Osram Golden Dragon lights?

No. As Don have pointed out above, its only if both have a 1.5V battery the Hugsby is brighter

That's not true with mine. Like I said, my Hugsby nimh has more throw than the 14500 AA-S1.

Don's lightbox may be measuring overall light output. Correct me if I'm wrong Don.

I'm sure it did affect the throw on the R5-A3 by a little bit. However, the smooth reflector never threw far either because of its small size.

In one of the reviews from DX, someone tried a 14500 in the Hugsby and said it didn't make a brightness difference, only that it got hot really fast. Based on that review, I'm not going to even attempt it on mine.

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That's not true with mine. Like I said, my Hugsby nimh has more throw than the 14500 AA-S1.

Don's lightbox may be measuring overall light output. Correct me if I'm wrong Don.

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I read this "With the critical proviso - on NiMH." and recon he have tested it. I dont have the Hugsby,

but Im sure that the total output from a 14500 are greater than from a 1.5V light. I have some and

have "testet" them all against the AA S1. None are better. Flood and throw are two different things

though. So maybe Hugsby´s 150 lumens are more concentrated in the hotspot than the 280 from the AA S1.

Have you testet both of yours?

The reason for the lack of P31 numbers is that it was bought to give to someone as a replacement for a failed light - it was only in my hands for about 2 days. It is now in regular use by a cop. Our local constabulary only issue alkaline AAs so i looked for something with good performance on those.

AFAIK the P32 is just a P31 with modes and I like it a lot. It certainly seems to be just as well made and is certainly exceptional quality for the price which is less than I paid for the P31 which was $14.31. The P32 was $13.something. Unless you are hooked on single-mode lights I'd definitely say get the P32 instead of the P31.

Yes, the lightbox measures total output, the throw number is got by clamping the light to my desk, the base of which is exactly 1 metre from the ground, so that the emitter is level with the base of the desk. Then I move a lightmeter around in the hotspot till I get the highest value which is sometimes not in the bit of the hotspot that seemed brightest to me. In other words, the throw value is the absolute highest value I can get out of the light. This tends to favour lights with small hotspots - a light can have quite low lumen output but still throw farther if just about all the light is put into a very narrow beam - think the useless light you get in Doom 3.

It would be more accurate to measure the value at 5 metres and calculate it back to one metre using the inverse square law but I have no light-tight part of the house that has a clear path of 5 metres. Maybe the basement after dark but it is cold, damp and doesn't have enough height to stand up in. Also the hatch hole is very small and I have to empty out a cupboard to get in there in the first place.

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The reason for the lack of P31 numbers is that it was bought to give to someone as a replacement for a failed light - it was only in my hands for about 2 days. It is now in regular use by a cop. Our local constabulary only issue alkaline AAs so i looked for something with good performance on those.

AFAIK the P32 is just a P31 with modes and I like it a lot. It certainly seems to be just as well made and is certainly exceptional quality for the price which is less than I paid for the P31 which was $14.31. The P32 was $13.something. Unless you are hooked on single-mode lights I'd definitely say get the P32 instead of the P31.

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Thanks Don

KD has the P32. Kost 13.57$ They state its a 90 lumens light. DX says 160 lumens. Both are Q3.

They are probably unreliable both of them. I trust your measurement. midieval10 says that box says

4.2V max. I may buy one to try it with a 14500.

The AA-S1 with a 14500 is clearly brighter than the P32 with NiMH - the hotspot is several times the size though the spill is of similar brightness - the beam from the AA-S1 is wider. Here's a beamshot about 60cm from the ceiling. Will try outdoors beamshots of the two once it gets dark.

Thanks again Don. I could not understand why the 1.5V Hugsby could be brighter than the 14500 AA S1.

Your picture clearly show that its not the case. The hotspot also is not as bright either.

Maybe midieval10 have received a special (new?) version since his is brighter. If wee kindly ask he maybe

would send a beamshot picture of his two lights together?

Here are my beamshots. They are taken about 70cm from the ceiling. All batteries are charged to fullest prior to shots.

Left to right:

Trustfire F23 10440, Hugsby P31 nimh, UniqueFire AA-S1 14500

Trustfire F23 10440, Hugsby P31 nimh, Uniquefire AA-S1 14500, Trustfire R5-A3 14500

Hugsby P31 nimh, Uniquefire AA-S1 14500, Trustfire R5-A3 14500, Solarforce L2 with XPG-R5 18650

Hugsby P31 nimh, MXDL SA-28 18650 full flood, Solarforce L2 with XPG-R5 18650

Wow! Quite a difference between yours and mine. Mine was bought when they were first launched - early November 2009

Yes a huge difference. Your AA-S1 looks so bright!

You are talking about the AA-S1? so yours is brighter?

This is quite a difference and I think its clear that his AA S1 is not as bright as

the "original" ones. Have they change led or driver I wonder?

As medieval told, quality not so good, and now less bright. Dont buy... is a new batch, was sold out on June-July. New batch from latter July - August. Bad

On mine which I got early august, the quality of the build is quite decent. Coating is very hard (seems like ha-iii). The only "problem" on mine is I"m not sure whether the kinda poorly defined hotspot is due to the emitter board being slightly offset (and way too much thermal glue). I'm getting a smooth reflector to see if I can improve. it.

The coating on mine is pretty soft - you can see scratches on it where the wire clip has moved against the knurling. A Hugsby P32 which claims type 3 anodising can scratch it.

I used pliers on mine and paint only came off where I took off/reshaped the base metal. Maybe it's just really tough ha-ii.

The wonders of chinese quality control.

Interesting aside: some tools/knives I got from china have a pretty tough black finish on them (not just cheap paint). The same finish is somewhat expensive (~$10) on similar "brand name" tools. It costs <$1 on the chinese ones.

I got the red black cat 5000k from kd today. It's very good, and surprisingly 5000k (not warm like the pic previously featured here, I suspect that's the "yellow" warm version). A little less bright than the AA-S1 with nihm, but not night and day.

Buy it.

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BTW, the AA-S1 I have is not nearly as bad as midieval's, and I only got it a couple week before this. Mine is quite bright on 14500 as well (~200lum I'd guess). His looks awefully white in tint (more so than the crees), and only my nice warm cree drop-in is warmer than my AA-S1 osram. Oh well, chinese lights.

Let´s do an investigation.

I have noted that the older versions of Black Cat were coming with a LED with 5 divisions (4 lines). Now they are coming with 2 divisions (1 line). So I beleive that the one with 5 divisions is Golden Dragon Plus. The one with 2 division is simply Golden Dragon.

I imagine that with the AA-S1 happens the same, previous versions were with GoldenDragon PLUS and the last ones with simply Golden Dragon.

Do you have a convex lens? can you put one in front of the AA-S1, light it up and see how many divisions has yours?

Also Don can do the same in his S1, also Medieval, to compare