Putting this out into the universe…
Who’s going to be the first?
Probably the Vulcans. They like all that tekky stuff.
Not sure if multi-LEP would offer any real advantage over a single LEP.
The advantage of LEP is super-high intensity. This lets you make a super-thrower.
But throw is usually determined by the width of the head and choice of emitter. In the same width flashlight head a single emitter usually out throws multiples of the same emitter.
Extra emitters gains you a wider hotspot, which might be more useful, but doesn’t typically grant extra throw. And if you want a wider hotspot with less throw, why pay possibly thousands of dollars for a multi-LEP light when you can just use an LED?
What I’d like to see done with LEP:
- a zoomie
- a reflector instead of an aspheric lens.
I understand how a zoomie would potentially increase the utility of an LEP by changing the thrower beam in to a flood pattern. However, I understand LEPs to not have much inherent spill or flood. How would a reflector benefit the system?
Duct tape some W30s together.
A quad LEP, something with optics the size of say a Weltool W3 or Fenix TK30, and you have ~2000 lumens, a usable spot size, and ~1.5Mcd in an ~80mm diameter head. Sounds like desirable performance to me. YMMV
For a short-range light a LEP zoomie would be pretty terrible. Something like 200-500 lumens in pure flood. It would match the output of a $10 zoomie. However, from what I’ve read some LEP zoomies aren’t usable below 800 meters or so due to the tiny size of the hotspot. Having one that you could slightly defocus the spot to make it usable at say 100m might make it easier to find what you want to illuminate.
I agree a multi LEP could make a great super thrower. Multi reflector lights tend to throw less because of wasted frontal area between the reflectors and each LED tends to not be driven as hard, but both these aspects can mostly be remedied to make a good super thrower.
What is the state of the art LEP flashlight output nowadays, and is that OTF and has the output been measured by a trusted reviewer? An LEP reflector light would increase the OTF beam lumens by 2 to 3x relative to a simple lens light because of the much better light collection efficiency. A typical reflector puts ~70% of the light into the beam. A typical aspheric lens puts only 30% of the LED output into the beam.
I wonder if to extrapolate some orders of magnitude from LED to LEP, the main question would not be to know first if the light distribution of a LEP is about the same as a LED ?
Do we have the same lambertian light distribution with both technologies or a LEP is different ?
True, I don’t know that much about the structure of the LEP. But it is excited phosphor so it should be diffuse scattering like an LED, and some discussion with Enderman, who knows more about LEPs, made me think it is a similar light distribution.
Actually, even better might be a LEP recoil thrower.
It would probably be even simpler to make than a standard LEP.
- In current LEPs, the laser beam points forward hits a mirror block mounted to the back of the aspheric lens and is then reflected backwards onto the phosphor.
- A recoil LEP design might mount the phosphor on the recoil arm. The laser would be mounted in the body as normal, but when it shoots forward the beam would be intercepted by the phosphor just below the lens. The emitted light would then project backwards into the reflector then out the lens. This might make for a more efficient thrower than current aspheric lens based LEP designs.
I thought of this too. 4 LEPs in a K1 sized light would be nice.
I like it. Wonder how warm the phosphor gets vs the laser itself? The classic issue with recoil builds is cooling the emitter, so maybe this helps there.
Also if heat on the phosphor is an issue, the arm with the phosphor could be made of copper instead of aluminum. That would greatly increase heat conduction especially given the small thickness of the arm.
It seems that because LEPs have such narrow beams, a focusing mechanism would be needed for a multi-emitter setup.
I built this quad Maxtoch Shooter 2X before divvying up the lights among my friends. The four beams converged to a usable hotspot at around 100 yards.
It seems that with four LEPs arranged parallel to each other, you’d get four distinct hotspots, or at best a ‘flower petal,’ even at a great distance.
I just need to convince three friends to buy a Weltool W4 so I can try it. 
You can combine lasers together to create a white looking laser.
Maybe at very close distances you could see the individual hotspots, but in the proposed case of ~30mm optics and therefore spacing, if they are made precisely parrallel, then the hotspots will only be ~30mm offset from one another. I’d bet you’d never be able to see this beyond 5-10m.
If LEP gets more affordable, I’d like to see an BLF Q8 style light with a center LEP surrounded by 3 regular LED’s. Two buttons, 1 for ramping and the other for gradually moving between LEP and LED’s. Perfect zoomie.
I’d like to see a ~24-26mm diameter super compact 18650/18350 LEP. Epitome of pocket thrower. With that size optic, I bet you get a very usable beam angle and probably 150+kcd.
Manker will test LEP with their electronic zoom
i guess that will make LEP more useable...