Vol. 03: Keychain Survival Tools

Whether you're facing a parachute drop into the High Sierras or a jammed button on your mobile, some handy keychain gizmo can be there for you.

By Bob Scott

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Keychain Light

LRI's Photon series are probably the best-known keychain lights and for good reason. They're reasonably rugged, light, and dependable.

Tiny Keychain Light

About $25, the hearing-aid-battery-powered Firefli is really tiny.

My old standby is the $5 Fox 40 Mini with the cosmetic side plates dremeled off to reduce its size. Fox has recently released a new Micro model that features a flatter profile than my hacked version, and it's reportedly just as loud.

Handy tool

The Micra and Squirt from Leatherman ($30-$40) are pleasant standouts in an otherwise bleak sea of cast metal junk. (Radioshack also has a version that replaces the standard pliers with a wire stripper.)

Pocket Compass

My favorite is the liquid-damped $15 version manufactured by old-school knife maker Marbles.

Fancy Pocket Compass

If you insist on spending more, the $50 Traildrop II Digital Compass and Temperature Keychain offers a backlight and all the functions you'd expect from a gizmo with a microchip and an LCD.

NukAlert

$160 nuclear radiation detector that looks vaguely like a car alarm remote and sounds an alarm when it detects a life-endangering amount of gamma or X radiation. By listening to the ten distinct alarm levels, you can plot a quick course out of a danger area, or, better yet, avoid entering one.

� MAKE: NOISE — Discuss this article

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Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

Keychain in picture
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Bob,

Where did you get the keychain that is in the picture? I didn't see any mention of it in the article and I have yet to find anything like it.
Posted by drbolt on October 21, 2005 at 15:49:47 Pacific Time

Keychain in picture
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The little clip on the Photon II came with the light. The big split ring came with the compass.

The cool clip that is holding the Micra (it has a little starburst one it) is from Berkley Point tools. Check out:
http://www.berkeleypoint.com/products/index.html

Click on "Hardware" and you'll see the mini, micro, nano and pico clips. The one in the photo is a matte finish "mini" which will set you back about $3.25

Cheers,
Bob
Posted by inuse on October 21, 2005 at 17:13:11 Pacific Time

Keychain in picture
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Thanks Bob. This is great. There are several sizes. The Photon light web site also has the clips that come with that light for $1.25. I am going to get a few of each.
Posted by drbolt on October 22, 2005 at 20:39:39 Pacific Time

USB Thumbdrive Fill Up
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Note that the USB Thumb Drive fillup appeared TWICE (pages 142 and 177). Instead of keeping outlook PSTs on your stick consider a copy of Thunderbird.
Posted by karnesky on July 25, 2005 at 14:05:48 Pacific Time

Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

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