longest running AAA light?

The aluminum version has expired between 23-26hrs, but my copper version is still running at 27 hrs. I believe the copper to be the ‘efficient driver’ per this thread Efficiency Copper Lumintop Tool, Worm, Maratac, ReyLight
When running them, I’m recording the time to when there is no light from the LED without interruption. I know sometimes if a light is turned off and the battery rested then it can give a little more, not sure about the science here but I’m sure someone does.

Thanks for the data! I have not looked up the tool output levels, I am curious to hear how it compares to the 3 lumens advertised on some version of the LD01. Likely not my version, as I have been able to find out very little about this particular emitter, the XP-E R4.

As far as not shutting of the light goes, I thought about that but decided it is a bit more real world than just leaving a light on until it dies. Also, I don’t have a way to quantify performance other than camera beam pictures, which are a bit of a pain to load on this site.

91 hours into E01 and e+lite runs. They are about the same brightness now. The E01 battery is still at 1.27V. If I was not measuring this myself I would not believe it. The light intensity has not changed from the test start for the E01. The LD01 is at 21 hours, battery voltage is at 1.28V. No drop in light output yet for the LD01. I hope to be sleeping at the 100 hour mark for the E01 and e+lite, which will be the 31 hour mark for the LD01. I suspect by the time I get up they will still be running though.

So the LD01 lasted 38.5 hrs on a alkaline battery. I took the battery to the meetings I was in for work today and peeked at it periodically. I was able to see it fully illuminated and then 10 minutes later looking dark. When I returned to the hotel in the evening I turned it back on and it produced full level low light for about 40 more minutes. It slowly died down to barely discernable light, and then I removed the battery and quickly measured. The battery had recovered to about 0.38V and rising. The review link below shows behavior of a version of the LD01 that looks very similar to what I observed. Operation down to 0.3V. I am thinking I don’t need to make a joule thief, I have one already in the LD01, which seems very efficient. I can’t verify the intensity level of this light but if the advertised 3 lumens is correct, then I got about 115 lumen hours out of a 4 year old alkaline battery. And the light does come back on at medium level resting during the time it took me to type this post.

I also did another voltage test of the E01 battery. It is holding tough at 1.26V after 116 hours. Just as a sanity check I put a new eneloop in to compare the light intensity which best I could tell had not changed since the test beginning. I can see that there is some slight dimming of the already dim light, but not much. The light is still useful finding your way around a dark room, still puts out enough light to read by, but maybe not fine print. I also found out that the mode memory timeout in the light is a function of the battery voltage, which is no surprise. When I took out the new eneloop and put ack in the old one, I observed (twice) that the light came on in medium mode with the old battery, and I had to switch to high then back to low mode. The first time I thought the light was just flaky, but after the second time I realized it is the short term mode memory. I tried two more times, both times waiting well beyond 10 seconds, and it came on at low in those cases. Also, it never came on above low when I put the new battery in. Fun stuff!!

I leave for the west coast way too early tomorrow morning, so I may not check any voltages for a day or so. I have no doubt the E01 will still be on, we will see about the e+lite, which continues to very slowly dim but is still putting light out.

The problem with those joul thiefs is they cant be run by NiMh without destroying the cell

Do you know if alkaliline batteries leak more if discharged so low?

I don’t know if leaky alkaline batteries is a problem these days or not. I have limited experience, basically this one cell, so far no problems.

I got even never used cells as backup for my DLSR camreas flash leaking 2 of 4 stored in my camera bag after 2 years

The worst thing is that you grab a light when you need it just to notice its not working anymore and the battery is glued inside by leaked electrolyte and battery contacts corroded like crazy

I would only put alkalilines in my 500€ flash or other expensive gear in an emergency situation and take em out after use charging my NiMhs

So what was the run time for the copper version?

200 hours 1.16V of light out of the Manker E01, test over. The light was still usable in the middle of the night for navigating around a dark house. I don’t want to keep discharging the eneloop, and also want to start investigating the current vs voltage profile. I put a new alkaline in it today and found that it is as bright as the AA Archer which also claims 1 lumen on moonlight. The eneloop was never that bright, so it seems that the output is not regulated on moonlight is the E01. Plan to upload some pictures now that this phase is over.

It lasted between 28-29.5 hrs until dead, so actually not a whole lot longer.
I tried the IYP head on the Tool over the weekend but it was dead by the time I checked it today, so all I know is that it’s less than 63 hrs. I like the mode spacing quite a lot, I’m tempted to keep it this way

Impressive time for the E01, I’m partial to click switches but that has me interested

Thanks for the info, I updated the first post accordingly.

The Manker E01 was $10 on Amazon open box. It was a bit finicky at first, but after I cleaned it and put some teflon tape on the threads it has worked fine.

As far as uploading pictures goes, do they all need to be hosted on photobucket or some such place first?

Yes.

Here's a guide:

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/15452

Ok, someday I will do that, such a pita though.

I did a couple of tests on current draw at low on the Manker E01. 3 batteries, 3 different current draws. The voltage shown below is without load, I don’t have a convenient way right now to measure under load unfortunately.

fresh Duracell,V=1.61V, E01 draws 5.4mA on low, impedance 298 ohms
Fresh eneloop, V=1.41V, E01 draws 4.5mA on low, impedance 313 ohms
old kirkland, V=1.26V, E01 draws 3.6mA on low, impedance 350 ohms
old Duracell, V=1.22V, E01 draws 3.5mA on low, impedance 349 ohms

I am not sure if this is some sort of joule thief type circuit, some other PWM, or just an interesting boost that saves current as the battery voltage drops. Pretty easy to see how a 750mAHr eneloop that stores more than 800mA hr could last for 200 hours. If the roughly 320 ohm impedance holds, when the battery is in that 1.27V range the current is 4mA, or 200 hours worth of storage. Would love to see the circuit and understand how the driver works.

Repeated the test on medium level. I calculated impedance here but I think it is meaningless without knowing the actual battery voltage under these heavier loads, especially for the “softer” alkaline batteries.

fresh Duracell,V=1.61V, E01 draws 105mA on medium, impedance 15.3 ohms
Fresh eneloop, V=1.41V, E01 draws 097mA on medium, impedance 14.5 ohms
old kirkland, V=1.26V, E01 draws 077mA on medium, impedance 16.3 ohms
old Duracell, V=1.22V, E01 draws 077mA on medium, impedance 15.8 ohms

All in all, a fun way to spend part of a Monday evening. I think I can scrounge up another DVM, but in reality I learned what I wanted to learn, that is the current is as low on the low setting as I imagined, and it is not trying to regulate constant voltage/current on the LED on any setting, but looks more like a fixed impedance.

Finished a run with my new brass Lumintop Worm today on low, 31 hours. I am wondering if my eneloop was fully charged or not for this, so I will be repeating it, and will also run an alkaline to see how that compares. Tried to measure the current the light draws but for some reason I could never get the light to turn on or change modes away from Medium.

Second test complete on the worm. 34.5 hours on a 4 year old alkaline battery, same vintage and starting voltage (1.53V) as used in the fenix LD01 test. Fenix made it 38.5 hours, I was hoping the worm would match it. I am confident with a new alkaline it would meet or beat the vendor specified 36 hours.

Here is one thing I love about alkaline batteries. My worm was off, dead off after a 34 hour run on an alkaline on low. When I tried to turn it on a several minutes later, nothing. Let the battery sit a couple hours, it started working again. I used the light this evening a few times during a walk with my wife, including a few times on medium. I turned it on low to see how much more I could get out of the battery, 60 minutes later it is still shining at full illumination on low mode (3 lumens).

This aspect did beat the Fenix, as the LD01 only ran 40 minutes after it shut off due to first end of alkaline battery life. This is making me wonder if part of the reason the worm had less life is it was in a cold room most of the last 10 hours of life, then outside on a cold morning. The fenix was in my pocket nice and warm at the end of its life.

For low power use, alkalines can deliver as well as and sometimes better than rechargables or lithium primaries. No worry about damaging it, as you will throw it away anyway. And the price is hard to beat in decent quantity. Yes, the rechargable will get more uses, they have their place for sure, especially higher power levels.

I definitely would not perform brain surgery with 3 lumens of light, but it will get you where you need to go if you are walking or looking for something under a piece of furniture, or many other simple tasks I use flashlight. I like rechargables also, but alkalines definitely have a place in my flashlight power cache. And no, I have not had an alkaline leak and ruin a light or other electronic device in the past 20 years. I know it happens, but not in 805 . . . (yet . . .)

Final update for this battery, got 45 minutes this morning, then another 30 minutes in the early afternoon. It just keeps on giving . . .

Motivated by another thread I did another run time test, this time with alkaleak batteries. One light was the long run standby my Manker E01, and the other my E02. They both got cells that were a few years old and measuring 1.58V. Both lights were measuring about 4mA of current draw from the cells at the beginning of the tes.

The E02 lasted 8 days, 6 hours plus before it gave up. It ran regulated the whole time, and was at level 7 in moonlight mode. It died somewhere in the next 8 hours. The last time I measured the battery it was at 0.86V. 198 hrs of observed performance off an older alkileak. Not bad.

The E01 went well beyond. It is not regulated in moonlight mode, but ran 12 days plus, nearly 300 hours. Last time I measured the cell before it quit was about 0.9V.

And another data point, while likely not a super long run time, the Sofirn C01 is currently running off a cell measuring less than 0.6V and putting out as much light as either Manker above. We’ll see if that one is still running in the morning.

Some good info, I may sacrifice some primary and test some of my lows

thanks for all your info
yes, temperature matters
and when you say E01 above, do you mean Manker or Fenix, and if manker E01 is that stock or modified inductor?

maybe at some point you can summarize your data for each light… Im getting very confused sorting through the text