Make a $200 "tactical" flashlight for about $15

Step 4 Using the flashlight

The first thing you'll notice is how light weight the flashlight is. Next you'll notice the brightness of the beam. You easily can light up the house across the street on a dark night.

WARNING:
Don't look into the beam in the dark and don't shine it in someone's face unless you intend to hurt them or temporarily blind them. In fact when you shine this straight down at a black street and look directly at the bright spot, you'll notice your eyes starting to throb.

One of the interesting things about these batteries is that they lose a little bit of power after an hour, and then they hold their brightness for at least another couple hours before suddenly going dim and out.

I was worried about the light heating up and softening the plastic. I turned it on and left it running for 45 minutes and it didn't seem to get any warmer than it was after just a minute of running.

UPDATE May 16, 2007:
I'm attaching a beamshot of my flashlights. The one in the lower left is the stock Ray-o-vac that I started with. Diagonally across from it is the mod from this Instructable.