Flashlights for School and Travel

Brightest LED Flashlights: For School & Travel

Every home  has a need for flashlights – and many people will pick up whatever happens to be hanging at the big box store. Many people don’t realize the large variety of flashlights that are on the market and how they will fill different needs. This post series we are discussing different needs that would require flashlights for you and your family and the best one for that purpose. In part 1, we discussed Flashlights for Camping & Hiking. Now we will take a look at different models including tactical flashlights and the brightest led flashlights for school & travel.

Flashlights for School

Many folks don’t think about having a flashlight in the college dorm. Keep in mind, many colleges were built long before laptops, portable heaters, microwaves, TV, DVD players, smart phones, etc. Older dorms were not wired for all of the energy demands of 100 students using power hungry devices for hours on end. The power can go out at any time and having the brightest LED flashlight as backup comes in handy. I know, my kid lived in one for 3 years and it happened to her many times.

Unfortunately, women are targets on some college campuses. Having a super bright and blinding LED flashlight that produces 500 or more lumens (brightness) can help. Having the same flashlight  that is well built can become a striking weapon if needed could be handy. Consider a bright flashlight with a striking bezel that screws onto the head of the flashlight. A striking bezel is a ring with large serrations and when used correctly, can inflict a good deal of pain when pushed into and twisted back and forth against an attacker.

Some of the brightest LED flashlights have a strobe function that disorients and blinds the person on the receiving end can be another great deterrent. The strobe function also serves as a great attention getter, helping others locate you quickly if needed.

Flashlights for Travel

What about a flashlight to keep inside the glove box in your car? A light with a zoom lens and a magnet built into the tail cap worked great for me.  When performing a repair, I stuck the flashlight to the inside of the hood and zoomed out the light allowing me to illuminate the entire engine compartment.  It also freed both hands for the repair.

To warn oncoming vehicles you are up ahead changing a flat tire, a flashlight with a S.O.S, strobe or beacon is a great feature to have. Just turn on the feature and point it in the general direction of traffic. I have a 860 lumen flashlight that is super bright and displays a pulsing beacon “blast of light” that can be seen from one-half a mile away.

Flashlight Batteries

You also need to determine long will the batteries last? There is a lot of conflicting information on the web about which type of battery is better such as NiCad, Lithium, AA or AAA. Even when using today’s LEDs, it’s tough to get a flashlight to produce more than 400 lumens when using 1.5 volt AA batteries for any length of time.

These batteries just do not have the power that’s required by high lumen bright LED flashlights projecting the bright beam over 500 feet. To get this power, many flashlights use the 3.0 volt CR-123A lithium battery. These batteries have been used in all types of electronic devices for many years, are sold all over the place and are inexpensive if you shop around a little.

To avoid any issues, I change the flashlight batteries and swap out the spare batteries once a year and it only costs around 10 dollars. I also cycle through all of the flashlight’s modes to verify everything still works. This way, I know I’ll always have good battery power and a well working flashlight if and when I need it.