This thread is old so probably dead -- but ask Jerry Martes how he
likes his 1-watt Luxeon LED floodlight he received today. Eric
Snow will probably be making one like it pretty soon. These are the
ones using a 35-cent lens from AxMan surplus. Not as much light
as from a fluorescent, but the lamphead is only 1" dia x 1" deep and
it can illuminate everything hands can reach with enough light to read
fine print. It won't break if you drop it. "Lamp" life is 50,000
hours. It cost under $10, plus a bit of machining. It would cost
more than that for entry dues because of minimum order and set
exorbitant shipping charges from Future, the sole distributor of
Luxeons. The lux was $6.50, the lens was 35 cents. Batteries and
dropping resistor are left as an exercise.

On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:48:26 -0500, "Bob Chilcoat"
wrote:

Having had many, many droplight bulbs go over the years from dropping or
even just bumping them, (the cage keeps the glass from breaking, usually,
but the filament goes anyway) I finally discovered an improvement. NJ is
currently offering an instant rebate on compact fluorescent "bulbs". These
are really cheap right now, so I put one in my droplight the other day while
looking for a new bulb. Works fine, stays very cool (which is always an
advantage under the car with the light next to your head), and gives 100W
equivalent light. I haven't dropped it yet, but I suspect that it will be a
lot more robust. Sure a lot cheaper than the ruggedized "drop light bulbs"
they sell for this application (which are not a lot more rugged than
ordinary bulbs, in my experience.

Metal content: (1) The cage on mine is made of metal. (2) The cars I work
on with it are mostly metal. :-)