Product Review Maxxeon Pocket Floodlight

HOW MANY TIMES have you wished that you could carry a flashlight in your shirt or pants pocket? Maybe it was the time that a friend said his car’s engine was making an odd noise and he popped the hood and asked you to take a look. Or how about the time you were getting out of the car, dropped your keys and you think they went under the seat. Or maybe it was the time you tagged along with a pal to the salvage yard, spotted a car just like your project vehicle and wanted to take a good look underneath; under the hood, etc. Or how about the time you were in the basement when there was a power outage and you had to grope your way to the stairs, all the time hoping you wouldn’t trip over something.

OK, you get the idea. There are many times when a bright flashlight would come in handy. The trouble is, a regular flashlight won’t fit in your pocket;it’s too cumbersome to walk around carrying one in your hand all the time and besides, if someone happens to see you sauntering about with a flashlight in your hand, they might get the idea that you’re a burglar scoping out the area for your next score.

Now you may be thinking, hey, penlights have been around for decades, just get yourself one of those. But the trouble with most penlights is that while they’re safer than lighting a match, the amount of illumination they provide isn’t that much better than a small, flickering flame.

So I was immediately interested when I received some media information on the Maxxeon WorkStar 220 Pocket Floodlight which the company says “is up to 20 times brighter than other penlight flashlights.”

Whether it’s actually 20 times brighter or not, I don’t know. But I do know that the first time you stand in a dark room and flick this thing on, you’re going to think you have a two-cell full-size flashlight in your hand.

Maxxeon says this pocket light was “designed for daily use by automotive and industrial technicians in demanding work environments…” Accordingly, it comes with an anodized aluminum body with O-ring seals on all threaded joints and its “tailcap switch” (the button at the back of the light that you push with your thumb) is good for 100,000 cycles. The company says that the custom-designed orange peel finish on its Floodlight’s reflector along with the LED instead of a bulb, team together to create a bright beam with “no rings, no shadows and no hot spots.” The light’s distance-to-diameter ratio is about 1:1. In other words, at 1 foot from an object, the beam is about 1 foot wide.

The light itself is about six inches long, weighs in at less than two ounces and comes with a little clip in case you want to carry it in your shirt pocket.Body diameter is 7/16 inches, which together with its 6-inch length means that it’s not much longer or thicker than the pen you’re probably now carrying around with you. Power comesfrom three AAAA batteries that are included with the light. The price is $29.97 and there’s a $10 shipping and handling charge if you buy direct from the company. (Although this may seem a bit early, as the old saying goes, the Holidays will be here before you know it and one of these pocket lights could make a useful gift for one or more of your car buddies. And you might want to hint that you’d like one yourself.)

Canadian Scorpion Hunters

Maxxeon, a Canadian company based in Ottawa, was founded in 2003 and has specialized in portable work lights and inspection lights equipped with LEDs(light emitting diodes).For more on the company and its other products, visit its Web site, maxxeon.com.

And speaking of other products, Maxxeon also has an ultraviolet version called the WorkStar 22UV, priced at $34.97. Its specs are the same as the standard light, except for the UV beam, of course, and the company cautions people to wear 100% UVA-blocking safety glasses when using the 22UV.(If you should buy them both, you don’t have to be concerned about mixing them up. The standard light comes with a black case and the ultraviolet light is decked out in—what else—a bright violet casing.)

The company says the UV version is good for such tasks as A/C refrigerant dye leak detection, hairline crack detection, pet stain detection…and scorpion hunting. No kidding, a company executive told me that adult scorpions fluoresce under an ultra violet light which makes the UV pocket light “an especially handy tool to have in parts of the Southwest.”

I think I’m going to take his word on that one. —Ted Kade

Maxxeon, Inc.—1025 Richmond Road, Suite 1108, Ottawa, ON, Canada K2B 8G8; maxxeon.com;