No, your misunderstanding.
FET drivers do not tend to make extra capacity less useful. I don’t know where you got this idea from. Where did a different driver design come from? I was only talking about boost drivers.
Take a look at this battery comparison.
Regardless of the driver design, the high capacity battery gives you it’s extra bit of capacity only below 3.3v (with a 5A load). So to get the extra run time, you need to be running your batteries down until the low voltage protection kicks in (which you do). Thats my first point and it has nothing to do with driver design.
Again, I see errors.
The GA cell is rated for 10A continous, but it can actually do more than that. It can pull 15A, but not continously as it gets too hot. The way a boost driver works has a lot to do with feeding it amperage at a high voltage. Voltage losses in the springs, etc… can cause the boost driver to not maintain turbo for very long. The higher you can keep the voltage (while under load), the longer it will run at turbo (excluding heat related step downs).
An 18650 cell is a set container size full of the chemical mix of elements (lithium, etc…). If the manufacturer wants to maximize the batteries run capacity he can’t make the package bigger, he has to instead tweak the mix of battery chemicals to get it. This compromises other characteristics of the battery such as limiting it’s max discharge ability and it having more voltage sag under load.
Even if a boost drivers max battery draw is only 8A, the extra voltage sag is what can really hurt it. It reduces it’s ability to run at turbo for long periods. If you needed to run it at turbo a lot (like I need to), you would want the higher drain 30Q battery. Since you run it at only 700 lumen, you don’t notice this reduced turbo run time.
Here is a cool chart Maukka did on the Acebeam EC65 which uses a high power boost driver. He tested a high capacity Acebeam battery against a high drain Samsung 30T.
You can see that the Acebeam battery only allowed full power turbo to be activated one time for about 2.5 minutes. After that it’s voltage was too low to allow it any more. The 30T’s lesser voltage sag allowed six more applications of full turbo!
You can also see that the higher capacity Acebeam battery allowed for more run time at the lower levels. Normally it would not be that much extra but this comparison was between the 30T which is only 3000mah and the Acebeam cell which was about 5000mah. So a big gap in capacity. With a 3000mah and 3500mah cell it’s a smaller gap. Still, the high drain will allow for more turbo run time while the high capacity will run a bit longer (as long as you let it run until LVP kicks in)
I personally would rather run the Zebra Plus with a 30Q because turbo times are more important to me than maximum low level run times plus I don’t like running the voltage down too far. So it all depends on how you use the light and your needs.
I forget my point, but I hope this all makes sense.
Your Zebra Plus is not single emitter. It’s a quad die. There are many other higher powered 18650 boost driver lights out there.
I’m not sure where you are getting the 10 and 11 Wh from. Can you explain?
When I look at the graph I posted above I see the 5A curve showing the 30Q high drain delivering more power from 4.2 volts down to 3.3 volts. From there on down, the GA has the advantage.
At 7A the crossover point is 3.2v
At 10A the crossover point is 3.1v
The FET and the Boost both prefer the high drain battery. Both driver designs will deliver the same amount of light on the same battery, it’s just the way they deliver that light that changes.
With a boost driver you get steps in output. It’s either steady output or no output (not counting thermal protection ramping it down).
With a FET driver you don’t get steps, per se. When you remove the thermal related stuff, you get a steady sloping downward curve as voltage drops. The FET starts at a higher output, that’s it’s advantage. The Boost driver starts at a lower max level, but it’s a steady output. That’s it’s advantage.
For your particular needs with that particular light, the GA makes more sense over the 30Q. It lets you squeeze a bit more run time from the lower levels. Plus you don’t really miss the reduced turbo runtimes. It’s a win, win (for you).
Whew, that’s too much writing. Let me know if you have any other specific questions.