The Ultimate Flashlight

This really puts the flashlight in Doom 3 to shame:

http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/wicked_lights-74-0.htm

Currently being reviewed by The Guinness Book of World Records, The Torch is the world's brightest and most powerful flashlight. It is easily capable of melting plastic, lighting paper on fire within seconds, and if you want, frying an egg or a marshmallow on a stick! At 4100 lumens, The Torch is 100 lumens more powerful than The Polarion Helios, the former most powerful flashlight. Incredible? Watch The Torch in action.

That would be a pretty useful survival tool. See in the dark, light fires, blind attackers, alert people from miles away... neat.

I'm sure it would be a handy tool for cannibal psychopaths needing to cook their victims with something they can easily carry around.

Annoying ants that keep invading my kitchen: Your day has come.

Wonder what kind of batteries it uses and how long they last.

cool an ion cannon for my sandbox command & conquer action !!!

Cool, you can find your way in the dark, light a fire, cook some dinner, then give your annoying neighbours 3rd degree burns all with one tool.

Hmm, does it use those hyper-bright LED's that can light half the room from something the size of a keyring that runs on a watch battery? i always wondered what 10 of them shone through a magnifying lens would do

You wouldn't want to use it to check for oil/petrol leaks under the car! ;-)

15 minute battery life? No thank you.

how pointless.

POTGIESSER said:

At 4100 lumens, The Torch is 100 lumens more powerful than The Polarion Helios, the former most powerful flashlight. Incredible? Watch The Torch in action.

And it plays Kittie. How delightful.

It's a bit scary a torch to burn the person I'm directing it on.

POTGIESSER said:

This really puts the flashlight in Doom 3 to shame:

You're right, it should be carried over into Doom 3. I'm sure the engine is capable of some high-quality stuff on it ;)

I can just see the fire department cringing.

*Power goes out*
*3 houses on one block simultaneously ignite*

exp(x) said:

15 minute battery life? No thank you.

Exactly what I was thinking.

exp(x) said:

15 minute battery life? No thank you.

It exists because it can - like cars that can treble the speed limit. It'll get publicity (look, we're talking about it). It's a world record, which is cool to hold even for a short while. Who knows, one day the technology might be useful.

And let's face it, a lot of people carry torches/flashlights as weapons. You can't carry a baseball bat around and say "sorry officer, I always carry it in case I see a fast ball coming at me" and expect to get away with it but you could say "It's dark, what was I supposed to carry" and for that to be a reasonable argument. A decent Maglite with some heavy batteries makes a nasty club. Now imagine if you could burn someone with that same legitimate personal item. Presumably you wouldn't need 15 minutes in that situation.

The burning "feature" seems hardly useful as a weapon. I'm sure the range is rather limited, and it's probably only as hot as a stovetop.

So they made a really powerful, really inefficient torch? I don't see the point...

you could just use a candle and do the same thing.

JohnnyRancid said:

you could just use a candle and do the same thing.

Blasphemy!


I view this as the same reason why people drive Hummers. Sure you could just drive a Camry and do the same thing, but why not go into overkill mode?

Hummers are really powerful, really inefficient vehicles.

The only point of things like these are the bragging rights.

"My flashlight runs on ultra-bright LEDs and has a battery life of 12+ hours."
"Yeah? Well I can set things on fire with mine!"

JohnnyRancid said:

you could just use a candle and do the same thing.

Or lighters and lighter fluid...

Power Supply: 12x2/3A 1500mAh Cells 14.4V
Battery Lifetime: 15 Minutes
Bulb Type: 100W Halogen
Expected Bulb Life: 2000 Hours

OK guys, so this is basically a proof-of-concept implementation of a high powered incandescent (even though halogen) 100W lamp running on batteries.

Of course it can melt stuff and set things on fire, the average incandescent filament is about 2700 C hot (even the one of a 3W flahlight!), and this one has also insane power to spare (100W), while over 90% of an incandescent bulb's power is converted directly to heat. Ofc this heat is then reflected and channeled by the torch's reflector and lens, that's why it has this apparent "wicked laser" effect.

For the rest, the drawbacks are apparent: poor lumen/watt efficiency, poor battery life, and enormous weight. It's the torch equivalent of a bigfoot truck or a dragster tractor, so to speak.

exp(x) said:

The burning "feature" seems hardly useful as a weapon. I'm sure the range is rather limited, and it's probably only as hot as a stovetop.

Probably not that useful right enough but if, for example, someone was carrying one and got jumped and grabbed, they would be close enough to use the burning effect or possibly just shine it in the attackers eyes at close range.

If it was possible to adjust the power of the light it probably would be a good camping tool.

A portable solderer perhaps? :p

kristus said:

A portable solderer perhaps? :p

It could work if the beam is focussed and you don't mind wearing really dark sunglasses.
I'd like to see a solar powered version :-)

This looks like something caleb would use in a Blood mod for Doom 3.

WHATEVER YOU DO

Don't confuse this with a "fleshlight"

HOLY SHIT! I want one of those! It'd be pretty sweet to be able to light stuff on fire with it. Think it counts as a concealed weapon?

I wonder how well this thing would melt snow. Might be handy were your car to get stuck.

deathbringer said:

WHATEVER YOU DO

Don't confuse this with a "fleshlight"

That'd make for an awkward visit to the emergency room.

Enjay said:

Probably not that useful right enough but if, for example, someone was carrying one and got jumped and grabbed, they would be close enough to use the burning effect or possibly just shine it in the attackers eyes at close range.

It'd be nice a touch. Blind your attacker and then set his pants on fire.

POTGIESSER said:

I wonder how well this thing would melt snow. Might be handy were your car to get stuck.

It would fare much worse than, say, a hair drier or a blowtorch. The total power output is lower (100W compared to well over 1000W) and the heat propagation mechanism (irradiation) would be much less efficient than e.g. a stream of directed hot air (most of the heat would just be reflected by the snow).