Challenge Week #1: Incandescent Only! (2021 edition)

[bigburly912]

Had to use my phone today to look in the back of a circuit breaker for a sticker about the size of a quarter that is wedged in behind around 200 wires. No way to get a flashlight in there. Had to take a picture of it. I wanted to be able to make it the whole week with no LED under any circumstance whatsoever. Wish there was a better way to describe it haha.

 

[tech25]

Section 1. b & c should cover you IMO.

Good save! I felt a bit guilty when I realized I turned my HDS on.

This challenge reaffirmed my enjoyment for simple or intuitive lights. Now I want to get a clicky and rotary HDS with the Samsung emitter in 4K. Along with a P91, and a.... this is dangerous!

 

[id30209]

My god, last time somebody mentioned incan week i was just hotwire...but i was working.
Dang, now i'm at home, enjoying days off and only thing i've used is 2 maybe 3 times little Solitaire for night WC runs.
Interesting...


Sent from Tapatalk

 

[bykfixer]

Glad everyone has been largely successful in what may have been the most challenging one yet for some.
Little by little the mighty LED has gone from an addition to the light bulb to the replacement of the light bulb. Therefore folks have become acustomed to LED lights and now the light bulb'd flashlight has become a novelty to many. All around the home is LED, LED, LED so it's pretty easy to slip up. Hell even great grandpa text messages and uses LED flashlights these days.

I "LED proofed" my life the day before the challenge began so I kinda had a leg up, but even then last evening I reached for an LED light once, out of habit. In 24 hours my week will be done and to be honest I'll probably use my aviatEr with the light bulb from now on.

 

[Katherine Alicia]

I didn`t really have to alter much at all for this challenge, Yes I have LED lights all around the house, but my natural preference in the winter is to carry an Incan light anyway, so there wasn`t really any temptation there. I have missed my little Manker E02 EDC light that I carry clipped on everywhere I go and I have gone to go `lighthouse mode` a few times (especially when my hands are full) but my little buddy wasn`t there
I`v also found myself wishing I had a small incan light with a clip (perhaps single AAA or AA) that I could replace my E02 with but it`s probably not possible.

Going forwards I find myself thinking of all possible Light challenges that could come up next and hoping that I`ll be able to take part in those also because it adds an extra dimension to the sometimes monotonous day.
Perhaps we go further back in time, from incandescent to incendiary :candle: only candles and kerosene lamps etc... I`ll be there with my can of hairspray and a Bic lighter "Check out my new Thrower!"

 

[bykfixer]

The only right angle AA light I know of is a 2 cell version of the old TL-122/MX991 flashlight used by soldiers……

Now if you go back in time far enough one by DayLo was a tiny little 2c number carried by some soldiers late in WW1. Of course it's way bigger than your E02 but I bet you'd find restoring one of those to be a fun project. Especially since you only use rechargeable batteries. It uses the E10 screw in bulb and a fisheye lens so you can tailor it to a pure flood with the bulb you pick or make it throwey by picking a #222/224 bulb that has a magifier tip.

Or the JustRite aviator from WW2 is a 2x AA that can become a red light by flipping a lever that places a red lens over the bulb. Both use the pocket clip as a sliding on/off switch.

 

[Katherine Alicia]

it`s funny because that fisheye light at the top looks like 19`th century Victorian tech and much older than the green one, I`d be happy to give that top light a home
I`ll keep looking on eBay, I`v had some lovely lights from there before it`s just a question of being patient really and keeping some powder dry in case one comes up.

 

[bykfixer]

One of the things I like about an incan flashlight is the end user serviceable aspect. In 2021 that is not for many but to a tinkerer a finicky flashlight can be a fun thing. When the aa minimag I bought in the early 90's refused to light this week I just simply dismissed it and brought out another one I picked up on clearance a few years back. But this morning my curiosity got me trying to get it going.

A few years ago I tried swapping in a nite ize LED into the old girl at 2am in a dark pickup truck while board at work. Never having done such a thing it ended up with a broken on/off switch. That little part that clearly says do not remove…… well when you remove it "boing" a little spring flys out along with an important little metal thing I never did find. Member Poppy's dad had given him a minimag to try to save from maglite krypton, the alkaline battery. Poppy had gone at it with a saws-all to no avial so he sent me the switch, which had not been killed by the alkaline paste. I installed it in old #91 and for the longest time it worked just fine.

This morning I figured out something had slipped out of joint in the switch and like a dislocated shoulder, I just popped it back into place and all was right again……that was after discovering one of the two batteries inside the light was empty. The other eneloop read near full yet one had become depleted enough to not allow the light to fire up at all. Weird. But that old pewter color (now called gray) minimag travelled with me for years, never once being slimed by a leaking battery or blown bulb. And old faithful is back to working at 100% again today. So instead of going back onto the retired shelf I'll keep it in the rotation and perhaps one day I'll actually use the spare bulb still in the tailcap.

 

[bykfixer]

it`s funny because that fisheye light at the top looks like 19`th century Victorian tech and much older than the green one, I`d be happy to give that top light a home
I`ll keep looking on eBay, I`v had some lovely lights from there before it`s just a question of being patient really and keeping some powder dry in case one comes up.

The daylo came in officer and enlisted version. Officer was a nickel plated body. Enlisted was a really dark, almost black painted body. DayLo was a weird gimmick tried by EverReady (still 2 words at the time) where they did a contest to come up with a different name than the term flashlight. Now Conrad Hubert spent millions out of his own pocket, (which back then would be like billions today) trying to get the world to stop calling them flashlights (or torches overseas). And as you can see today it failed.

EverReady never received any contracts to supply flashlights to troops in the war to end all wars. As part of his quest to change the term he donated a few thousand of these lights to the boys for his part in the war effort. They were actually pretty nice little flashlights for the period. I lucked up and found a pair being sold together for (if I recall correct) about $35 at eBay. Neither worked but I got both going and use a #222 in the dark one and a #14 in the silver one. In stock form they aren't very bright at all, but both of mine have a very high resistance (like 15+ ohms) so with enough polishing inside parts they could probably burn a lot brighter.

EverReady still two words during their DayGlo period

The officer and enlisted versions

Fill light via BiC lighter. lol

Maybe I'll have one up and running at 100% by the next incan callenge.

 

[Katherine Alicia]

Yup, still like the darker one best, I`m glad you pointed out there is a difference between the 2 ways Ever Ready is spelled, I`m used to both but it could make a difference when searching online. here`s the Old way:

next to it in red (if you can make it out) is one of my lights made by BEREC (British Ever Ready Electrical Company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Ever_Ready_Electrical_Company
they`re long gone now and the anagram name has been taken over by; Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (berec)

 

[Stress_Test]

Wow, you guys (and gals!) have some neat old stuff!

 

[bykfixer]

Made it. Woohoo! A couple of close calls but no slip ups.

I put the 4500k Tana singLED back the aviatEr and the Lumens Factory bulb back in the cross hairs E1. It just seemed more appropriate to put the LED back in a light that was born with an LED and a light bulb back in that old E1. The stock E2E clicky will definitly get more use. Such a cool little flashlight.

Thanks for the fun idea stress test.

 

[Katherine Alicia]

No issues here either, it was a giggle

 

[Olumin]

Since I have been carrying an incan and was using a modified 6P around the house for the past weeks anyway, this was not too hard. I had to put my LED lights away and out of sight to avoid picking them up however. The only challenge was lighting up my path to work in the morning with "only" a 40 lumens E-Series on my belt, probably less since the battery wasn't new. I'm not somebody who carries more than one light on my person. I'm interested in what is coming for week #2.

 

[nbp]

My final day for the Incan Challenge! I would call it a success. I have learned that most of the time I could get by with one flashlight, and that most of the time I could get by with 90 lumens. Oddly, I wanted less lumens more often than I wanted more, so I am looking forward to getting back to lights with more modes.

 

[LeanBurn]

I did it using just the Maglite 2D. It was easy to see how previous generations got by with this type and amount of output as it was sufficient for most tasks. The only things I felt lacking was portability and the ability to go hands free comfortably. Putting it in the crook of my neck was doable but awkward.

Fun stuff!

 

[jabe1]

Made it through the week. It ended this morning for me with my wife asking if I knew I put my solitaire through the wash...still works fine. It survived a week of edc carry and I only used the one battery.👍🏼

 

[bykfixer]

Self high-fivez all around.

 

[bigburly912]

I think we need a 100 lumens or less challenge next so people can see if they really need those 275000000000 Lumen lights.

 

[Jean-Luc Descarte]

I think we need a 100 lumens or less challenge next so people can see if they really need those 275000000000 Lumen lights.

I'm all for that!