The brightest (ceiling bounce) budget LED I have so far is a UniqueFire G10 on 14500's. I love this $14.00 pocket rocket. It's brighter than my ITP A3 on nimh's. But on lithiums, it's simply devine. Sure i can't leave it on for longer than a minute...you cant have it all!
Well, I now want to push the budget budget a little higher and get a brighter light. I want lots of light on the cheap. Let's say around $35~.
I'm really liking the E03. How much brighter will it be than my G10? How about the TH-60?
Yep, you have two ways to go XM-L for impressive lumens or go for an aspheric for impressive throw.
With more lumens you'll see that the hotspot doesn't really get any brighter than what you have now probably but it gets bigger. The room or area you are filling can now be bigger.
With more lux (throw) lumens isn't the issue but focusing a little bit of bright light and ending up with a "light saber" :)
if you want some real flashlight divinity, you might wan to move up to 18650's. 14500's will kind of limit you if you want serious power - not enough juice and hosts are too small to dissipate a lot of heat.
Well its brightness youa re after, than some form of C8 XM-L is pretty good. If you are looking for a cool looking and very well made light for the money, than I would like at a Trustfire T2 or a Sky Ray G6. Some of the sexiest compact 18650 lights around.
Hmmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that 18650 and 14500 actually produce the same voltage (3.7V) because they have the same chemistry inside. Comparing apples to apples with an 18650 vs a 14500, the only difference would be runtime. And in that sense, robo is right, 18650 offers dramatically longer runtime.
18650's can deliver more current due to their larger size, but it's not really a factor until you move to xm-l's (>1.5A), and there aren't that many hard driven/DD xml 14500 lights anyway.
Battery cells exhibit droop (in V) under load (in A). V will decrease less in a bigger cell for same A.
In a DD light (no reg), both will be lower for smaller cell. So really, it's both depending on how you count, even though the chemistry is the same. Another way to think of it is that a bigger cell is just smaller ones in parallel.
Fish, you might as well invest in some good 18650 batteries now, because if you stay with the flashoholic thing, you will find yourself bored with the AA and AAA thing. About the only thing I use AA lights for now are at my desk when I need to see my other flashlight stuff in a drawer.
For EDC, Cr123 (or rechargeable version) have SO much more light, and for outdoors I won't even touch an XR-E anymore, I want XM-L's. Just get used to the idea, it won't go away!
