HELP please/ 550 lumens from (1) AA???

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

I thought Zebralight was king of efficiency, getting 300 lumens from (1) AA battery. But now Armytek claims:

Armytek Tiara A1 Pro XM-L2.

Incredible brightness 950 (550) lumens for the flashlights of such size on one AA battery
TIR-optics with light angle 70°:120° for wide beam and no effect of “tunnel vision”
Durable and reliable headband with one strap for comfortable application
Small weight and compact size for absolute comfort during long-term carrying
Constant light brightness in all modes during the whole operation time
Side switch guarantee comfortable one-hand operation
Additional tailcap with magnet and removable clip for better functionality

is my ignorance missing something here? How do they get 550 lumens from (1) AA cell?

appreciate answers from the pros here, thanks…

patrick

2

The answer is “14500”

3

No it says 550 lumens from a AA for 30 minutes and 950 LED lumens from a 14500. I assume the 550 are LED lumens also but that is still awesome from a AA.

4

Maybe so.
But to get 550 LED lumens you have to draw ~4A from the battery.
Eneloops can provide this current for some (not very long) time. Primary AA batteries just can’t.

5

I was told that the runtime on turbo was 1/2 hour,

but firefly 1 mode was 100 days…

6

Perhaps something like this …… :stuck_out_tongue:

7

I agree. It doesn’t sound possible. It would be nice if it could but not likely.

8

Could Armytek advertise it if it wasn’t true? Don’t they have a fairly stellar reputation?

(there it is, 550 lumens from (1) AA, right on their front page.

9

It doesn’t really matter what Armytek advertises.

We know it’s using a CREE XM-L2 LED. We know that to get around 550 lumens from an XM-L2, a single AA cell would need to supply something like 4 amps.

Even if you had a 100% efficient circuit with zero losses in the driver, casing, switch, spring, etc… you still wouldn’t get 550 lumens for half an hour with a AA. Armytek isn’t using “magic” XM-L2s that are 3x as efficient as the XM-L2s that CREE sells to everyone else.

Hmm… the manual on their website claims 890 emitter lumens when running on a single Sanyo Eneloop AA 2000 mAh cell. It says that if run at max power, output will decrease to 10% after half an hour.

I suspect, output is going to diminish like the graph someone posted in a prior thread: a very steep dropoff in output over the first 3 minutes followed by a gradual decline to 10% output at 30 minutes.

10

Look closer at the pdf manual they linked on their website for that light. When they say 30 minute runtime they mean that output hits 10% at 30 minutes. You’re not getting constant output of 550 lumens.

11

it seems a bit to exaggerated, especially if its a AA 1.5 volt they are referring to. Because the voltage must be “boosted” by the driver to run a XM-L, to get an XM-L2 to do 500 plus lumens would require a driver draw on a AA cell to be close to 4 amps or higher, ( its possible with a good high-drain cell like eneloop, but even then the run time would be measured in mere minutes with the best MiMh cells. ) an Alkaline AA is not up to that task at all. (a Duracell or Energizer can barely provide 2.5 amps even on a shunt short.)
i’m guessing its a few minutes blaster on Turbo with a good Eneloop, or a bit longer on a 14500 3.7 volt Lithium Ion.
Would be interesting to test this light though to see what its really capable of.

12

I’m thinking 550 OTF lumens, after considering losses, would require about 650 at emitter.

Let’s take an XML2 running at 2A, that should give 679lm. Vf at that point is around 3.1V, so we require 6.2W at emitter.

It has boost driver - let’s give it the average 85% efficiency. Therefore battery needs to provide total power of 6.2/.85= 7.3W.

Assuming the battery is still capable of maintaining 1.3V under high current load, current required would be 7.3/1.3 = 5.6A.

So yes, that is way too high for any regular AA. Maybe they tested with a lithium primary though.

13

It's 550 LED Lumens.

14

stabilized 550 emitter lumens till end of battery life?

15

Straight up lie IMHO. 550 lumens on 1 x AA --> Add to cart <--

99.9% of companies have a proud tradition of deception. Truth hidden as far from the buy now button as possible.

16

I agree with you, but its certainly possible but i suspect if they did do it you get 550 lumens for the first minute of full battery life or less and by 50% battery depletion the output is at 40% or less.

The only reason it doesn’t exist elsewhere yet is because its not a sound mass market product, people want decent battery life not huge output for a few mins then dead.

Mind you chinese lumens should be added to websters dictionary, probably 99.9% of companies would lie through their teeth if they thought it would raise sales, was not illegal and they could get away with it.

17

The PDF of the manual for the Armytek Tiara A1 Pro headlamp is on the Armytek website as linked in the original post. Here’s the direct link to the manual pdf manual

From the chart on the left side of the first page of the manual:

  • “Modes and runtimes (measured for Sanyo Eneloop 2000 mAh / Armytek CR123A 1500 mAh to the decrease to 10% of initial brightness)”.

NOTE: This is a shared manual also used for the CR123A Tiara C1 Pro, so the reference to CR123A doesn’t apply.

There’s no claim in the manual saying whether this is emitter lumens or OTF lumens.

Going back to the Armytek website specifications for the Tiara A1 Pro Tiara A1 pro the max output is listed at 950 lumens. Presumably that is with 14500. Also no mention of whether this is OTF or emitter.

18

Makes sense.

If it was OTF or ANSI lumens the website would almost certainly have made that claim.

19

As to the exact behavior of stepdown or regulation, I'm still waiting to confirm from Armytek.

20

ok, so I have read all the replies so far on this thread. Is it the opinion that Armytek has lied, or not? Is this a small white lie? Does the light produce 550 lumens at any point in time? I think Calvin said yes but not OTF lumens. Aren’t there some flashlight companies, EagleTac, Zebralight, Foursevens, who don’t fudge on the outputs? If that is true then I’ll remove Armytek from my ‘decent’ list. I’m very familiar with Chinese companies so no worries there. I just find it hard to believe that a good company would tarnish their reputation like this. In the scope of things it probably doesn’t matter at all - most will continue to purchase at the better price, no matter what goes on.

Appreciate ALL the replies to the thread, thank you!