Astrolux A01 Light Output Performance

Ever since I had it, it seemed to be putting out mediocre light output. Comparing the Sofirn C01S to the Astrolux A01, the C01S is way brighter. I figured that’s the way it is. But lately, I’ve been wondering if all A01’s are like that?
Do you find that your A01 is quite bright? Maybe I got a bad batch? Should I sand the contact points for better performance maybe?

yeah my only a01 is way below the stated lumens on highest… but for the price its ok with the nichia emitter…

I have a couple of A01’s. They seem as bright or brighter than other AAA lights that I own.

Yeah I like the shape of the A01. More so than a Sofirn C01 but the light output is kinda dim. Plus the twisting for different modes is kinda finicky. Is it possible to use a 10400 battery or strictly AAA’s only?

no 10440 in A01 and C01

I am not a doctor, but I play one on the internet

you have a case of Lumenitits

symptoms are:

  1. dissatisfaction with output of primary cells
  2. asking if a light that uses primaries, will tolerate LiIon

treatment is:
buy a light rated for LiIon, for example ReyLight

the lights you are talking about, do their job very well, for a long time, in real darkness, using primary cells

but for cases of Lumenitis, no primary battery will seem sufficient

time to buy a light that is rated for LiIon

or console yourself that a Dimmer A01 will run longer, than a Brighter C01

Hey thanks for setting me straight. :slight_smile: I guess I have the “want more for less” syndrome. Kinda like expecting valet parking at McDonalds. I’ll look into ion battery lights.
But the thing that gets me is I remembered the A01 was kinda bright when I first got it back in Dec 2019. Then recently when I started to use it again, it wasn’t that bright anymore??

really? :slight_smile:

I have not heard of a light getting dimmer over time

otoh, some of my 5 year old eneloop batteries ARE dimmer now
I have a light meter. They used to reach 80 lumens, now they barely reach 50 lumens

fortunately, I never use the highest mode anyway

other things that I have noticed that change my brightness perception, the ambient light at the time of use… that is, during the day, the maximum of 80 lumens is pretty dim, but when I wake up in the dark the medium of 15 lumens seems Very bright :slight_smile:

hope that helps narrow down a few variables

when I am not satisfied with the output of my aaa light (Lumintop Tool), I switch to one of my 16340 lights, that are about 6x brighter (Jetbeam RRT-01)… An intermediate option is the AA Tool (not using LiIon), which is about 3x brighter than the AAA also not on LiIon.

Well now that I thought about things deeper, yeah I definitely remember back in Jan sometime that I was out back at night and the beam was bright. Not super super bright but bright. Kinda like under a full moon outside.

I have an Astrolux A01 and Sofirn C01S.

I think that in terms of total light output, both are pretty close when on max brightness level. Could the the C01S is just barely more total light output, but without more accurate measurement I can’t say for sure. (I do have a lux meter, but just using ceiling bounce in an enclosed dark room and checking the lux measurement).

The A01 uses Nichia 219B or later Nichia 219C, which is a bit more floody than the C01S which uses an SST20 LED.

Also, the A01 uses an orange-peel reflector whereas the C01S uses a TIR (total internal reflection) optic.

When I try to shine the 2 lights on a wall, the center hotspot of the C01S indeed looks a bit brighter than the center hotspot of the A01.

However, if I try to look at the area outside the center hotspot, then the C01S has a less bright spill area (due to the TIR optic), whereas the A01’s spill area has more light.

Total light from the 2 lights would thus about about similar on max brightness, except that they have a slightly different beam pattern…

Edit: just noticed this is a somewhat old message thread…