I also own the Sunnywayman D50A…which will run in moonlight mode for many days, but it takes 4 AA eneloops , so it doesnt suit my needs.
How many of those Xtar lights do you have?
I bought several of them , but have already wrapped them up to give for Xmas gifts , since they did not perform like I needed . I will keep 1 of them for myself though . For $7.50 , it is a good light…4 modes…pretty bright , and the moonlight mode is perfect as a night light, except for its low runtime . The tail clicky button is a bit firm, but thats no big deal.
I do think a better deal was the Cree ultrafire , that had the adjustable focus beam and ran on AA…I bought 1 of those a while ago off ebay for $2.89 .
I imagine the way LED technology is advancing, we will soon see a small budget light that will run on single AA/AAA eneloop at 1.5 to 3 lumens for
3 days or more, for under $10 . May even be some after xmas sales for the name brand ones, where the prices are marked down very low to get rid of year end stock and make way for new improved stock.
What im also hoping to eventually see, is a small LED light that runs on single AA/AAA , and has a built in solar panel , wrapped around the shell of the light, to keep the battery charged . You could keep it in the window sill and it would always be ready . They have flexible solar cells that could be circularly wrapped around the outer casing of the light . This would be a good seller for survivalist also . I see they have these keychain solar lights for sale, but they use a button cell/ watch batteries or a capacitor. It would be more appealing to me for them to use AA/AAA
Ummm, I’m not.
The only AA-format lights I have, I run straight alkies. Whenever I ran down my Quark so that “turbo” would be as bright as, say, medium, I’d feed those cells to my bobofett light. Hell, even when my optical mouse would stop working, I’d feed those cells to bobofett (cheap 3buk 1×AA light from MicroCenter). I still have a half-dozen “dead” AAs that I’ve yet to burn through.
I had a few regular NiCd/NiMH cells that I was using for… something… but Hell if I can even find the cells, let alone the come-with chargers. A lot of old-timey stuff didn’t run too well on 1.2V vs 1.5V. Hell, even my scanners had a coupla dummy-cells for when using alkies vs Ni-* cells.
And other stuff that’d take AA alkies would fry with multivolt Ni cells.
(And that includes the WK50, because it’s only rated to 1.8V, iirr.)
But realistically , most people who use AA/AAA rechargeables, probably use/own Eneloop more then any other brand/type ?
Especially if they need low self discharge rates and dont want to mess with special chargers for lithium / lifepo4 chemistry.
60 hours at 3 lumens using this I could believe:
http://www.foursevens.com/products/MA-AE
50% off the price today (Cyber Monday)
Im in the process of modifying my Leatherman Wave multi tool , so it will have a LED light in it and a Ferrous rod for firestarting.
TY for the link.
Below the item, there are some comments.
The Foursevesn rep, made a comment that he does not recomeend using rechargeable batteries for this light,maybe because it would not get 60 hours runtime at the 3 lumen mode ?
Okay, stop getting hung up on printed spex.
If you look at, say, the Jetbeam Jet-I, you’ll see 2 different lumen ratings, one for Li, another for alkie. When you take multiple chemistries (and voltages) into account, you’ll get different performance.
They (being a reputable mfr) won’t just list the higher lumen output for Li cells, because then anyone using alkies will go bitching’n’moaning about not getting near that output when using alkies or Ni-* cells. And that’s when you’re feeding the light with up to 4.2V vs 1.2V!
Runtime when using moonlight mode, I can guarantee you, won’t be specced out for each’n’every chemistry when you’re using alkies, NiCd, NiMH, etc. Most people would care about light output at its maximum setting, not runtime using the lowest possible setting. That’s pretty much an afterthought.
But again (and again, and again, after multiple people suggested the saaaaaaame thing), TRY an AA alkie, and see how that fares.
—
Want a better example?
Buy a car that costs big bux, one that runs off E85 (“flex-fuel”, etc.). EtOH does not have the same energy density as straight gasoline, so your gas mileage will be lower using E85. Hell, my car’s mileage drops some with “oxygenated” fuel in winter.
Do you complain to Ford, GM, Toyota, etc., for not including specific fuel-mileage spex for straight gasoline, 10% EtOH in winter, E85, and so on?
You’ll never see those spex, because it’s presumed your mileage will drop with different fuels!
Yet you want to hold the maker of a 15buk flashlight to even higher standards? C’mon…
It sounds like you have your mind made up. David isn’t asking you to replace all your eneloops, just to buy a couple to run a test with.
There are dozens of reasons for different designs to have different run times. The best way to verify that ANY light and battery combination is going to do what you want is to test it in your environment.
Eneloops are great in some circumstances, but have trade offs that are sometimes worth it, and other times, not so much.
Just try it.
Ive already stated that for $7.50 , I think this is a good light. Im not asking for a refund from the manufacturer , im just letting people know I tested this light with a eneloop, and only got 28 hours runtime , which is nowheres near the 80 hour runtime specs the company listed. I would hope my info, could help some people. This was a learning experience for me also, because I now know, that any light I purchase, for long runtimes on moonlight mode , will have to be using a eneloop battery .
Like Energizer Lithiums? I saw those æons ago, and got sticker-shock. No idea if prices went down, but I stopped considering those for my AA uses a while back, so I can’t speak to them either way.
For eneloops, I think my idea of converting a multi-LED light via chip-resistor might still be the way to go.
Hell, an XM-L2 on a star might easily replace the LED board, and give you the latest as far as efficiency. I wondered before if making a mule out of one of those would be any good. If you want a dedicated firefly, that’d be ideal.
Is a fully charged alkalaine battery ., at 1.5 volts ? I will check my closet and see if I have any .
Frankly, most “normal” people just pick a combo charger+cells pack off the pegs at Target, Staples, Radio Shack, whatever, usually whatever’s on sale. They don’t have a clue about self-discharge, etc. All they know is, “battery stops working, stick it into the charger, wait, reuse”.
So they’ll get Ray-O-Vac (really nice AA alkies, and cheaper’n Energizers/Duracells and work just as well), or Energizer, or whatever was RS’s house-brand of Ni-* batteries.
And they all work fine.
These are the same people who still use 2×AA flashlights with PR2 bulbs, bought from CVS or Target or Lowes, but don’t want to keep buying’n’tossing alkies ($$:money_mouth_face:.
And for them, they’re fine if not fantastic in doing what’s claimed, namely, replacing AA alkies with cells that you can charge’n’reuse over and over and over again. And the incandescent bulb doesn’t seem to care about 1.2V vs 1.5V, at least not all that much.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that all those 85s out there go hanging out at BLF and other places on the interweb, researching rechargeable cells out the wazoo before buying The Best™, because they don’t.
I don’t own the light so I don’t know.
But I do own several other 4Sevens lights, and if anything they normally overperform when comparing with specs.
Especially the runtime is crazy long on my Mini 123:s (now renamed Mini ML)
I’ve got a Quark 2AA-X or whatever, and I love its true firefly mode, green-tinted as it may be.
By the way, you can find a review of the gen.1 version of the Mini MA here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?270918-4Sevens-Quark-Mini-AA-amp-123-Review-BEAMSHOTS-RUNTIMES-PICS-and-more!
so what is your problem, the manufactor of the light did specify run times for AA
he is taking the best availiable cell for max runtime, so that is a lithium 1.5V primary and 10% less with top alkalilines
if you cant get the same runtime with rechargable NiMh thats your problem not the problem of the specs
if you got a XP-G R5 LED inside you reach about 150 lumens/watt at low currents
so your NiMh has 1.2V and 2000mA that is 2.4Wh on paper
a Lithium primary has 1.5V and 3100mA that is 4.65Wh on paper
so 3 LED lumens x80 hours are 240Lh
so I need just a bit over 1.6Wh to power the LED the rest taked the flashlight converter
3.05Wh from the lithium primary are lost in the converter
34,4% efficiency
if you get only 30 hours out of your eneloops
that means from 2.4Wh are only 0.6Wh used to power the LED
so 1.8Wh are lost in the converter
25% eficiency
look at the discharge curves for 100mA at lower loads the Lithium primary will gain more advantage
and the step up converter will work at better efficiency with the lithium or alkaliline
so 80 hours are realistically for them at 3 Lumens
I did not see, in the specs, where there manufacturer specifically stated that one must use a lithium cell, to get the 80 hour runtime.
If that info was listed, please show it to me. Do you not agree, that is important info that the buyer should be told by the maker ?
Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that this light will get 80 hours runtime from a 3000 mah lithium AA battery…when it only gets 28 hours runtime on a 2000 Mah fully charged AA eneloop. …that was charged to full capacity on a slow charge of .2 Amps and then immediately put in the flashlight for testing runtime.