**Experimenting with Flashlights: Starting Fires and Boiling Water**
Host Dan Roos kicks off his experiment by introducing a high-intensity discharge (HID) spotlight, powered by a 35-watt bulb and operated by a 12-volt battery. His goal is to explore the feasibility of using flashlights to start fires, dispelling myths from various online videos that often lack scientific backing. He questions these methods, emphasizing the importance of understanding optics in such endeavors.
Dan begins with a black corrugated board, chosen for its ability to absorb light effectively. His setup includes several tools: a crystal ball, a parabolic mirror, and a magnifying glass. Each tool is tested individually to assess their effectiveness in concentrating light.
**Testing the Crystal Ball**
The first test involves the crystal ball, which acts as a powerful magnifier, estimated to provide 15x magnification. When Dan turns on the spotlight and directs it through the crystal ball, immediate results are observed—a small piece of paper begins to smolder instantly. This demonstrates how concentrated light can generate intense heat.
**Using a Magnifying Glass**
Next, he uses a magnifying glass with a longer focal length. While this setup doesn't create a hole in the target material, it does cause scorching marks. The process is slower compared to the crystal ball, highlighting the trade-offs between magnification power and speed.
**Parabolic Mirror Experiment**
Dan then experiments with a 6-inch parabolic mirror, known for its ability to collect and focus large amounts of light. He directs the spotlight through the mirror onto black screws submerged in water within a test tube. The concentrated beam heats the screws rapidly, causing them to boil water in just eight minutes. This experiment successfully demonstrates how focused light can be harnessed for practical tasks like boiling water.
**RPM Tester and Laser Focus**
In another segment, Dan introduces his RPM tester equipped with a laser. He uses this tool to visualize the flashlight's beam pattern. By shining the laser through the parabolic mirror, he creates a tightly focused spot on the target material, showcasing how precise optics can enhance light concentration.
Dan humorously mentions that while he could use a more powerful laser for cutting, he prefers demonstrating with legal alternatives, ensuring safety and compliance.
**Exploring LED Lights**
Towards the end, Dan shifts focus to LED lights. He uses a regular magnifying glass to experiment with an LED flashlight, noting its limitations in starting fires despite producing significant heat. This trial highlights that even a 10-watt LED can produce notable effects, such as visible scorch marks and minor heating.
**Conclusion**
Dan wraps up by emphasizing the importance of understanding optics when using flashlights for focused applications. While not all online methods are credible, proper tools like parabolic mirrors and crystal balls can effectively concentrate light to achieve results like starting fires or boiling water.
This article captures Dan Roos' meticulous approach to experimenting with various tools and techniques, providing a clear and engaging account of his findings.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello there I'm your host Dan Roos and I have a high-intensity discharge hid Spotlight this is a 35 wat bulb in there and this light runs off of these type of batteries this is a 12volt battery 7 amp hour I also have a crystal ball I have a parabolic beer and I have a magnify and glass used to solder stuff with wires that sort of thing we're going to be seeing if we can get this flashlight to start a fire this is a black piece of corrugated board it's used for packaging and displays this is uh I'm using black so that way it absorbs the light from this and I've seen a lot of videos where people have shown starting fires with flashlights and I question a lot of the videos some of them are spoof videos um they don't really understand the Optics behind starting a fire with the flashlight you can't just use this right here to start a fire you need to do a lot of lot of work to get it to do that what we're doing is we're taking the uh reflective shape that's inside of this particular light that's designed to shoot light a long distance and we're going to be running it through different things that act as magnifiers you can see this crystal ball is an excellent magnifier this is probably 15x or but um it also spins really nicely um we're going to be running the light through that and seeing if we can catch something on fire okay I got the light and the ball set up and I'm going to turn the light on and see how long this takes and see that started smoldering instantly so that is with the crystal ball now I have the small magnifying glass set up this has a longer focal point see that that actually didn't put a hole in it but it did to start to Scorch it and I have a very nice small 6-in parabolic mirror that I'm going to be turning the light on and I'm going to scoot it this way because this is reflective so we're going to move this into the focal point and you can see because the parabolic Mirror Has a larger area it's collecting more of the light and concentrating it this has very good Optics on it so it's actually doing a really good job really fast in fact that's probably going to burst into flames I also have my RPM tester which has a laser on it the laser pattern looks something like this and you can see how wide it is that's because this has a lens in there that gives it a little bit of a different shape what I'm going to do is shine it into the parabolic mirror and see if we can focus it see if maybe that'll work so I'm shining it into the mirror and it's bouncing from there to the mirror back over to our Target and I'm going to bring it in to tighten it you can see while it tightens it down this laser won't actually burn this material I do have a laser that I'm going to show you in a future video of that cuts right through stuff it burns it instantly it's a legal laser too I'll show you where you can get them so now what I've done is I've taken the light to the the parabolic mirror to a test tube filled with some black screws there's also water inside of there and I'm going to check the focal point make sure that we're right about that problem with the parabolic mirror in a large Target like this is you actually block a lot of the light so they work best on a finer Target like that we're going to see how long this takes I'm going to time this and stop the video and see if this actually goes so you don't have to sit here and watch me make water boil so we have a little bit of a boil it took 8 minutes to do from this flashlight concentrated by this 6-in parabolic mirror on these black screws inside of a test tube so with that flashlight we were able to boil some water very small amount and we were also able to easily start a fire I'm your host Dan ohos thank you for watching and enjoy our videos this is an interesting little fact about uh LED lights they have a little lens in them and I'm going to show you something this is the regular magnifying glass and way over there I have a white board so what I'm going to do is put this through here like that and show you see if I can get this right the LEDs uh this type are not strong enough to effectively start a fire but that's pretty good light considering that this is just a little two watt bulb in a nice little spot and this is a cool little flashlight 10 watt flashlight a friend of mine gave me this has a high-intensity LED in it I'm going to show you that you can actually see the square that this Square LED I'm putting it through the magnifying glasshello there I'm your host Dan Roos and I have a high-intensity discharge hid Spotlight this is a 35 wat bulb in there and this light runs off of these type of batteries this is a 12volt battery 7 amp hour I also have a crystal ball I have a parabolic beer and I have a magnify and glass used to solder stuff with wires that sort of thing we're going to be seeing if we can get this flashlight to start a fire this is a black piece of corrugated board it's used for packaging and displays this is uh I'm using black so that way it absorbs the light from this and I've seen a lot of videos where people have shown starting fires with flashlights and I question a lot of the videos some of them are spoof videos um they don't really understand the Optics behind starting a fire with the flashlight you can't just use this right here to start a fire you need to do a lot of lot of work to get it to do that what we're doing is we're taking the uh reflective shape that's inside of this particular light that's designed to shoot light a long distance and we're going to be running it through different things that act as magnifiers you can see this crystal ball is an excellent magnifier this is probably 15x or but um it also spins really nicely um we're going to be running the light through that and seeing if we can catch something on fire okay I got the light and the ball set up and I'm going to turn the light on and see how long this takes and see that started smoldering instantly so that is with the crystal ball now I have the small magnifying glass set up this has a longer focal point see that that actually didn't put a hole in it but it did to start to Scorch it and I have a very nice small 6-in parabolic mirror that I'm going to be turning the light on and I'm going to scoot it this way because this is reflective so we're going to move this into the focal point and you can see because the parabolic Mirror Has a larger area it's collecting more of the light and concentrating it this has very good Optics on it so it's actually doing a really good job really fast in fact that's probably going to burst into flames I also have my RPM tester which has a laser on it the laser pattern looks something like this and you can see how wide it is that's because this has a lens in there that gives it a little bit of a different shape what I'm going to do is shine it into the parabolic mirror and see if we can focus it see if maybe that'll work so I'm shining it into the mirror and it's bouncing from there to the mirror back over to our Target and I'm going to bring it in to tighten it you can see while it tightens it down this laser won't actually burn this material I do have a laser that I'm going to show you in a future video of that cuts right through stuff it burns it instantly it's a legal laser too I'll show you where you can get them so now what I've done is I've taken the light to the the parabolic mirror to a test tube filled with some black screws there's also water inside of there and I'm going to check the focal point make sure that we're right about that problem with the parabolic mirror in a large Target like this is you actually block a lot of the light so they work best on a finer Target like that we're going to see how long this takes I'm going to time this and stop the video and see if this actually goes so you don't have to sit here and watch me make water boil so we have a little bit of a boil it took 8 minutes to do from this flashlight concentrated by this 6-in parabolic mirror on these black screws inside of a test tube so with that flashlight we were able to boil some water very small amount and we were also able to easily start a fire I'm your host Dan ohos thank you for watching and enjoy our videos this is an interesting little fact about uh LED lights they have a little lens in them and I'm going to show you something this is the regular magnifying glass and way over there I have a white board so what I'm going to do is put this through here like that and show you see if I can get this right the LEDs uh this type are not strong enough to effectively start a fire but that's pretty good light considering that this is just a little two watt bulb in a nice little spot and this is a cool little flashlight 10 watt flashlight a friend of mine gave me this has a high-intensity LED in it I'm going to show you that you can actually see the square that this Square LED I'm putting it through the magnifying glass\n"
