Littlest Big Light You Ever Saw™
| | eGear®/Doug Ritter PICO™Lite Littlest Big Light You Ever Saw™ |
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"Please let me know as soon as they are available to buy. I want a dozen. I can't get my test sample back from my wife and everyone who has seen it wants one."
Pico™ Lite Beta Tester.
The eGear® PICO™ Lite projects a powerful 10 lumen* beam up to 30 feet from an ultra-compact and tough cylindrical aluminum body weighing just two-tenths of an ounce. The PICO™ Lite is the ultimate reliable personal flashlight that's so small you can always have a light with you. There's nothing particularly fancy or exotic about the PICO™ Lite, no advanced electronics or 20-zillion different functions, it's just a very simple and reliable and inexpensive super-small LED flashlight. As we have come to describe it, the PICO™ Lite is the "littlest big light you ever saw™."
As we started work on a pumped-up version of my Pocket Survival Pak™ produced by Adventure Medical Kits, one of the components I wanted to add was an LED flashlight. Too often survival experiences involve darkness and having a light source to enable either safe travel to get home or to the trail's end, to set up camp or to signal distress can make a difficult situation a whole lot better.
What I wanted was for it to be very compact, sturdy and, very important, with a fail-safe switch that couldn't be inadvertently switched on in the pouch. And, oh yes, it also need to be very inexpensive to help keep the cost of the PSP+ in bounds. I also wanted a bright colored body so it was easy to find if dropped (and would stand out in the PSP+ for marketing purposes). A brand name would be nice from a marketing perspective, as would the ability to display the Doug Ritter logo.
A review of all the lights available when we started this project showed there wasn't a single one that provided all those key attributes. Only a handful were small enough and had acceptable switch designs and the few that did either presented reliability, cost or other insurmountable problems. That search eventually led me to hook up with the good folks at Essential Gear who were enthusiastic about developing a light that would meet my criteria and would also fit into their line of eGear® LED illumination products. That would provide the mass market/production potential needed to drive down the cost of the light, a key element in making this practical.
We reviewed all sorts of possible construction and packaging and a variety of prototypes were produced. In the end we settled on a simple cylindrical design with a screw-in bezel for switching. This provided us the most light out of the smallest volume package and a reliable switch.
The PICO™ Lite is constructed of rugged 6061 aluminum, anodized for added protection. The body is lightly sandblasted to impart a textured surface for better grip. It's water resistant to IPX4 standard (in other words, splash/rain/puddle proof, but not fully waterproof). The rotary bezel switch helps to ensure it won't be turned on inadvertently, which means the batteries will still have juice when you need light.
Just screw down/in the bezel end to turn on; reverse to turn off. Aggressive knurling, sandblasting and a reduced diameter middle body section provide a good grip in the wet or cold. The bezel is anodized in a contrasting color, so the switching mechanism is obvious. The necked-down body is also designed to make it easier and more secure to hold between your lips or teeth when you need to use both hands.
PICO™ Lite comes with a miniature carabineer clip and split ring, making it a snap to attach just about anywhere you need extra light. Clip it onto your key ring, zipper or pack pocket for instant light. During it's development we nicknamed it the Zipper light since we all seem to have attached it to zipper pulls on our clothing. There's no need to search through your pack, purse or vehicle glove compartment to find a light.
PICO™ Lite's Nichia 5mm 15° white LED puts out 10 lumens with fully charged batteries (according to the manufacturer specs*) and should last at least 100,000 hours. This is the same type of high quality Japanese manufactured LED as is used in the Doug Ritter Special Edition Photon Freedom Micro-Light™. It is unregulated, so light output does fall off as battery voltage drops over time. There is a fairly steep drop-off in brightness during the first hour until it is producing at about 40% brightness. From there you can expect a slower drop-off of about 10%/hour, which is very nearly asymptotic, a fancy math term that in this case means it keeps getting lower and lower, but never quite gets to zero. Mind you, the batteries do eventually give out altogether, but the key is that once they get beyond the big drop, it's a very shallow discharge curve. They will eventually get to a point where there isn't enough light to be useful.
Even after 48 hours we found that there is still enough light so that with fully dark adapted eyes, I could perform survival chores and find my way around, though ithe light by this time was certainly not bright, it was adequate. This rundown curve is what you get when running continuously. If used intermittently, in shorter bursts, as is typically the case for EDC use and even in an emergency in many cases, the alkaline batteries will recover significantly between uses and will provide more illumination during use and last longer. As an extreme example, after a 10-hour rundown and a 20 minute rest, they output approximately 75% of inital illumination for five minutes before resuming more or less where they left off. Essential gear has decided that for consumer and competative purposes a fair claim is 15-hour life, and I am okay with that. At full brightness, the light can be seen for over a mile in the dark.
Power comes from four replaceable LR41 alkaline miniature button cell batteries. I would have preferred lithium cells for their longer storage life, better cold weather performance and longer full brightness run time, but so far the only lithium batteries in these small sizes are made in China and I do not trust their quality. These alkaline batteries should have a five-year storage life and I suggest changing them out after three years, just to be conservative. (LR41 also cross to: 392, 192, AG3, G3, G3A, RW87, LR1120, V3A, GP92A, L736, LR736)
The batteries are retained in a battery holder, making changing batteries a breeze. Unscrew the bezel and the battery holder will drop out. It is easy to snap the batteries in and out of the holder and the holder just drops into the body of the PICO™ Lite. The holder has a polarity illustration molded into the plastic on the interior and an arrow molded into the outside to show which end goes down for correct polarity.
The PICO™Lite was not designed as a throw-away flashlight, though I am sure some will treat it as such given the low cost. One disincentive is that while the LR 41 batteries are pretty inexpensive online, four of them can cost more than the original purchase price of the light if bought at your neighborhood drug or hardware store. In an effort to help our customers, Essential Gear will be offerring a special deal on replacement batteries, at a price you'll be hard pressed to beat unless you buy them bulk). I'll announce it here as soon as they are available.
PICO™Lite measures 1.47 x 0.5 (diameter) inches (37.3 x 12.7 mm). They are initally offered in five colors with the eGear and Doug Ritter logos on opposite sides of the body. If you are interested in an alternative body color, a different LED color (including UV) or custom laser engraved logo, please contact Essential Gear for minimums and pricing.
The PICO™Lite is made in China with a Japanese LED. MSRP is $12.95 packaged in a blister pack, $9.95 in bulk packaging.
The PICO™Lite will be distributed through Essential Gear's normal retail outlets.
* Lumens per the LED manufacturer's rating at 6 volts. How accurate that is, is certainly a question. Essential Gear has chosen to go with this rating for competitive purposes since other lights with identical LEDs are advertised as such. Unfortunately, there is no industry standard for measuring flashlight output. I tried for a couple years to form an ASTM committee to address this issue and got only limited support from the industry. Admittedly it is a complicated and controversial subject, but in any case, many flashlight manufacturers and marketers prefer to be able to make claims without having to deal with an industry standard. Some have developed their own propriatray rating system, but that only allows comparison within their own line. Any particular company's lumen, candlepower, or whatever rating may or may not bear any relation to any other company's. Bottom line, this little light is very bright. That's about as accurate a rating and description as I can provide.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each PICO™Lite goes to support the non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation.
| A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Doug Ritter Gear supports the non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation. |
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Email Doug Ritter
URL:
http://www.DougRitter.com/PICOLite.htm
First Published: January 13, 2009
Revision: 01 August 15, 2009
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