Holy cow, these LED’s preform just as good in a light as they do on the bench! If I can now just find a neutral tint version preferably in 90+ CRI with cheap shipping.
I just built an S2+ with the second XP-L2 that was sent to me (I like to get 2 of any LED’s I test so that I have a spare in case something goes wrong or if the first test results are inconsistent for some reason, plus I like to install one in a light so I can see what it looks like in the real world).
Wow, this is easily the brightest single emitter tube like I have!
The really surprising thing is how much more efficient it is. With the TA17 drivers I have a regulated 350ma mode that generally nets me around 120-150 lumens depending on the LED, the highest I have seen was 180 with an XP-L V6 HD IIRC.
With the XP-L2 I am getting 200 lumens @ 350ma!
I then have a 2.45A regulated mode that normally nets me around 850-900 lumens, with the XP-L2 I am getting 1150 lumens!
Then we come to turbo, here are the results with different cells, these are all from a cold start, this is why I retest the peak output on the bench from a cold start to see what it would do in a flashlight.
Cheap laptop pull - ~6A - 1950 lumens
GA - ~7A - 2100 lumens
30Q - ~8.5A - 2300 lumens
Now of course things get hot fast and the output drops fast as well but I didn’t feel like testing each at 30 seconds. Still, 2300 lumens @ turn on from an EDC S2+ is seriously impressive!
It is also nice to see that the cold start test on the bench is indeed a good indication of what happens in a real light. It also explains why the numbers people report from flashlights are sometimes higher then what djozz’s tests says they would be.
After I got done being impressed with it on the sphere I then started looking at the beam.
Edit, just built a 5700k 90+ CRI XP-G3 for direct comparison. Updated the rest of the post accordingly.
First thing I noticed is that it is much like the XG-G3 with the tint shift as others have mentioned around the edge of the beam. The tint shift is basically the same as the G3, the tint plays a larger factor then the type of LED I think.
Compared to the 5700k G3 I would say the tint is close in the hot spot although the L2 has more red in the beam giving it a slight purple hue when white wall hunting. When used in the wild it is actually not that bad of a tint, but still too cool for my tastes.
I am thinking I would want 4000k to get a neutral tint, this one is far too cool for my liking, CRI is not about average for a 70CRI.
The beam size is naturally larger then the G3 but not a ton, maybe 25% larger.
Overall except for the cold tint I really like this LED, the tint shift is not ideal but it is livable for the performance you get. A good TIR lens that mixes the beam would really improve things, the TIR I am using helps but doesn’t fix the tint shift.
If these can be found in neutral tints and 90+ CRI I can easily see these becoming the go to LED’s for myself.
In other news I was comparing the graphs from the XP-L2 and XHP35 (test not released yet) and I am pretty sure that we are reaching the limits of the 3535 footprint at around 40W. Both LED’s have the same general curve shape when looking at wattage, I am guessing that 40W is just the limit for how fast the heat can be moved out of the LED no matter what star you have it mounted on. Honestly that is seriously impressive for that tiny footprint.
This does make me look forward to an XM-L3 to be released with this latest die tech, it is possible it could reach even higher numbers due to the larger footprint.