I was given a Surefire 6P incandescent model as a present a few years ago. It is 85 lumen (as I recall) and had some artifacts in the beam. It seemed bright when I first got it but after I got into flashlights it no longer seemed bright at all.
I replaced the drop-in with a XM-L but due to the CR123 batteries rarely used it. I've now ordered a pair of rechargeable CR123's and can use it more if I decide to.
I recently put the incan bulb back in while playing around with filters for some of my other flashlights. It's not too hard to change the tint in existing lights to a better tint but using the 6P incan as the standard it's hard to meet that standard. It always looks better than whatever I do as far as filters.
At least for the moment I'm going to keep it with the incan bulb for whenever I want to go outside at night (maybe for a walk among the trees) where I want everything to have a more natural look. I don't really need it to have maximum brightness.
I have added a light diffusion effect filter behind the lens. This eliminated the artifacts and provides a smoother beam.
Do any of you still keep and use incans just for the beam quality rather than intensity or have you switched completely to LEDS?
I keep an ROP high at the back door - still use it for dog spotting at night. And we will have 14.5 hours of darkness tonight and 15 next Friday.
It isn't as bright as most of my XM-L lights but it's there till I decide on some more radical mod to that 2D Mag with a pair of 36200 cells in it. Once my last high bulb goes (And they don't live all that long when overdriven by a pair of big lithium cells), it'll be getting some sort of neutral LED mod.
What I'd like is something like this but my fabrication skills just aren't up to that sort of work. Lovely job dorpmuller!
i still use my stripped down Princeton Tec Vortec to chase away raccoons, skunks, and other critters in my yard. it's not very bright - even with a Mag-Num Star bulb in there, the output is probably below 50 lumens - but I have an easier time identifying what critter it is that i'll be having to chase away with the incan than i do with brighter LEDs. My LEDs, even the warms that i have (75 CRI) don't come close in that department.
I'm not sure as I only own one warm LED and it isn't hugely powerful.
Something I first noticed with a (for the time. And the time was several years ago) very bright triple K2 light was that I lost all depth perception with the bluer light from the white LEDs of the time. The world looked like a set of cardboard cutouts - the same sort of effect as I get from those two side-by-side picture stereograms.
With incandescents this didn't happen. I'll be in a place where I can ry out my one ultra-warm LED this weekend and conditions permitting I'll give this a shot.
This may be an oddity with my eyesight though and I'd be interested to hear from others if they see the same effect. Take your most blue powerful LED and try it for yourself - I'd love to know if this is just me. If it isn't, then those very cold HID headlamps could be dangerous. Depth perception is a bit important when driving at night.
It's not just you (although warm tint and high CRI aren't the same thing). The depth perception is limited assuming you are in a colorful environment because everything looks blue (to a degree) so differing color isn't there to provide clues to depth.
Once you can pick up more colors this provides depth (distance) clues as well. I personally think those very cold car lights are dangerous (and annoying) to the other driver. Someone with lights like that got behind me the other night and at first I thought they had the high beams on but that wasn't the case. It was just too stark and blinding.
I went out in the backyard tonight and tested out an incan, a RGB light in "white" mode and a regular cool white LED. The cool white LED looked fine for a cool white LED meaning it didn't have an excessively blue or green tint.
The incan made all or most of the colors pop out. It's fall so there are a lot of different colors in the leaves now. The RGB in white mode brought out more color than the cool white LED but when compared to the incan it looked a bit washed out as well.
The RGB light is diffused so there really isn't any throw but the incan does have a reflector so when I used that throw (in the backyard) and compared it with the throw of a cool white LED the trees and bushes popped out much more so again it was more pleasant and did provide more depth clues.
In the house I still prefer either cool white or neutral white rather than incan as far as flashlights go. Of course my house lights are incan although I guess that's about to change by law soon enough!
I actually prefer incans, but due to the trade off of output or runtime I mainly use LED:s anyway. But the colour of a well driven incan just cant be beaten, even though my warm white XM-L makes a good effort.
My dream right now is a 5D Maglite with 5 26650 IMR batteries driving an 50W MR16 halogen bulb. About as impractical as a light can be but oh how fun and bright it would be.
Off toptic but I'm wondering why you bother to chase away the raccoons in your yard. You can't stay out there all night so what is the point?
I ask only because I have a small fish pond off my patio and the raccoons sometimes come around it and are a little destructive (rarely get fish however) but I don't try to fight them as it would be a losing battle.
I have a similar combo, 2C mag with 2 18650 batteries and a 5-cell Mag Xenon bulb and I love it. A really nice light with good size that's bright, white and is capable of some impressive throw.
Check my thread with lots of beamshots to see what incans a capable of doing.
the raccoons come around a couple times a week and usually they'll just kind of roam through and not cause any problems. but once in a while, i'll hear them rummaging through stuff or kind of getting into it with my neighbors dogs - they'll sit on my fence, look over into my neighbors yard and get into a hissing/barking match. that's when i go out and try to usher them on to their next port of call.
the real losing battle i fight is with the damned feral cats. they'll pretty much come right back.
Haha...earlier this summer I was laying on my back on the grass using my telescope and binoculars and I saw there were two or three raccoons about 10 feet away from me just staring at me. They never show any fear and I just wanted to be sure they went on about their business rather than walking on my face. That's when I started carrying my small aspheric "thrower" while using my telescope so I could clear the area and then forget about them :)
I have a 2C ROP (low usually) that runs on 2 IMR 26500s and a 4D that runs a Osram 64458 (90w overdriven closer to 200w) on 5 26500s with an AW soft start. I also have some 35w IRC bulbs for the same configuration.
I have a spare 3D tube and some Osram 64623's to run 4x26500 if I want.
How much do I use them? Never. Even the ROP fell out of use once the XM-L took over.
Ahh... I do have a Surefire P91 in the parts bin. That hasn't been used in a while. I'll probably get out the ROP thanks to this thread.
I just received my first warm white LED yesterday. It's a 5-mode XM-L and I am surprised at how much I like it. I shine it beside an UF XM-L at say, a bookcase, something with lots of different colors and side by side, the UF T6 seems to wash out the colors.
I know this is bordering on a hijack but the thing is, that dang warm white drop-in pulled 5.08 amps initially before settling down to 4.70. It is still pulling over 1.30 amps on medium and .42 on low. Why the flock is it such a power hog? It is bright however, I'll give it that. It not only has an incan tint, but it sucks power like an incan too. Pretty funny, actually.
if you got the UF warm 5 mode from MF, i think it's been discussed that the driver on that dropin is the problem and needs to be replaced to get the draw down to something reasonable.
I guess I should have done my due diligence on research before pulling the trigger. At first I thought there was a problem with my $40 DMM. Still though, the tint is a nice change.
