How hard would it be to take a cheap existing key chain flashlight and swap the LED with an IR LED? It's really just a proof of concept experiment that I am working on with my nephew. He's in a science and tech club as school and we were talking about how my ring camera uses an infrared light to "see" in the dark.


I have no idea if it's as simple as swapping them out or if I need to consider different power supplies, etc.

Depends on how the existing light is configured. If it's waterproof and rechargeable it could have obscure surface mount LEDs which might be harder to de-solder and locate IR replacements but the cheapest keychain lights should be really easy to swap with just a soldering iron.

This one should be really easy: https://a.co/d/gXhGJ9N

You can buy IR flashlights unless you're just wanting to do the changes as the experiment. Chinesium IR flashlights are cheap on Amazon. I bought one to supplement the light on a night vision rifle scope and it works well.

Just a fun little proof of concept project more than anything else.

I had no idea that you could actually buy premade flashlights. That's pretty cool.