New 4100 Lumen Flashlight Can Set Things On Fire

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."

Comments

1m candlepower v. 4100 lm

[Sebastopol]

So after wiki'ing to figure out how this compares to the Coleman 1,000,000 candle power jobber, i discover i can't just play unit games:

candlepower is lumins / sr

I have to focus my few remaining neurons on my job, so could someone else please explain how the two measurements compare?

Thank-yee.

Re:warning labels

[Lehk228]

early models did flash, or more specifically, batteries could only power them for a moment before they needed to "rest"

Re:warning labels

[sakusha]

Safety can also depend on intensity. I read about how the Army experimented with aerial flash photography, they had some massive flash units that could illuminate the ground from an airplane at a high altitude. But if you set one off when it was on the ground, anyone nearby would be burned badly. Now today they make commercial ovens using that same principle, the Flash-Bake oven can cook a pizza in 1 minute with high intensity flash units.

Re:Campfires!

[EmotionToilet]

If they could combine this bright of a light with the technology in the flashlights that charge themselves when you shake them and move the magnet back and forth, you'd have a really useful device for survival in the wild. It would be an endless amount of fire starting energy and could come in handy for signaling planes/helicopters for help and getting around in the woods at night.

Re:warning labels

[El_Oscuro]

I was once in London, and had to set up some US computer equipment. We used transformers to convert the 220 to 110 US voltage. Our SOP (which of course I didn't follow) was to use a voltage meter prior to plugging anything in. Instead, I plugged a laptop into it and booted it up just fine. Then I plugged a surge protector which promptly exploded (it was pretty spectacular). Finally following the SOP, I checked the output voltage of the transformer which was actually about 350 volts. Apparently the laptop had a pretty good power supply.