Ohhhhh yes I did!

Let's keep this one short. A photo is worth a thousand words right? Put me down for 2K...done.

Tinkering and a new camera

Welp, after 10 years of dithering I finally bought a digital SLR camera. I thought this would also be a good opportunity to show you something I've been tinkering with in the lab...the "copper head." Is that to literal? I got some new "N bin" MCEs in stock; they are the brightest bin of MCE in existance and costs nearly double compared to a "regular" MCE. In honor of that I decided to go crazy and make a solid copper head. It's immensely heavy and looks fantastic paired with the raw aluminum body. I've been carrying it my pocket for a while and it's starting to patina nicely.

Creative huh? 

Hopefully I'll be able to live up to the Nikon D7000. As you can see, I'm reaching already and had to come up with a fancy setting :) This SLR also shoots HD video (that's foreshadowing) and now I can put the lenses I have back into service. I have a Nikon film camera that has been gathering dust, along with the lenses, so I'm pretty excited to give them a new life, paired to the new D-SLR. Okay, okay. One more photo.

That's a real reflection. The light is sitting on a sheet of "60% lighting white" acrylic. 

So, have anything you want to see in a YouTube video? Let me know!

Tiffani Saxton Designs . . .The Blog: Gifts For Your Groomsmen

Tiffani Saxton Designs . . .The Blog: Gifts For Your Groomsmen: "...As your rehearsal dinner nears, you might be pondering how best to thank the friends and relatives who you've invited to stand with you.  With so many possibilities, I've narrowed down my Top Etsy Picks for Groomsmen Gifts."

It's starting to be that time of year again...wedding season! I was recently featured on the (above) blog and that's pretty exciting!...if you are me. I might be biased but I totally agree with Tiffani; I think one of my lights would make a fantastic groomsman's gift...or wedding gift! A matched set perhaps?

In the past, I've personalized a few lights with letter-stamped initials and they look really nice. Just be sure to give me at least 30 days lead time because I take batches of lights to the plating company every month or so, and I have to stamp the lights before the are plated. Alternately I'm happy to pass on the $75 minimum charge from the plating company if you need one...like right now! :)

Mission Motors sets EV lap record at Laguna Seca

Saw this post on the Mission blog today and thought I'd share it here. Congrats to them on another ground breaking technical achievement! I also wanted to toot my own horn and say that I machined some of the parts on this bike. It's really exciting to contribute to an effort like this!

Midway through the famous (and dangerous) cork screw at Laguna.
Takes me back to my GranTurismo days (on Playstation)  

Don't forget to click the blog link so you can see an on-board video of the record lap. That thing makes some crazy noises.

New Accessory: Mini Volt Meter

I found this on CandlePower Forums and thought it was super cool. It's hand made by one of the members there and you can't get one unless you are a forum member...until now! I bought a handful of these and are offering them for sale on my site. If I was smart I would have put a coin next to this thing to show how tiny it is...it's really tiny. The display is about the size of a quarter.

4.2V is full, 3.8V(35% remaining) is time to recharge

The Alpha has a "low battery warning" that comes on at 3.2V; however, recharging before the battery gets this low will prolong its life. Of course there was no way to know how full the battery was, but now there is a very cool solution! Each wire has a small magnet on each end so you just attach it to the battery and get instant feedback on battery's charge condition.

This is also GREAT for checking spare batteries. Whaaaat? You don't have spare batteries? "Two is one, and one is none" as they say. Think about that one for a minute, it will sink in.

New Accessory: Presentation Bag

I'm pleased to announce I have a new accessory available: the Presentation Bag. Several customers, giving an Alpha light as a gift, requested something special to dress up their presentation. Another customer travels a lot and has decided to carry an Alpha full time, for those "unexpected" situations. He wanted to keep it in his carry-on but didn't like the idea of it being loose and beating up the other contents.

Perfectly sized for the Alpha

The Presentation Bag is the answer to both of those requests. Made of furniture grade velvet, the two-tone bag looks great and will take a beating. Pull straps are genuine leather. Adding a little color is fun but it's also functional; it's easier to see when you are searching for the light in your bag.

Each bag is hand-tailored in small volume, just like my lights. Would you expect anything less? Visit the store to purchase!

VIDEO: More outdoor video!

Hi folks, I'm on a quest to get some decent video of my lights in action. I'm very surprised at how hard it is...and I'm just filming with a little Sony digital camera. Anyway, here is the latest attempt. These light are astonishingly bright...and that's really hard to capture on film. We were up in Idaho last week, where it gets really (really) dark. Thought it might be a good opportunity to get some footage. What the camera fails to capture is the "spill" light that is around the center hot spot. There is a ton of spill that your eyes can see but the camera can't. Here it is!