Cheap IR Source

well allways trying to get the most for the money i fell over a company called dealextreme.com they sell a bunch of things thats cool, including loose high power LEDS so you can change them out in your own flashlights

well lets start off with the Dorcy (silver colored bought at wallmart) it came with a 1w lumileds and runs on a Cr123 lithium battry it was quite good to begin with , but i couldnt help it so i added a Cree Q5 1w Led to it…now its about twice as powerfull, and runtime is about the same…i know its not IR…but wait theres more !

Dorcy with cree Q5

i got a Taskforce 1W Led, that uses 1 AA battery, bought at lowes for 16$, its about 80% of what the dorcy was to begin with, at dealextreme i got a .5w IR LED that came mounted on a star board…a little soldering later and the stock 1w Lumiled was replaced the IR LED was less than 5$ including shipping, that makes it a 21$ flashlight

compared to a Surefire M1 real IR illuminator, its allmost as good(but the surefire is 75 bucks on ebay)…the red is more defined in the surefire being bright all the way to the edges projecting a nice circle, the home made is more like a normal flashlight…bright in the middle, and then fading off, the homemade being even better at distance then the surefire.

when i ordered the IR led i notice they where selling a IR flashlight made of multiple LED’s and running off 3xAAA batteries and it was 6$

it didnt do well with the nightvision, taskforce and surefire was better, but on my night cameras, and my sony camcorder there was a big difference ! the sony loves it, it very bright and light up the area well this thing gotta be awesome with electronic nightvision ! i have put down flashlights that use multiple leds, they dont seem to be as bright and good as a single good LED like the Cree Q5 led found in better LED lights, but this small IR multiple LED light is very good, if you need better IR on a sony camcorder this is a good and cheap investment

its probably comes down to the wavelenght of the IR light, and which device likes which flashlight the best.

My 300w stationary IR lamp is super powerfull and mounted high enough i dont see that have a problem iluminating a very large area, like a floodlight would do.

my homemade 12v big flashlightwill be good as a powerfull IR light that is cordless, and with long runtime.

however the small IR flashlights will be well suited for mounting on a rifle along with an electronic nightvision, or real nightvision

BUT WAIT THERES MORE READ NOW AND YOU WILL ALSO DISCOVER A 900 LUMEN LED (ok too much commercial tv for me)

A while back i wrote a review about the ultrafire with a cree Q5 in it, this one uses 2 CR123 batteries, which can supply the LED with what it needs to be as bright as can be, unlike the dorcy thats crippled by the single battery.

the ultrafire is rated at 270 lumen, but more likely around 220-230 lumen, it is however very bright, too bright in fact to use when you have reflective baggrounds like lokking into a pc to change acard out or something, the reflections will blind you somewhat, i thought i had one of the most powerfull LED’s you can get….but guess agian

SSC a company making LED’s has introduced the P7 LED…this is one bright MOFO….they rate it at 900 lumen plus or minus 10% which is more likely to be minus…so 810 lumen, and since its dealextreme they prolly have a slightly cheaper batch with slightly lower output…however !!!

anyhow, comparing this to a 4 cell maglite with 3w led the maglite simply pales in comparison…both in pattern and power, the ultrafire can keep up in the center of the beam, it has a powerfull center and less further out in the pattern.

the SSC P7 on the other hand….WOW…it is so bright your eyes will hurt, and blind you very effectively, theres no way to squint and look in its direction…its overpowering !

pointing it at a wall 10 feet away the ultrafire has a center about 2 feet wide….the SSC is about 8 feet, the ultrafide fades off quickly once away from the center….the SSC fades slowly, iluminating the whole wall in direct light, easily ligting up my tv room, to say it short its amazing…of you look at the picture it looks like they fittet 4 LED arrays in one compared to the ultrafire…and it surely sucks down the battery fast, so fast that the two CR123 i had stuffed in there got warm, this is not a flashlight to use with cr123 i think, you need one of the bigger 3.7v 2800mah thermal protected rechargeable, as im sure it will suck down 2 cr123 in a blink of an eye

i found the sscp7…at you guessed it delextreme for 45 bucks, and charger + batteries was 22$$ on ebay…

it came with the usual programmed switch giving 5 modes…including an strobe light that is likely to introduce a epilectic attak 🙂

only bad thing i can say about SSC P7 is that it aint mine…bought on behalf of a friend …but now i gotta get one as well!