They are both throwers. The L2 has more throw but the L6 is brighter. I only have an L6 so I can’t do a direct comparison,
Stock L2 is single 26650 with an LD29 driver and a tail switch. Lo (80mA) Med (900mA) High (3000mA) XML2 or XPL Hi emitter in various tints. Convoy say 1100lm max . There is an extension tube to run 2 26650 in series. With the extension tube, the L2 looks very similar to the L6. The L2 has a slightly smaller head.
L6 is two 26650s in series and the FX-30 driver. There is a forward click tail switch for on-off and a side switch changes modes. Lo(50mA) med (200mA) High (1700mA) Turbo (5000mA). Stock 5A Turbo is about 3800lm. XHP-70 LED on a copper DTP board. The stock reflector is OP but you can swap in a smooth one for a bit more throw.
Some 26650 batteries don’t fit in an L6.
The L6 is slightly out of your budget. You might get close with a coupon code or deal.
I just saw this in the thread “Future development of the maximum luminance of LEDs ” post #223 LichtAn put one of the new Osram emitter that’s the new throw king in a Lumintop GT Mini. led4power is selling the emitter, but he has limited stock. So better get one while he has them available! Else, you’ll have to wait until they hit the general market. No telling when that will be.
He says in another post further down, that he did nothing but change the LED only. And cd means candela. It is the measurement of the luminance of the output. It’s how the throw is determined. The bigger the number, the better the throw. Usually, the lights are measured in kcd, or a thousand(s) candelas.
Yeah, there’s a calculation for it. You have to define first how much light you want reflected back from the distance you’re trying to measure. That sounds complicated, but it just means that you decide how much light is enough to say you ‘reached’ a certain distance. Most guys around here use 1/4 lux as the minimum, and the calculation for that is the square root of the total candela, multiplied then by 2.
Depends. First you need the LED on MCPCB. I would not recommend to dedome a XP-L since its not easy. I would rather buy a XP-L HI, it comes without dome from factory, about 7$ on MCPCB at Int-Outdoor, maybe cheaper at Kaidomain.
Do you want more than one brightness level? If not, you don’t even need a driver, you could just bridge the original driver and drive the LED directly. FET+1 drivers are available for a couple of dollars at Banggood. But as I said, this light has a forward clicky, which is not nice to use with this driver.
I don’t really need much more brightness its probably not a big enough increase to notice, once you get to 1000 lumens going up just a little bit really isn’t worth it, and $7 aint bad at all, now all I need to do is look into batteries
Maybe you could look at some of the 4AA lights. Sofirn SF11 is an inexpensive option. There are several brands to choose from and they have Decient throw for the money you are willing to spend. Sure some of the others here can guide you to the other options.
They will all come with battery extension. Mountain Electronics will probably be quicker delivery to Idaho plus you can buy a couple of batteries at the same time. Banggood you can probably find a coupon code by going through some of the deals here http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/marketplace/commercial/liaisons and save $10 but delivery will be 2-3 weeks plus challenging customer service if something goes wrong. Get a 3A-3B or 4B-4C tint.
I would def check out the Lumintop GT Mini, for a light its size it is a little beast. If you shop around you can find it for around $40 for the quality of the light I don’t think it can be beat at that price point.