What did you use your flashlight for today?

[bykfixer]

Today my lights were used in the daytime while diagnosing a misfiring engine.
The motor would not fire until my son and I swapped out a throttle position sensor. Idle was bouncing like mad due to air bubbles after replacing the throttle body and some idle control coolant hoses.
Today it began to flat out misfire when warm. Ran perfect when cold. Wut-thuh? So using my yellow SureFire G2x Pro to look for broken wires or perhaps a cracked vacuum hose led to finding a broken wire to the idle control thingy.


The little gray connector is the culprit.
The others are practice connectors and useful for spare pins with some wire.
I really don't like splicing but may have to this time. The pins that slide onto the idle control valve connection point are smaller than I have in stock and good luck getting part numbers for them from Honda. It's why I kept the broken gray connector on the left we got at a junkyard a while back.

Also enjoyed using a 5 lumen hypertough magnet tipped light from WalMart to pluck a dropped wrench from the abyss...



Perfect for spotting and retrieving small dropped items.


Later I'll do this type of repair with new pins hopefully.

Broken connector was replaced with a non broken one.

Like this:


To this:

 

[blah9]

Nice work! I've been mostly using my EDC, the Olight S2R Baton, in hotels as have been traveling. It's so much easier to just use it to navigate the room at bedtime and in the middle of the night than to find the light switches and all that. Plus it's so convenient to recharge via USB when on the go.

 

[FPV]

I just used a Convoy while vacuuming my home office, so I could see beneath tables, desks, or dark corners of the room. It is weird that most modern vacuum units no longer have any lights.

 

[vadimax]

Construction works in the office. No light and dangling wires... creeepy

 

[cerbie]

Power outage!

 

[jorn]

Used my zebralight headlight + a jetbeam jet 1 on a gorillapod while plastidipping.

 

[bykfixer]

I used my PK PL2 on low to light up tiny crevices inside an electrical connector to an electronic idle controller while using the smallest precision screwdriver in the set to push connector pins into said connector.

The teeny, tiny thin surface of a flat area on the pin was a few mm's into the connector but needed to be pushed 'home' a few more mm's to ensure the proper contact took place when the connector was refastened.

The little 20 lumens lit up the tiny area causing the shiney metal on the pin to stand out like a sore thumb making it easy to see where the tip of the tiny screwdriver needed to be placed to provide the best "shove" point.


Them's some mighty small push points.

 

[ven]

Very cool Jorn, looks fun!!!!

I use a light in daytime more than nigh time mr fixer, if i add up the hours in a day to whats used at night.

Is it ready to go yet? What got you actually onto the preludes in the 1st place? Always liked them myself, but never owned one..............

 

[bykfixer]

Very cool Jorn, looks fun!!!!

I use a light in daytime more than nigh time mr fixer, if i add up the hours in a day to whats used at night.

Is it ready to go yet? What got you actually onto the preludes in the 1st place? Always liked them myself, but never owned one..............

I'll tell the story in the "around the campfire" "once upon a time" thread instead of taking this one off track. But I've enjoyed working on cars since I was a little kid. Up until Preludes it was always cars from the late 1960's.

I forgot to mention using my PR-1 to add light to a flower I was taking a picture of. It lit dark places allowing the camera to properly meter everything around it.

 

[ven]

Will have a read of that later on:thumbsup:

 

[chainsolid]

My EDC @Songkarn Festaival in Thailand
[IMG
][/IMG]

 

[bykfixer]

Tonight I took a new 2aa thrower with me to compare to some with much more output, but a spread beam. Idea being how well each would work finding a dark object about 50' away in thick under brush.

Well due to the overwhelming output of those spread beams, when 50' from the edge of thick woods I could see just as far into the thick under brush with the 375 lumen light.

I took a few pix to make my point:


1000 lumen 2320


700 lumenX3


375 lumen 2360

Sure it won't light the entire football field goal to goal, side to side like the other two will.
But not bad for a little ole 2aa flashlight running on alkalines.

 

[LeanBurn]

TH20...to install tuned PCM into my truck.

 

[bykfixer]

I received some LED classics today so I took a couple out for a walk. Pre-Nite-Ize Inovas. Not sure which editions and all that but am doing some research. The ones I took tonight were an X1 with the little dome inside the lens and a TIROS X0. I left the "Snap-On" engraved X5 and X03 at home. Not sure the X5 is pre-Nite-Ize as the tailcap only has Inova on it.



The rest have "Emissive Energy"


The X5 also seems to have a born on date:

Or some sort of means of an ID of something.
The X03 is seemingly a post-TIROS edition...

Anyway so my usual (as of late) Pelican 2360 was the guide-r. But once I got past street light lumens the X0 was turned on and WOW! My initial thought was back in 04-06 when this was new owners must've been marveling how LED's have caught up to a 3D Maglite. A whopping 40 something lumens from a 5" flashlight. There must've been a lot of buzz about these solid as a rock lights.

I found some bushes to test how well the ole gal would cut through the dense vine-age etc and... not bad... especially for only 40 some lumens. And no Mag ugly in the beam. So then for the heck of it I pulled out my little 1 triple a PL2 and shined it in the same spot.
(Price is Right tuba you didn't win jingle plays in background)... Suddenly the X0 didn't seem so impressive. So I regained my perspective, went back into '05 mode when my mini mag was likely my edc... and resumed my "holy cow these musta been impressive back then" mindset and enjoyed frolicking through some nearby woods with my classic LED light. The X1? Hmmm, a Mag solitaire with a new battery would give than one a run. But it'll certainly be a fine, fine addition to my bedside table 2am nature call assortment.

Next day Edit: After reading old CPF threads until my eyes watered it was obvious the more things change the more they stay the same. Many-an excited user has rain on their parade by nit-pickers, many wanted there's to be upgraded to the latest gadgetry and many thought these were the greatest thing since water in the dessert.
I set my non tailstanding twisty UI, 15+ blumen X1 in a coffee cup and stared at the ceiling at 1am thinking back to a decade ago and wondered how many of these fine flashlights are still in use today. I know I can't wait to brag about them in my little slice of the planet.
End edit:


R to L: X5, X03, X1


The X0


Top to Bottom: X0, X1, X03 and X5.

Long live the twisty light.

After initial posting Edit:
I did an X1 vs Solitaire and the X1 is a lot btighter. It's just so dang floody that unless it's completely dark you could mistake it for a much dimmer output.
I could get a pencil lead sized beam of an incan solitaire as bright as the X1 but there was practically no spill. The X1 spot is bigger, about as bright but a ton of spill would make the X1 a great find something in the dark shed light. I'll use the X5 and X03 over the next couple of days but I feel like the X0 will be my favorite.
End edit.

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Let me brag for you - how cool they L@@K.

~ Chance

 

[bykfixer]

Let me brag for you - how cool they L@@K.

~ Chance

These things cause me to regret not being a flashaholic long ago.
Available at Target back then? Are you kidding me? All the while I was adding to my incan collection not knowing LED lights were as bright....

 

[berryns]

Used my Surefire 6p with Malkoff M61LL to search for a splinter in my son's hand and to ride my bike at night.

The 6p, powered by an 18650, is mounted with a Fenix AF02 on my bicycle. During winter months the 6p stays permanently mounted. During the summer, I remove it after use so that the lithium battery doesn't heat to 120+ F in my garage.

 

[BellaPaul]

I used mine for checking the basement for raccoons. Then my son used it for testing his teeth strength and hitting his sister. I had to take it away from him and he started wailing.

 

[think2x]

We were at the movies. During pre-movie advertisements an usher was helping a guy look for something under the seats but you could see the guy struggling with the dim light they had. I pulled out the Armytek Wizard Pro XHP50, turned on turbo 2 and handed it too him. They got the area checked much quicker with the Wizard and were grateful. I noticed several looks of awe from the people sitting behind us.

 

[Monocrom]

These things cause me to regret not being a flashaholic long ago.
Available at Target back then? Are you kidding me? All the while I was adding to my incan collection not knowing LED lights were as bright....

Yes, I bought a few at Target back in the day. Still have them around here, somewhere. I remember EDCing the X5 along with a stock pen-clip carried 2AA Mini-Mag as my first two EDC lights. (How times have changed.) Target used to have a surprisingly good selection of lights back then. Maglite, Inova, Rock River were their big three. Then their flashlight aisle became absolute garbage for quite a few years, until maybe 3 or 4 years ago when they started offering powerful LED lights. Not necessarily quality ones. But very bright and good enough for most folks.

But yeah... quite a few years ago if you wanted a quality light and didn't want to order one online, you made a trip to Target.

Back in the day, LED Wave offered an improved version of the X5. Basically, it had a carry-clip, knurling, and the very earliest thing that looked like a strike bezel before such a thing even existed. Though it was perfectly circular. Didn't last long as the company decided to abandon the private sales market, for commercial sales of their lights.