan.

just ADMIT it, a lot of the time? youre just PLAYING… and having FUN…

its like GUNS… before i bought my first gun? The guy at the gu store asked me, what kind of gun i wanted. I hadnt really thought that much about it… so, he asked what i wanted one for?

I was kind of himming and hawing around… I knew i wanted a 22LR, ’os it would be cheap to go shooting, just plinking like a grown up kid with a bbgun…

but… I had been so “programmed” to think i had to “frame” every answer, so as to appear as if i wanted it for something that seemed “legitimate”… I though i would look like an idjit, if i said i just wanted something cheap to shoot, cos i wasnt going hunting much really, i wasnt doing any serious target shooting, i wasnt going to use it for self defense…

i couldnt COME UP WITH a legitimate sounding, plausible reason…

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the man LAUGHED, and explained…

“ha ha. Its OKAY… we’re all rednecks here in this store. You dont need an excuse or a REASON… heck, we all shot up a LARGE TREE until it fell over last weekend. Why?? It was fun, and the tree needed removed anyways. Why not? Its OKAY to just be giggling and having fun!”

so… I never forgot that.

“just for sh!ts and giggles” is a perfect reason to spend a couple hundred dollars on stuff you dont need, LMAO… as long as it makes you smile, and it makes someone else go “what the *&^% is the POINT of that???”, then its all worth it.

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I might have a “convert” soon… my one buddy? he has “noticed” some of my flashlights are dangerously close to being useful to spot deer, instead of having a big old regular deer light, for when spotlight season comes around before deer season…

he is noting the “handy”-ness of just having a regular sized flashlight that can do it in th glove box…

i almost FEEL BAD… its like giving him his first hit of crack, lol….