What did you use your flashlight for today?

[PhotonWrangler]

I used my PD-36R last night to navigate to a pier along a lake to watch the auroras.

 

[Jean-Luc Descarte]

Yesterday afternoon, during a bout of cabin fever, I just had the hankering to pedal. So I pocketed my Convoy M21B MAO, took my old bicycle down from the hook and went to fill the tires... and my pump failed on me. The plunger broke off from the shaft and stayed stuck inside the chamber. Used the M21B to look inside the chamber and fish it out. Turns out, the screw-in bit of the plunger broke into two, because of course it's cheap plastic. Ugh. I cut out the hose at the very base and tossed the whole thing in the recycling bin.

After some doing attaching that salvaged hose to an older (metal, good reliable metal) pump with a dried-up broken hose, I finally had a working pump. Puffed up the tyres and it was good to go... a good 10 minutes past sunset. The time working out the repairs was enough for me to only leave after twilight.

Normally I'd use my Lumintop B01 for a bike light, but it was stored in my apartment with no battery and I already had the M21B on hand, so on to the handlebar mount it went. I'm glad I took it for a spin too — it is a brilliant bike headlight. The FC40 in it puts out a lot of power even at 10% mode, and at 50% it easily rivaled the motorcycles on the street, both in flood and throw since the FC40 is domeless. The wide head and cooling fins meant cooling was not an issue in the slightest. When handheld it gets hot at 10% power, hot enough to burn skin at 50% even — but on the handlebar mount, when I parked and turned the light off, it was at room temperature. That's good design for sure.
It wasn't a long ride, 3-4km at most, but it was exactly what I needed. And hey, I found out a cool new use for one of my toys, so even better.

 

[iacchus]

The cat escaped last night while we were in and out looking at the heavens.

 

[rwolfenstein]

I used my HDS light to find out what the scurrying on my roof was, unfortunately the HDS wasnt bright enough to light up the roof. So I went back for my Mag-Charger with a Terralux 3 LED insert to light up the roof. Turns out it was a family of racoons. It was too bad that I couldnt see the Northern lights very well last night, unfortunate part of being where I am at.

 

[aznsx]

View attachment 61862

The cat escaped last night while we were in and out looking at the heavens.

Hopefully you meant to add a good ending, such as 'I used this light to find the cat and all was well' ;-)

 

[aznsx]

I used my HDS light to find out what the scurrying on my roof was, unfortunately the HDS wasnt bright enough to light up the roof. So I went back for my Mag-Charger with a Terralux 3 LED insert to light up the roof. Turns out it was a family of racoons. It was too bad that I couldnt see the Northern lights very well last night, unfortunate part of being where I am at.

Cool! I'd rather see the raccoons than the sky lights any day, but then I do think they're very cool...as long as they don't get into my crib and go wild in there, that is. That wouldn't be cool;-)

And so much for the 'all you need is a couple of hundred lumens' line; clearly sometimes that isn't the case.

 

[rwolfenstein]

Cool! I'd rather see the raccoons than the sky lights any day, but then I do think they're very cool...as long as they don't get into my crib and go wild in there, that is. That wouldn't be cool;-)

And so much for the 'all you need is a couple of hundred lumens' line; clearly sometimes that isn't the case.

Ironic how that works, I think the HDS is less than 300 lumens. However, when you have competing light outputs of street lamps you need something with a little more power to cut through those dark spots.

 

[iacchus]

Hopefully you meant to add a good ending, such as 'I used this light to find the cat and all was well' ;-)

Ahh, sorry. Yeah she came back after some coaching. She slips past us probably once a week or so, then just makes a game out of how annoyed she can get us before coming back. All is well, though.

 

[aznsx]

Ironic how that works, I think the HDS is less than 300 lumens. However, when you have competing light outputs of street lamps you need something with a little more power to cut through those dark spots.

Yep, sometimes people forget that often flashlights are not used in total darkness, and ambient light changes the whole equation.

 

[aznsx]

...to sneeze, when I desperately needed to but couldn't.

A couple of nights ago in the wee hours I was sitting in the LR of my dimly-lit abode when I was suddenly overcome with an uncomfortably intense and sustained need to sneeze, but could not. Finally,...

...Duhh - I grabbed the SL Strion DS-HL sitting next to my chair and blasted the white wall 10-12 ft. in front of me, and gazed at it momentarily. Seconds later the sneeze was over and I was feeling much better. I set the light back down and thought 'heck yeah my flashlights make me feel better'! There was of course a short delay before I could see the TV again, but I just hit the 'replay last n sec. button' a few times and I didn't miss a thing. Technology can be handy.