Found out that my Li-Co are unable to provide more than 2.8A tail measurement on the UF-980L (already cleaned all the alu contacts of oxides with Craig Pro-Gold contact cleaner). On the U-80 its 2.5-2.6A. Reflector size are the same for both lights, depth of U-80 is slightly deeper. Hence in the pix, you can see that the U-80 has a smaller hotspot.
I am not sure what is the limit of the UF-980L tailcap switch - this could be limiting the current and causing the light to be in the 3.0A to maybe 3.5A range, hence its not as bad as it seems. Bro dopruller modded his tailcap, popped in a IMR and immediately fried the XM-L. For Solarforce series, note that only the Solarforce S9 is rated to 5A, the others are to 3A (though that is not a hard and fast rule, the soft limits could be as high as 6A and 4A respectively).
My Solarforce 2400mAH are coming, I think I may purchase a pair of Panasonic 2900.
My Li-Co are heating up a bit even after a short 1-min run. Need to use good stuff so that they do not heat up as much. Too many -ve for using a Li-Co to its limit.
U-80 (100m distance).
UF-980L (larger hotspot). For closer distances, with my naked eye the UF-980L is definitely brighter.
Yep, the 980L is brighter by a wee bit. I assume the tailcap is able to take it, the difference is probably 2.5-2.6A vs 2.7-2.8A.....0.2A diff.
Anyway i'd actually agree with Match that 3A is the limit, push a little 10% more to 3.3A max for a 30s pocket rocket. Even at 2.8A it is heating up quite a bit by the 3 min mark.
Check out how a P60 XM-L operate. The reflector gets really got first followed by the aluminum host. The heat transfer is not that fast for aluminum. This is even so with alu foil + a bit of heat sink compound. The contact pressure as well as surface area for the pill/reflector -> host is just not that vs a full size 18650 host like the UF-980/U-80 in which the pill is screwed tightly .
If one really want the lumens + efficiency optimised, and esp for operating > 3 minutes one really needs to go for a bigger host, the 2 x 18650 ones with the 52.6mm reflectors.
After browsing Match's awesome findings, it seems all we're really getting above about 3 amps is a slight increase in brightness and a whole lot of unnecessary heat. After about 15 minutes on high, could not even pick it up. The good news is, didn't fry anything and no reflowed solder!
Interesting, I have been looking at both of those lights since I've been concerned about longevity with the 980L. I wonder why yours is not pulling the power that Foy and the two others here experienced? Maybe Manafont put in a different driver after having too many replacements with the original? I sort of thought that might happen at some point.
2100, when you took the two beam shots you had your Nikon set to Pattern Metering, so it metered primarily off those bright lights in the upper right of the photo. Set it to center-weighted and you will get a better comparative image if you lock focus and exposure on the beamshot area, which I assume is the center of that house/compound in the middle or the photo.
To my eyes, I think the U80 lit up the main wall and tile roof above it a bit better than the 980L, but it is a difficult call, they look pretty close.
For brightness / high lumens + much longer lighting periods staying at full power, HID is the way to go. Not affected by heat and can do that till power cut-off.
Nope...its my batteries. I found one 18650 which is quite good, i'm charging it up to 4.2V 100% but the current reading is 3.17A peak as of now. My 2 x PALight 3000mAH from manafont could not even power it up, it just trips up the PCB protection. I encountered this with my NJ-18 445nm laser, used my DMM leads and none of my 18650 could power it....it only works with IMR 18500. You need to have really good batteries, i am sure after 5 mins it probably is below 3A for most batteries.
Foy, do you have good batteries, mind doing a current reading at the tail with a 100% charged 18650 after a 5 min run + 5 min rest for the light and then doing a DMM current reading?
You have some quality goggles to use with the blue laser, yes? My understanding on those is they require serious UV protection. Let us know if better batteries up the amperage on the 980L
I am able to do about 3.2A with one of the batts. This is the difference between the UF-980L at about 3.2A and U-80 at 2.4A.
U-80 top, UF-980L bottom. I couldn't have gotten them mixed up, because I used my ceiling light as a point of reference.
That said, the UF-980L was pretty hot just after 3 mins. The U-80 was just warm. Very big temperature diff.
As such, the conclusion I can draw is this flashlight as a whole is just a pocket rocket - short burst kinda show light, even with a very good 18650 like Panasonic/Xtar, as its not gonna last in high with a good current. With IMR you risk blowing it. But as you can clearly see, short range 2m and long range 100m, the performance diff is quite visible.
ie, that Skyray with 3 XM-L (running at lower current per emitter) and bigger everything would distribute the heat and with 2 batteries powering it, would just be much much more efficient.
I just got a 980 today and the first thing i did was test the current. I got 4.2A max on a Trustfire "flames" 18650, so they haven't changed the driver. I popped in a LiFePO4 18650s and I get a nice managable 1.9A max.
The LED seems bluer for the 980L, you guys noticed. Not sure if its just the tint of that batch as both are T6, or the effect of overdriving the LED. You can see from the reflected and direct hotspot pix.
Mitro, how long does the Trustfire flames hold the current above say 2.5A? (I am not even betting on 3A) 4A really is too high for use in reality.
Seriously for those P60 lights, anything more than 2A is high, already assuming that you have alu foil + HS compound wrapped. It will not spoil and the host will still be handholdable, just that there is very little advantage to be had. (P60 inside gunning at 80 deg C, host at 50 deg C). Shucks....really ought to search for my Fluke 62 IR non-contact thermo, or just get one of those DS 12:1 (Distance to Spot ratio, ie how small the measuring spot is) thermo.
Not sure but I’m betting its longer than you think. I don’t want to destroy the emitter (yet). I won’t run it on high for more than a minute or so.
Just another thought for everyone: don't trust your DMM leads. The ones that came with my Vichy VC99 give me a reading of 2.3A with the flame/980L combo. When I use the leads from my hobby charger (12ga. with gator clips) I get 4.2A.
Yeah I know that....my DMM leads are able to go to about 5A reliabily before heating up real bad (measuring HIDs). They come from a Uni T unit, pretty ok. I have another one that sucks.
What you can do is to run a series of 1 minute runs/1 minute cool off, then note down the current. I'm going to try mine now.
After 5 minutes of constant runtime from a fully charged Trustfire flame it was still pulling 3.930 Amps. (and burning the daylights out of my hand) :)
EDIT: 3.725 amps after an additional 3 minutes. The cell's resting voltage is now ~4.0v
Again I need to stress, aperture, shutter, ISO and even WB is locked (manual)
On the computer screen I cannot see the difference in spill intensity, but on my camera's LCD there is a noticeable diff. The hotspot intensity showed up as a much bigger diff on the camera LCD screen, but you can still see a bit of diff here.
My batteries are not too good, it drops pretty fast. Those CGI Engineering branded ones, I have one Ultrafire blue 2400mAH which is ok. For this "good" UF battery, it drops from 3.4 to about 2.9 amps after 4 minutes.
Anyway the Solarforce ver ones should come in a couple of days, also ordered 2 of the Panasonic 2900s.
I will also do a test in which I pump about 3A into it and note the initial brightness, and then use another battery to warm/heat saturate it for 3 mins, and then use the first 3A battery to take another brightness reading. Then we can see how the heat affects the light.
I WISH my batteries would only do 3A and below! But I'm sure the capacity isn't the greatest either when being worked that hard.
Just so nobody thinks that my readings are just ridiculously high, I put an AW IMR 18650 in two lights I have with NANJG 8x7135 drivers and both gave me 2.82-2.85 amps.
Guess where that IMR went next... yup in the 980L. Guess the amps, I dare ya. :)
Mitro, I guess with the IMR it is about 5.5A? I'm guess it hit the limit of something, be it tailcap or surface resistance of the batt against the driver flat surface.
Again, all cam settings locked. Light location on the floor is marked by tapes. Well for camera location I cannot mark myself (my tripod's too high/big anyway), but I think the pix are close enough.
Again, depending on your monitor, you may not see much of a difference. But on my PC monitor there is a slight difference. On my camera LCD the difference is easily noticeable.
This series I did a brighter exposure, so do not compare with the ones on top. Check out the spill. (bigger area to compare)
3.5A initial burst (pic taken within 2s of ON)
Changed out the batts to another brand and this is 2.5A (also taken within 2s of ON)
Without taking out the 2.5A batts out, I ran a 4 min HIGH for the 980L. (i'm going out, so took the chance to change and brush my teeth LOL!). Changed the batts back to the 3.5A ones. The 980L is pretty hot, but still below the treshold of pain (run it for another 4 mins and it will not be below the threshold of pain).
The heat did affect the output after 3-4 mins, but on my camera LCD I could still see it being brighter than the 2.5A
I won’t run it on high for more than a minute or so.
