Okay thanks for the input...dont know if i want to go there yet, but thanks for posting the info for me.
Now approaching 50% after nine hours. Unfortunately I'm going to have to sacrifice another alkaline to get the medium runtime graph. It runs for a little over 90 minutes to 50% on medium with an alkaline. NiMH and 14500 runtimes to follow in due course.
Still better than 50% at 11.5 hours when I left for work.
That's very impressive! You might just convince me to buy this light if you get 24+ hours of usable light.
It did the first 12 hours fine, but I don't expect it to do 24. We'll see though
Gave me 2hr 15min of usable light on an alkaline in medium and around 16hr on low. The alkalines were all cheapos though most weigh 22-24g. A Duracell weighs 24.6g. Weight is a reasonable proxy for quality in alkalines. The lightest one, a Rayovac that did one of these runtimes was 22.4g
Next up NiMH runtimes. Time to top off some cells to make sure they are fully charged.
Starts out on an NiMH at the same sort of brightness as an alkaline on high - a hair over 85 lumens.
NiMH low. Down to 39 lux or about 8.6 lumens. Looks like NiMH runtimes will be comparable to alkaline ones but it'll take some time yet to be certain. I expect the light to go out tomorrow about noon.
9hr 13 min to 50% on low with an NiMH. Graphs for NiMH high and low added, NiMH medium and 14500 graphs next.
39 min 15 secs to shutoff - it was still pumping out over 150 lumens when the cell protection kicked in rather early I suspect. Initial brightness around 220 lumens.
Pretty good runtimes overall. What capacity are nimh cells used.
2,000mAh Eneloops. Might try it with some of the "2700"mAh cells I have somewhere. If they will still take a charge.
Cool......the only 2700mah cells i have are the Powerex cells. I sent them an email yesterday about the capacity going down hill and the person was telling me to do a break-in on the cells when i already have done 3, the person also sent me another email asking me for my addy so he can send me brand new 2700's. CS also didnt say about sending the cells back- Gotta love Maha CS. I was thinking with a fresh high mah cell that the runtime would be more. Im glad your on this forum, just too bad you dont live closer so i can mail you some lights for you to test out.
I suspect the cell I used - a blue protected "900mAh" Trustfire has a rather too sensitive low voltage cut off. The light was still putting out over 150 lumens when the cell protection cut in. Runtime to 50% 39 minutes 15 seconds. About a second after that, it had shut off.
Starts at 110 or thereabouts lumens - more than the NiMH or alkaline managed on high. If it gets past 65 minutes on medium it is managing more light for longer than the NiMH or alkaline cells could manage on high. Brightness and runtime are a tradeoff. This is using the same cell that ran for 39 minutes on high. If I'm still awake when it finishes, I'll check the voltage it cuts off at.
I wonder why that is.....i guess the light likes lithium chemistry over the others.
Pretty respectable runtime on NiMH to 50%. It is still 20 or so lumens at 50% or pretty much what Luxeon I LEDs in a small body could do on a good day. Plenty of LED lights could do better - this one appears to be optimised for 14500 use. Lots and lot of light, just not for a long time. If you want 20 lumens for ever there are better choices. If you want 200 lumens there aren't as many choices. But realistically if you want 200 or more lumens for a long time, you don't want to be using 14 x 50mm cells to get it. Nor do you want to be using a stainless steel body - not until LEDs and drivers are way more efficient. The best LEDs can do about 120 lumens per watt under lab conditions - in the real world 60 lumens per watt is probably nearer it. The theoretical maximum is something over 400 lumens/watt.
Not any time soon.....
Thanks for the details here Don! Great reporting. I wonder why the NiMH didn't give very good runtime on low? Was the battery well charged?
96 minutes till shutoff - more light for longer than an alkaline or NiMH can do on high.
The Eneloop should have been fully charged, I left it to trickle charge for a few hours after the light went green - on that charger it is safe to do so for a day or so. I'll charge one of my allegedly high capacity (2700mAh. They are too fat to fit in quite a few lights) NiMHs and run it again. Once I've put a new battery in the meter.
These cells have not been used in over a year so will need some discharging and charging to bring them back up to their best capacity. One of them has already been rejected by my second pickiest charger so it'll be heading for recycling.
The pickiest charger is a cell killing 15 minute charger that rams over 8 amps into the cells. It would never work with these cells even when they were new. I keep one set of sacrificial cells for those times when i just have to have a charged cell immediately. Which is not often these days, I own quite a lot of LSD cells.
This will take a while.
Im sort of the same way....my high capacity cells are used a lot for nightlights and such so they get used a lot. I would rather kill them with time then the lsd's. Good morning fella's.
Starts at about 25 lumens or roughly what it did on medium with alkalines or NiMH. Runtime - we'll see. Guesstimate of around 6-7 hours depending on when the cell decides to cut off.
At 6 hours down to 77% of initial output - say 19-20 lumens roughly. Now cycling some 2700mAh NiMH to see if they can give a better runtime. On their first cycle the best of them gave 1800mAh which is less than my Eneloops give. Will cycle them a few times to see if that helps.