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This is my blog about creating a startup LED flashlight business. I'm a designer, fabricator, and strategist and I'm passionate about making ideas real. I believe that products are about people, that they should be built to last, deliver real value, and that we need to do a better job than we have in the recent past.

Most of my career has been contract or freelance work and I've crafted products and strategies for both big international companies and startups. I also used to work in the "industry" fabricating special effects for film and TV, along with the occasional hot rod. Bottom line, I love making things.

I'm starting this blog so you can follow along, from day one, and see what it's like to start a business, or fail in the process. Only time will tell, but I hope you find this interesting enough to stay tuned, comment, link, like, tweet, and (most importantly) participate in turning this idea into something tangible and valuable.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Torture Test: Frozen in ice for 8 hours

I've had some personal concerns, and I've had some people ask, about cold weather performance. Full of confidence coming off of my 300 ft pressure test I decided to create a new "torture test" segment. For my next act I will freeze my light into a block of ice...and really cross my fingers.

The Short Story: Takes a freezin' and keeps on tickin' 
There is a lot of risk here: my ego, the flashlight's reputation, and the flashlight itself. Sure, if the test fails then I just never tell anyone I did it right? That's not how this works. I've made the choice to be transparent with this process and you will see my fails along with my wins. For the startup/small business owner, it's kind of like riding a tiger through a hoop of fire. So far I've been pretty lucky AND I'm trying really hard not to fail.

FINAL RESULT:  I let the light run on "high" until it melted itself free from the block of ice. That took about 20 minutes and meant now it was sitting in a cup full of ice water. I shut the light off and let it sit for another 20 minutes. I pulled the light out and inspected for damage to the lens or water intrusion into the light and found none!


Anecdotally, I was up in Sun Valley, Idaho about a month ago and left a couple of lights in car overnight...by accident. The overnight low was about 7 degrees Fahrenheit. Hopped in the car and both lights worked fine! Read on for more frosty shots of flashlights...



Fresh from the freezer. I ran some hot water over the plastic tub to release the block of ice. Time to click that button and see what happens! 

LOW POWER
MEDIUM POWER
HIGH POWER


Yes, it was very very frozen. I almost lost some skin as you can tell from my finger print. Sorry, it's been a long time since I've lived in a cold climate and I forgot about that whole "freezing metal" thing.


This one is cool if you click the image for a larger view. More frosty-ness.

Posted by Jason at 8:51 AM
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2 comments:

  1. EricaApril 2, 2011 at 11:48 AM

    Love the experiments!

    FYI, Dad reports his new flashlight from you is an "order of magnitude" better than other pocket flashlights on the market. He's not surprised you can pressure test and freeze them, because it's built "like a watch" with quality and fit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JasonApril 29, 2011 at 10:08 AM

    Your dad is an engineer right? Wow I like that review! Can I quote you on that? Oh...wait.

    ReplyDelete

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