AA Flashlight Collection Ceiling Bounce Comparison

I’ve measured the brightness of many AA flashlights using ceiling bounce method. I hope those searching for AA lights may find this data useful. The results reflect the max startup brightness:

Thrunite Archer 2A v3 NW - 72 lux
Zebralight SC5w II unit 1 - 44 lux (bad unit)
Zebralight SC5w II unit 2 - 68 lux
Zebralight SC5w II unit 3 - 74 lux
Utorch UT01 NW unit 1 - 51 lux
Utorch UT01 NW unit 1 - 58 lux
Utorch UT01 NW unit 1 - 59 lux (90 lux with 14500)
Lumintop EDC05 - 28 lux (53 lux with 14500)
Sofirn SP10B - 14 lux (26 with 14500)
Sofirn SP10A - 14 lux
Sofirn SF14 - 31 lux
Lumintop IPY365 - 21 lux
Reylight Ti Lan v2 with v3 driver - 22 lux (66 lux with 14500)
Reylight Pineapple AA v3 - 25 lux (72 lux with 14500)
Armytek Partner A2 Pro v3 WW (white button version) - 66 lux
Armytek Partner A2 Pro v3 WW (yellow button version) - 89 lux
Armytek Partner A1 Pro v3 WW - 37 lux (56 lux with 2xAA battery tube, 60 lux with 14500)
Armytek Prime A2 Pro v3 WW unit 1 - 84 lux
Armytek Prime A2 Pro v3 WW unit 2 - 86 lux
Armytek Prime A1 Pro v3 WW unit 1 - 54 lux
Armytek Prime A1 Pro v3 WW unit 2 - 51 lux
Armytek Prime A1 Pro v3 WW unit 3 - 51 lux
Sofirn SF11 unit 1 - 181 lux
Sofirn SF11 unit 2 - 182 lux
Sofirn SF11 unit 3 - 178 lux
Sunwayman D40A NW - 162 lux
Thrunite TN4A XP-L HD NW - 165 lux
On The Road M5 WW - 15 lux (66 lux with 14500) (very yellow tint)
Enogear AA Stainless Steel - 26 lux (60lux with 14500 but died within seconds)
Jaxman E3 219C - 28 lux (73lux with 14500)
Warsun AA Zoomie (max flood) - 10 lux (30 lux with 14500) (very CW tint)

Of all my AA, I find the Reylight Ti Lan the best overall due to relatively good 4000k tint w/ 90+ CRI, best aesthetic, and great UI for muggles. However, I wish it was a bit brighter. The Jaxman E3 is basically a low cost version of the Reylight but without memory and a lower quality driver but for the price, it is a great EDC around the house. The Enogear AA is another good bargain and has appealing looks and very rosy tint. The Armyteks feels very premium and have the best looking tint but not high CRI and the prices are higher.

The unit LUX isn't popular when we calculate brightness. Lumen is more popular and easy to compare. However, here is my aa flashlight collection. My top aa flashlight is ThruNite Archer 1A V3.

I can convert them to lumens but the relative difference will not change. It is the relative difference that matters here since you can compare theor difference relative brightness. The lumen numbers are dependent on calibration and everyones calibration is different.

Great comparison! Thanks :beer:

I beg to differ. Lux readings I think are somewhat more important that Lumen measurements. Lumens is just the unit of measurement for the amount of light coming out of the flashlight itself. Which can be useful but shouldn’t be a deciding factor upon buying a light. Lux gives us a better idea of how much of that light being emitted we can actually use in a given area. If I want to see for instance what is on a table say 25 yards away and you have a 1000 lumen light with a 120 degree beam then I am going to take my 200 lumen light with a 45 degree beam and see exactly what I want to see on that table where as you will just be able to tell there is a table there. So a good ceiling bounce test is a good measurement of how much of the light in that 1000 lumen flashlight, I will actually be able to use.

You can easily try this with any decent or even junky zoomie. 1000 lumen output. If you start on full flood and zoom in you will think the light is getting brighter, it’s not really, it’s still putting out 1000 lumens. It’s just concentrating that light in a more usable area. So the lux reading will be very low on full flood and quite high on full zoom. Still 1000 lumens. Lumens never change, except in step downs and what not, only the lux does. It’s putting that 1000 lumens to good use exactly where you need it.

Anyway, I am no expert but I quite like knowing lux readings as well as lumen measurements. I am also sure someone much smarter than me will have a better explanation for what is trying to fly out of my brain and into my fingers.

You’re somewhat confused. SKV89 wasn’t measuring lux. They were reporting numbers that are in units of lux but they weren’t measuring the lux of the flashlights in question.

And this is why lumens are still important. It will be putting out more like 300 lumens because aspheric focusing is extremely inefficient. Brinyte is one of the few brands that openly admits to this. Take a look at the official specs to the B158: http://www.brinyte.com/product/1440491407.html 1000 lumens for flood and 300 lumens for throw.

Thanks Parametrek for the explanation. This is just a very crude method to measure brightness in units of lux. It is not the lux at 1 meter to determine throw.

Nice info… you will get better reading when you get 4.5” lumen tube from TA.

Well, not really. A zoomie’s a lousy example to use.

When the lens is practically resting on the emitter, it’s quite efficient, giving you most of the 1000lm the chip emits. When zoomed to a Bat Signal of the emitter’s mugshot, actual lumens drops to maybe a third.

So 1000lm from the chip might be 950lm when zoomed out (wide flood) but drop to 300lm when zoomed in (the Bat Signal).

The reason is that as the lens gets pulled away from the emitter, rather than scooping up almost all the light the chip puts out, as a hugely wide cone of light, it instead only grabs a much smaller/thinner cone.

Got a construction site where they have those little peek-a-boo holes to look through? Stick yer face right up to it, and you’ll see most of the area. Take a small step back, then another, then another, and how much you see through the hole drops incredibly fast.

Anyway, we now continue with our regularly-scheduled thread…

Nice example . I particularly liked the Bat signal mugshot analogy :+1: