New 4100 Lumen Flashlight Can Set Things On Fire 464
i4u writes "Engadget is reporting that Wicked Lasers has introduced The Torch. It is the world's brightest and most powerful flashlight. The Flashlight is capable of melting plastic, lighting paper on fire within seconds, and if you like, fry 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, and retails for around $300. The Torch is apparently also undergoing review at the Guinness Book of World Records."
4100 Lumen is certainly no world record holder... (Score:5, Informative)
Regardless, I'd link to some of them, but the forums there have enough time staying up as it is and they don't need the extra traffic. Here's a beam shot of the Maxablaster shining on some clouds 4 miles up. http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spotoncloud2dp4ta1.jpg [imageshack.us]
Re:Omg (Score:5, Informative)
(4100/683/c)
ObStephenson (Score:4, Informative)
It's ARM by Larry Niven (Score:2, Informative)
Re:warning labels (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, every cord *SHOULD* be labeled with maximium voltage... most likely 600V for most equipment. This is based on the voltage the insulation on the wires can withstand in a normal environment.
What you likely meant to say is the maximum AMPERAGE (or wattage, which is voltage*amperage) a cable is designed for. This is a much harder thing to spec... just like a CPU, it depends what the temperature is. The larger a conductor (think cross-sectional area), the less resistance it has, and the less current will be lost to heat while in use. It is this heat that makes things unpleasant... you could take a "standard" cord and run 29384092385902380953A through it, but not for more than a millisecond or two whilst the metal melts and subsequently vaporizes in an explosive poof at room temperature.
However, if you put it in liquid nitrogen, you likely will increase that time by several orders of magnitude... more assuming you can keep the cold flowing in (maybe a continual stream of L/N?)
Coming back to reality, it may be safe to run your vacuum cleaner for a few minutes on the cord, even if it gets warm... assuming you *KNOW* it is getting warm, and you will stop using it shortly. Where it isn't safe is if you run a heater off of an undersized cord, then throw a rug on top of it to further keep ambient losses from cooling the cord, then spill something with a low flashpoint on the rug.
Would make a hell of a warning label...
Re:warning labels (Score:5, Informative)
Only if you put the shit right up against the light.
A 300 watt halogen bulb puts out almost 6000 lumens [acehardware.com], much more powerful than this light. You can start a fire with one, but not across the room or anything. You have to get the combustibles right up against it. (Which is why the newer floor lamps using this sort of bulb have a safety cage.)
There are many things in your house more dangerous than this super-bright flashlight. Should they all have labels? The problem is that when everything has a warning label, the chatter drowns out the important warnings.
not all warning labels are bad (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just curious (Score:5, Informative)
A 20gauge cord is most likely not capable of carrying enough amperage to power your beer fridge without either A)heating up, or B)outright failing.
Situation A: A 100ft cord that heats up to unsafe temperatures may start a fire with any number of low-flashpoint items between your garage and basement.
Situation B: Failing outright means that the cord heats up to sufficient temperatures in order melt the insulation off, exposing bare, high-temperature, semi-high voltage wires to the environment. They may spark, which can easily start a fire, the insulation might burn or char, and the exposed wires represent an electrocution hazard. This would be unsafe for a 4ft core, but a 100ft cord represents a line of death stretching the length of your house.
Take a look at http://www.interfacebus.com/Reference_Cable_AWG_Sizes.html [interfacebus.com] . Those are conservative numbers for load carrying capacity, and deemed "safe" for 100ft or longer runs. You can potentially multiply those numbers by 2-3 for shorter runs.
Even so, 20 gauge wire should really only be used for a 2-6 amp load; and on the lower end of that scale for a longer (100 ft+) run. A pretty average, smallish home fridge has a "max" current draw of 15 amps. Even your beer-mini-fridge probably draws 7-8 peak. 7-8 is greater than 2, and as such, is a fire hazard. And, with a 100ft run, most people would probably stick it under a rug, which results in even MORE heat buildup.
The thing about it that makes it worse is that the circuit breaker will only protect you against over-current based upon the wiring load (assuming the electrician did a good job), not electrical cords, particularly wimpy electric cords. The only time the circuit breaker will kick in is after the electrical cord has shorted, and it may be too late by that point. If its a ground fault, and not a fire, and not an electrocution, a GFCI circuit might protect you, but it'll probably be too late for that, as well.
That all being said, it's not common knowledge; but it should be. It takes a bit to educate yourself on this stuff, but its important knowledge, and a lot of lives could be saved, and fires stopped, if they taught this stuff in highschool.
IMHO, its a bit pretentious to say that this, stuff is "common sense". The little endian nature of the gauge scale (not to mention that it is logarithmic so 19 gauge is 2x the diameter of 20 gauge), and the unclear nature of the warnings on the stuff is kinda useless. It would make far more sense to make the Amperage of all devices clearer (peak), and simply put "This cable can carrying X amps at Y temperature, and is unsafe for use at higher temperatures" on extension cables.
Re:Just curious (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just curious (Score:3, Informative)
Having said that I would expect your little beer fridge actually draws very little current and wouldn't be a problem on a narrow guage cable.
Re:1m candlepower v. 4100 lm (Score:2, Informative)
Think of light coming out of a flashlight as a cone, the more concentrated the light is, the higher the candlepower is.
So when you're using a Mag light and you change the focus of the beam, you're changing the candlepower.
Perhaps I should've written that as a car analogy....
Re:warning labels (Score:3, Informative)
Modern switch mode power supplies are rather versatile, just not the ones that still have a voltage selector switch (flick it if you dare)
For example here in Australia on 240V we lost a phase on the 11KV line to the local neighborhood transformer, the resulting output was around 110V per phase. The computers didn't blink but the fridge stopped working and our server on a UPS ended up without power due to the UPS been unable to cope with the situation.
Re:4100 Lumen is certainly no world record holder. (Score:2, Informative)
First of all the Wicked Laser flashlight in question doesn't put out 4100 Lumens. Real world testing shows that the formulas used to estimate the lumens of the bulb in that flashlight are about 2x as high as they really are at the power level the light is using.
Second, the light coming from the Wicked Lasers flashlight isn't very well collimated. It's one thing to make a lights that seems bright from 3' away. It's another to make one that seems bright from miles away. Being able to put a visible spot on a cloud 4 miles away or light up buildings from 6.2km away is a lot more impressive than lighting stuff on fire from a few inches away regardless of the lumen output.
Finally, There are far more powerful lights (in terms of lumens) made by other members on the CandlePower Forums. There is one light with 14000 bulb lumen. So, it's certainly not the worlds brightest flashlight.