I ordered myself a P60 drop in from Int'L Outdoor Store just to see how much things have improved the last couple of years . I chose the Cool White emitter and 4 mode . It looks to be reasonably well made and certainly does what I wanted it to ( I had my fingers crossed ) .
Lets get straight to some measured performance figures , and current is a good place to start .
Himax 18650 Battery :
Batt 1) 2A on High , 0.560A on Medium , 0.057A on low , and Moon Mode ( lets call it that ) 0.005A .
Batt 2) 2.4A on high , 0.7A on medium , 0.058A on low and Moon mode 0.006A
Xtar 18650 Battery :
H-2.4A , M-0.7A , L-0.056A , Moon-0.006A
Samsung 18650 Battery :
H-2A , M-0.635A , L-0.054A , Moon-0.005A
Solarforce 18650 Battery :
H-2.6A , M-0.6A , L-0.056A , Moon-0.006A
Sanyo 18650 Battery :
H-2.5A , M-0.675A , L-0.057A , Moon-0.005A
Panasonic 18650 Battery :
H-2.2A , M-0.7A , L-0.056A , Moon-0.005A
Current results are what was measured , and there would be some variance involved ..
Next lets try some measured Light Output figures . I used my light box for this ( Calibrated with a Jetbeam PA40 of know output ) and again please be aware there might be some variance . I used the Solarforce Battery is it was performing best on the day :
High returned between 890Lumen to 920Lumen
Medium returned some 261Lumen
Low returned some 23Lumen
And Moon mode was so low my light box was unable to measure it ...
What I really liked was the lack of heat related output sag . Previously with hot P60 pills , output sag was almost immediate , and within seconds 200 to 300 lumen could be lost as the pill / emitter heated up . I saw no such output sag from this pill , in fact it seemed to hold very steady from the get go . And I had not even wrapped the pill in alfoil yet . Another nice feature is the mode memory seems to be relatively fast . I turned the light on chose a mode and ran it for about 5 seconds , turned the light off for 5 seconds and then back on , and it was in the same mode ( Low ) . The beam is typical XM-L P60 and the colour shift is not as bad as can be when walling . I haven't tried it in anger yet ( in the dark ) but hope to do so tonight .
Beams tonight I hope ...
Flashlight is actually brighter than the pictures show , to the naked eye .
But a comparison of levels ( modes ) , Moon mode was so low the camera could not pick it up . If I had lengthened the exposure , then it might be more like the real deal ( what the eye sees ) But its a little hard to do in the dark ...
In fact what the camera sees , is a little like the naked eye , only Low mode would be moon mode and med would be low and high would be medium . So I hope that did not confuse anyone ... So these pictures would represent ( To the naked eye ) , the first image is much like moon mode to the naked eye .. These images turned out a little darker than what I would have liked .. Perhaps a full second exposure ?