[pct-l] Night lighting

[greg mushial]

> Message: 13
> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:35:13 -0800
> From: "Matthew Edwards" <Hetchhetchyman at aol.com>
> Subject: [pct-l]  Night lighting
> To: <pct-l at backcountry.net>
> Message-ID: <8C99A5FAAD0F40BFB5CFC241068DDE3F at OwnerPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>

I guess I come down somewhere btwn those, like Piper, that don't need, or 
don't wish any light, and those that want something that'll light up the 
forest (maybe because I tend to cowboy camp, and not hide in a tent, ie, I'd 
like to see what's making "that" noise at night). And although I've walked 
lots of miles by moonlight, starlight, and even come to appreciate being 
able to see one's shadow in Jupiter light, I would like a little light (on 
command), but I'm not willing to pay much for it in terms of weight. And 
also, having been doing electronics since about age 8 or 9 - my answer has 
been to make my own lights. I've uploaded a couple jpgs to show a subset of 
my current collection. (I've probably made 100+ such lights over the years - 
of note: these are all white light lights: since LEDs come in about a dozen 
colors I've build lights with all, but white is most useful.) I've built 
lights using 24 LEDs and they really do light up the night, but they tend to 
weigh a ton. What I've come to carry backpacking have gotten lighter and 
lighter over time - mostly a product of LEDs becoming more efficient over 
time and rechargeable batteries having greater capacity.

www.gmdr.com/PCTstuff/4WithThumb.jpg  www.gmdr.com/PCTstuff/Left2NoThumb.jpg

In the 4 light picture, the left 2 are the ones I've tended to hike with. 
All of the lights are obviously build around 9v batteries, ie, the lights 
are neither heavy nor large. The one under the thumb (A duck thumb) is my 
preference. The left 3 all weight about a quarter ounce more than a 9v 
battery. (The other image shows the left 2, but from the other side.) The 
left one uses two 12deg beam white LEDs, and will throw a beam 50ish feet. 
If you trun it on at night after your eyes have dark adapted, you'll be 
squinting for a while. The one to its right is built around a pair of 20deg 
beam LEDs. It'll maybe throw a beam 10 feet, but its specialty is to throw a 
broader beam - much more useful for digging through a pack looking for a 
lost whatever, or for reading or writing by. Given the amount of corrosion 
on its switch one can guess at the number of hours it's been hiked by, or 
even climbed by. The gunk over the electronics and at the base of the LEDs 
is superglue, which makes the heads pretty solid and pretty robust - they've 
all been dropped, and the worst that happens is the battey might come out of 
its clip. Likewise, even though everything gets wet when one does such, 
they're pretty much waterproof - the left 2 have been lake, stream swimming; 
the 20deg beam one has been chicken noodle soup swimming... and they 
continue to work. When I started playing with these in '93 or '94 a 9v 
battery was actually 7.2v and had a 100mah capacity. Now one can get 300mah 
real 9v batteries. The left 2 and the rightmost one will run for something 
like 14-15 hr continuous, the 2nd from the right, given the 6 LED design 
will only run for 3 hrs, but it will light up the forest pretty well during 
that time. In backpacking my general experience has been that the 
rechargeable batteries will self-discharge, before I use up their 
capacities, ie, one battery will last a couple months of backpacking trips.

If someone is interesting making their own - a 15 minute job - the part cost 
is something like: 80cents for the LEDs, 40 cents for the battery holder, 40 
cents for the switch, 50 cents for the voltage regulator (though in the 
rightmost light used as a current regulator), and 3 cents for the resistors. 
The 9v rechargeable battery is off eBay for $1.20. Bottom line, not terribly 
expensive.

just my 2cents worth,
TheDuck