Rat Patrol

I live in a suburb of DC. It's legal here to have certain farm animals. A herd of goats lives here at the house. The goat feed attracts rodents. I have an ongoing battle with rats.

I found that this species of rats is repulsed by a fast strobe. I bought a plug-in 120V strobe light which worked great until it broke. Since then, I've resorted to using my pre-programmable series Zebralight headlamps (meaning, ones that came out before programming was introduced) set on strobe, which work even better. The headlamp design makes it a simple matter to position the headlamp standing on the battery cap and pointed to where the rats hang out.

The only downside is that the strobes are keyed to H1. Meaning, the battery wears out within a few hours. I'd like the strobe to run all night.

I'm ordering an H600fd in a week or so. I hope that I will be able to program H1 to a medium level, and that the strobe will then key to the reprogrammed H1.

I wonder if anyone could do an experiment for me and determine if that is the case or not. That is, is it possible to strobe the light at something less than max illumination?

I could just wait till the light arrives and check it myself, but curiosity is getting the better of me.

Thanks in advance.

The real rat patrol is in Alberta Canada. We have a special ops group that liquidates any rats reported within our provincial boundary. It is the only rat free place in the populated world....exclusive mention in Ratatoui the movie special feature.

I researched the topic and I am humbled by the exploits of those who hunt down, poison, or otherwise neutralize every last rat in their region. Blasting the infiltrators with pulsed photons, as I do around here, is quite tame in comparison.

Still it's better than nothing, since my rat trap, good as it is, doesn't quite get the job done, and I'm loathe to poison lest my goats inadvertently nibble the deadly bait.

The H600Fd is on its way via first class USPS. Soon we'll all know if the the light can be dialed down for all night strobe service.

Stay tuned, my fellow flashies.

Drum roll please...

And the answer is that the strobe in all group levels (G5, G6, and G7) on the H600Fd MkIV is always H1 1568Lm

Which is the way most users would probably want it. When you need a fast strobe, you probably are in a tight spot, needing to signal someone or incapacitate them, and you want it on super-high, and you don't want to have to start thinking about what group you're in on your light and if you will need to go to G5 if you're in G6 or G7 in order to get a bright fast strobe.

Aside from discouraging rats from joining the party, I'm not sure how many other fast strobe situations call for medium lumens.