Cyalume Trip Flare

Here in the Wudewasa Blog, I previously wrote about .22 caliber tripwire sentry alarm mines. These mines are useful for sounding an alert, but they do nothing to show you what set off the alarm. To do this we need something to illuminate the area, and this is where the Cyalume Trip Flare comes into play.

The Cyalume Trip Flare is loaded with a chemlight, and when something hits the tripwire a striker breaks the chemlight causing it to light and illuminate the area around where it is set. The best chemlight to use in the trip flare is the Cyalume ChemLight Ultra High Intensity, with a five minute duration. This allows you to observe the area and hopefully spot whatever or whomever set off the trip flare, but then lets the area return to darkness.  While the Cyalume Trip Flare will illuminate an area, it doesn’t make much noise when it is tripped, so you should be observing the area where your trip flares are set. Of course, with a bit of ingenuity it would be possible to rig a noise maker (such as the Robocopp 130dB SOS Personal Alarm) to the Cyalume Trip Flare so that the area is both illuminated and an alarm is sounded when the flare is tripped.