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Petzl's Tikka series of headlamps welcomes a new design, the Tactikka XP which should be in production as of June. In August, the new Tactikka XP Adapt system will be available, a Tactikka XP headlamp which includes accessories for mounting it different places and in different ways.
First, the light itself: Tactikka XP is a 1-watt Luxeon light, with two control buttons on the top. The right-hand button controls power to the unit. The left button toggles through three levels of brightness, a blink function, and a temporary overdrive feature which drives the LED at maximum brightness for perhaps 20 seconds before the temperature sensors kick it back down again.
There's a battery level indicator on the side of the lamp body, a tiny LED which blazes orange when batteries are 70% depleted and turns red at 90% depletion. When the indicator color changes, the main light blinks to catch the user's attention.
Petzl has recently revamped its method of providing information about light output to consumers. See http://en.petzl.com/petzl/frontoffice/Lampes/static/referentiel/present_referentiel_en.jsp#glo_lux for a detailed explanation of how Petzl determines and defines light output for its products. With light range defined as the distance at which the light beam maintains 0.25 lux, Tactikka XP lamps achieve 35 meters on the high setting, 27 meters on medium, and 18 meters on low. Additionally, using the overdrive 'boost' feature, XP should reach out to 50 meters.
Petzl's commitment to precise and accurate information is laudable, and the standards appear to be objective and well-defined. The difficulty is that these standards are unique to a single company, making it very easy to compare products within that company but nearly impossible to compare those products accurately to those of any other company. Another opportunity to segue to Doug Ritter's notice of intent to do something about this:
The non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation believes there is a need for industry-wide standards that can be used to objectively measure the output parameters of portable directed lighting devices such as flashlights and headlamps and present that information to the end user in a useful manner. The ETS Foundation has started soliciting stakeholder interest in the development of such standards and is proposing that a committee be set up under ASTM International for development of consensus standards suitable for these purposes. If you are involved in this industry or are an institutional, military, government or non-governmental organization user of these lights who would benefit from such standards, please click here to email Doug Ritter for more information about these activites.
Tactikka XP comes with a simple headband without an overhead strap, in either Olive Green (with NATO patterned camo headband) or Desert Tan (with a plain headband). It also comes with three interchangeable colored diffuser lenses in red, blue, and green, and with a white diffuser lens. There's a nifty little built-in lens carrier mounted on the headband, so you can keep the swapped-out lenses handy. The diffuser lens in use, mounted in the face of the light body, easily slides out of the way to reveal the built-in concentric lens which provides a focused white beam.
When purchased as the Adapt variant, the lamp body will be black, and come with a universal mount for helmets and other surfaces, plus a clip allowing it to mount on a belt or jacket. The headband for the Adapt has a removeable overhead strap. Unlike the original Tactikka XP, Tactikka XP Adapt will be easily removed from its headband so carrying it in the hand or swapping it into a different mount is a literal snap. The entire Adapt system will also be available as separate accessories for existing lights in the Tikka line.
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At the lower end of the market, PremierLight introduced PL-13, which features their signature liquid-filled compass in the tail. We wouldn't want to bet our lives on that compass, but it's there.
The lightsource for the PL-13 is simply five white LEDs using a reflector system. It is O-ring sealed for water resistance.
PL-13 is very similar to PL-B, which was introduced last year, but it is somewhat brighter (no numbers in the product literature, so we're going by bare eyeballs here). The products are also different because PL-13 offers a blink mode. The first click of the midbody switch gives you constant on, the next gives you blink, and the final click turns the light off.
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Genesis, handsomely trimmed in grey and black, features a removeable accessory ring, so users can customize the light to suit themselves. Available accessories are a universal belt clip, a lanyard ring, or "roll control," a hexagonal ring to prevent rolling. Because of the way this system works, you won't be able to hang all of them off your light at the same time, but must choose between them. However, both the lanyard ring and the belt clip can be relied upon to prevent rolling as well as, or better than, the roll-control ring.
Genesis produces a bright 47 lumens through a proprietary Quantum lens, which provides a fairly narrow beam with a bright-centered hotspot. Company literature gives the throw distance as 72 meters. The light feels very sturdy in the hand and is waterproof to three meters.
Momentary-on flashes with a light touch of the rubberized tailcap switch, while constant-on requires a click. There's no provision for locking the light in the off position, though, so beware of battery loss if you drop it into your pack.
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Manufactured by PowerTech and wearing the Smith&Wesson brand name, the CaraBeamer is about what you'd expect from a $5 mini-light -- adequate, but nothing to write home about. A plastic disk nestled inside an aluminum carabiner clip, it's conveniently sized, but not especially sturdy-feeling.
A squeeze of the light body gets you momentary on, while constant-on is activated by sliding a miniscule tab on the top side. The product packaging says the CaraBeamer is waterproof.
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Manufactured by PowerTech and wearing the Smith&Wesson brand name, the Galaxy series of lights is a mixed bag.
Galaxy 1-Watt puts a single 1-watt Luxeon Star LED behind a reflector lens. It's got a somewhat protrusive end cap switch. Momentary-on happens with a push; to get constant-on you twist the tail. Untwist it slightly to lock the light off and drop it in your pack.
The construction looks and feels solid, and the anti-roll head ring is a nice touch.
At 35 lumens, Galaxy 1-Watt isn't quite bright enough to be "tactical," and at 6 1/2 inches (165mm) long, it is quite bulky for the amount of light it throws.
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Like the Galaxy 1W, Galaxy 3-Watt is a matte black tac light, but it is both smaller and brighter than its "little" brother. It uses a 3W Luxeon Star LED and is powered by lithium batteries, but its general construction and external styling are otherwise nearly identical to the 1W model. Both have a durable feel to them, and appear likely to hold up well over the long run.
Luminosity is very good, 65 lumens at peak capacity, and it's fully regulated so that number should stay nearly constant throughout battery life. If the claimed runtime can be trusted, six hours is phenomenal for a light of this brightness. We are skeptical.
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Galaxy 6, like the others in the Galaxy series, is a little too big to drop into a pocket, but is perfectly adequate for an emergency drawer or glovebox. Three white LEDs alternate in a circle with three colored LEDs behind a shatter-resistant lens. Every Galaxy 6 model comes with three white LEDs; the other three LEDs will be blue, green, red, or UV, depending upon model chosen.
The dual switches are oversized and slightly protrusive bubbles, one on the head and the other toward the front of the body. The front bubble controls the three white LEDs, while the rear one controls the three colored LEDs. Both switches are simple on/off, giving you three brightness options: color only, white only, or both. The bubbles are clearly labelled. There's also somewhat of a tactile difference between them due to the change from body to head diameter. With no lock-out, don't just throw this into your pack.
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Based upon StreamLight's Junior Luxeon, Junior Luxeon Reach is fairly bright for a cable-stretch light, using a 1-watt Luxeon Star to throw some 24 lumens. The reflector produces a fairly tight beam rather than a flood.
At 20 inches total length, it can be worn around the neck like a stethoscope for hands-free lighting. Using the included magnetic clip holder, the Jr Luxeon Reach can be mounted on nearby metallic surfaces, while the cable flexes to put the light where it needs to go. It folds to 9 inches total length, but folding it doesn't compact it much because the cable doesn't bend sharply.
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Enduro, a lightweight headlamp at 2.75 ounces, features a single high-flux LED powered by two AAA alkaline batteries. With two levels of brightness (25% and 100% power), it's got very competitive runtimes and a decent output of 14.5 lumens on high.
Enduro's circuitry provides complete power regulation, meaning that the LED will perform at the same brightness level throughout the batteries' life. The reflector throws a tight, narrow beam, which StreamLight tells us is focused for a range of around 100 feet.
The housing is drop-tested for impact resistance, and O-ring sealed waterproof to one meter. Its power switch is a simple push-click type, and cycles from low power, to high power, to off.
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Surprisingly, SureFire announced only one new LED product this year, the Kroma. A versatile little light, Kroma features eight red and eight blue LEDs encircling a single 3-watt white LuxeonIII LED behind a TIR lens. The TIR lens is funky-looking, an oversized bubble of alien eyeball, but it does the trick in casting light where it needs to go. Sixty lumens is a lot of light, especially when shoved through a focusing lens. It's hard to judge throw in the overlighted convention center at the SHOT Show, but based on how it performed even there we're willing to go on the record as saying the throw should be excellent.
Flexibility is Kroma's big asset. It allows you to easily toggle between a good-throwing white light, a battery-conserving white light, and two nightvision-friendly colors in two brightness levels.
The selector ring near the bezel doesn't activate the light, but rather allows you to choose which LED or set of LEDs will come on when you touch the rear button. To use the light, first dial the front ring to select a light source: red, blue, or white. Then touch the rear switch to turn the light on. A firm touch of the rear switch always activates high-beam white. A gentle touch gives you low-beam white, low color, or high color -- according where the front ring is set. Constant on for all settings is activated by twisting the tailcap.
No matter where the front ring is dialed, you can always get bright white light with a solid click of the tailcap switch. So there's nothing confusing about using Kroma as a simple flashlight on high beam.
Potential downsides? There's no tactile way to tell which setting you've twisted the front ring to select. So until you simply learn where your settings are, there's the potential of accidentally selecting dim white and ruining your night vision. Even when the correct setting is selected, a too-firm touch on the pressure-activated rear switch could do the same, although the convenience of immediately available bright white light probably outweighs that issue.
The designers chose red and blue colored LEDs for several reasons. First, both are night-vision friendly. Red is common for general use, and is the color most pilots and law enforcement professionals prefer to use when working in the dark. Because many animals cannot see into the red spectrum, hunters also might prefer red light to illuminate their path on the way to the deer stand. Blue light makes red liquids (such as blood or hydraulic fluid) stand out in the dark, and is thus a good choice for a pilot to use during a pre-flight check or for a hunter to use while tracking game.
At $300 per, Kroma isn't the least expensive special purpose light out there. But, the SureFire name is one you can trust to provide a well-made, durable product, and that's probably what the price-setters are banking on.
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Victorinox once employed people who knew how to name a product: "The Swiss Army Knife." Not only did that tell you exactly what the thing was, it was catchy and hard to forget, becoming one of the most popular pocket products in modern history. Every little boy needed a Swiss Army Knife. These days, Victorinox is still making and distributing good stuff, but their naming protocol stinks: "LED Precision Flashlights. Aluminum Grip LED Flashlights. Rubber Grip LED Flashlights. AAA-Cell. AA-Cell ." The names might be accurate, but they're missing a certain zing . Might want to work on that, guys.
Meanwhile, the lights themselves are attractive artifacts, with handsome red-and-silver styling. They're made under contract by Emissive Energy Corp. and designed to match other products in the Victorinox line. They look like they might be found in an executive's desk, but are priced affordably enough that the guy on the factory floor might have one too. Emissive Energy, of course, also produces the popular Inova brand of flashlights.
The knurling on the silvery aluminum bodies is mild, but adequate to provide a no-slip surface under most conditions. The red rubber grip provides slightly better purchase and might feel better in some hands, but otherwise the difference between the two types is merely cosmetic. Both types are activated by a twist of the head. The black tailcaps hide the battery access.
If the numbers in the table sound shaky, it is because Emissive Energy has moved away from categorizing their lights by lumen output. Rather, their system for comparing one flashlight's output with another is to provide the consumer with "effective range" and "signal visibility." The AAA-Cell light, for example, features a 100 foot effective range and a signal visibility of up to 1 1/4 miles. The AA-Cell has an effective range of 150 feet and a signal visibility of 1 1/2 miles.
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Victorinox's Cross & Shield Micro Light is, like the other products in the line, a handsome piece of kit. Flat and shaped like a shield, the light is activated by a simple body squeeze. It cycles from low to high to strobe with a quick squeeze; a longer squeeze puts it into momentary on or signal mode.
The included clip is long and narrow, to fit through the zipper loop on outdoorwear. It appears to be strong enough to do the job. The MicroLight itself is splash proof but not waterproof. It doesn't feel particularly sturdy in the hand, though given the fact that it weighs nothing at all that's hardly surprising.
| SHOT Show 2006 Report - LED Flashlights (click to continue to return to the start) |
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 | SELECT AND USE OUTDOORS AND SURVIVAL EQUIPMENT, SUPPLIES AND TECHNIQUES AT YOUR OWN RISK. Please review the full WARNING & DISCLAIMER about information on this site. |
Contributing Editor: Kathy Jackson
Email: Kathy Jackson
Publisher and Editor: Doug Ritter
Email: Doug Ritter
URL:
http://www.equipped.org/shot_show_2006_LED_flashlights-5.htm
First Published: February 26, 2006
Email to: info@pulvertech.com
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