>From David Locklear dlocklea...@gmail.com
The flashlight described below was purchased by me tonight at Fry's Store. There was a near full moon so I could not find a good spot to properly test it. However, there were 3 aspects of this flashlight that caught my eye and may or may not separate this flashlight from others on the shelf. The main aspect of this light is its advertised brightness versus the price. Most of the flashlights seem to cheat on the max light numbers by adding up the value of several of the LED's in the chip. I have no idea if this one does that. Supposedly you are getting 2000 lumens for $ 40 plus tax. The 2nd feature is the advertised beam with, suggesting it is not a spot light but a real floodlight - something that almost no LED products excel at. And the 3rd feature was the dim value being much higher than other lights at 1000 lumens. Meaning this light has a very specific purpose. You would use it at the low setting in a big frickin cave passage, and only use the 2000 lumen setting on some special occasion. Promier is not a leading brand and many of their products are sort of on the low end scale compared to Coast or Pelican, however, they seem to be better than the really cheap stuff. So here is what I learned. The flood beam is wide enough for when you really need a flood beam. There is just a very faint outer ring of light that only a light critic would notice. As you slide the lens forward ( by rotating the headpiece ), the light pattern begins to slightly concentrate and become slightly brighter, but in the end the final patter is a rhombus or diamond, like most of these kind of flashlights. Since the mid-rage pattern is the one you would use most often, I found it to be almost circular, or sort of a square with very rounded corners, or more like circle with some 4 flat edges. Only slightly annoying. The heavy weight and large size of this flashlight would discourage you from carrying it in most cases. However, I would assume that it would come in handy if you were filming in a large borehole passage. [ Sidenote: On a trip to Sumidero del Rio Chonta, around 1993, some Austin cavers filmed the trip with a giant train engine headlight. I doubt I am in that video, and I have never seen it. I was way downstream of the filming. ] Now there are dozens of brighter flashlights on the market ( but few on the shelf ), and you can probably find slightly better quality. But not for $ $ 40 plus tax. The switch feels rugged. The battery pack looks well-engineered. The light could probably be made more water-resistant, by putting sealant on the threads, and blocking the focusing mechanism with sealant. The lens cover looks like a solid chunk of rounded glass ( for dispersing the beam into a flood pattern ). The three sharp tactical edges can be covered with tape, or maybe sawed off. They are not too sharp and might could even be grinded smoother with a hand-file. As is, I would not call this flashlight water resistant. So you would want to carry it in some kind of protective cover ( a DUREX Magnum RipnRoll ??? ). Model No. P2000FL-8/16 www.promierproducts.com Promier has a nearly identical model that is $ 6 cheaper and slightly smaller, and probably more practical for a large cave. Fry's has carried that flashlight for over a year. I hope I don't have to take this back to the store. I plan to use it when I am driving my Sequoia in dark areas looking for a camp-spot, or things along the side of the road, or for blinding a car-jacker, etc.
_______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
