Ok - I see Calvin clearly stated the Armytek lumens as LED lumens, while the manufacturer's site lists them in some places, but not consistently. To me, LED lumens is vague - you can rough guess it's equivalent to OTF lumens of course, but, this is a deceptive practice by intention because LED lumens will always be higher, also the difference between LED and OTF lumens will depend on the design of the light so it makes no sense to list LED lumens as a spec of their lights. They hope to fool a few buyers who don't understand the difference when comparing to other lights with real OTF ratings.
Wow - I'm kinda stunned, thinking Armytek was some sort of "better than the rest" brand, actually manufactured in N. America, etc. They may have a technical reason of why they don't list OTF, but the bottom line is they make no attempt to spec their lights to ANSI/NEMA standards, and deceptively try to use the higher #'s of LED lumens as their output spec.
As usual, buyer beware. A quick look thru their website and I didn't see any explanation of their output ratings and why they chose not to follow the ANSI/NEMA standards.
Yeah, their marketing/PR department is all over the place. For instance, I’m pretty sure their lights are assembled in China despite the claim of N. American assembly. From my experience and from reading others’ experiences, though, Armytek’s engineering department puts out some great to fantastic lights.
Hi Patrick
I did some of my own testing on the A1’s. I got ABOUT 3.5-3.4 Tail cap amp readings, now a Zebralight H52 only did 2.48-2.4 tail cap amps on the SAME Sanyo Eneloop. On a AA I don’t think they are off that bad, and remember Armytek lists all their lumens at the LED emitter and not out the front or OTF. So an A1 puts out more LED lumens then a Zebralight h52. Their run time on turbo reflects that (30 min or .5 hours), and .9 hours on the h52. The A1’s manual says= With ambient temperature is +25…+30°C the headlamp delivers light in Maximal mode for about 5-7 minutes and then the brightness steps down to the Main3 mode. 10-60 seconds afterwards the brightness increases to the Maximal level again. This stepping goes cyclically to maintain the user’s safety and the headlamp’s functionality. In the conditions of good air-cooling the headlamp produces constant light even in Maximal mode.= so I think the run time is pretty good. I hope this will help you.
Armytek uses the CREE specs - that's what they say their LED lumens is. They don't believe in the use of ANSI specs - the measurement at 30-120 secs is mis-leading, they say.
+1 - its not perfect, but it's something... True - you can quote best output at 30 secs and program the driver to knock down output at 35 secs, run it for 30 hours, and claim very high output and incredible runtime -- that's all allowed under the ANSI spec. But still, it's some standard of comparison and once we catch on to any runtime/turbo time-out gimmick, it becomes well known because we, in the forums, are basically the watchdog of the industry.
Only BLF can be trusted for the Truth, derived from Knowledge based on Facts! And not all of us at that, even! ANSI is just another political committee, and doesn’t correct anyone who uses ANSI “in a less-than reputable fashion”…
IMO ANSI and ISO specs are mostly better than nothing at all. They do a good job of publishing specifications for totally necessary things such as screw threads so you can but fasteners with reasonable certainty that they will fit regardless of different manufacturers. There are non standardized threads such as those on camera filters and I have seen too many instances there of tolerance related fit problems between makers.
ANSI flashlight standards are better than nothing but it is up to knowledgeable consumers to tell manufacturers that until they follow the ANSI specs then you will not buy their products. Also remember that ANSI specs are written by multiple manufacturers engineers and are consensus specifications. Many of them such as the runtime specification being the time to 10% output level were decided on with marketing input to engineering personnel on the specification writing committee.
ANSI specs can do some good. For instance Stanley lights claimed Lumens outputs have dropped by almost 2/3 since they adopted ANSI Lumens standards. Their 10W Lithium Ion LED light used to claim 2000 Lumens and now is in the 750 ANSI Lumens range as I recall.
I agree with you except there are companies that like to game the specs, so unless they are made bulletproof they can be abused. Also we all knew the 10W stanley light was not 2000 lumens, anyone who has read a datasheet knows the XM-L chip cannot put out that many lumens, no matter how much amperage you put thorough it.
The specs are a good start but they should be updated, maybe something to the effect of 30 sec lumen number must be maintained for 40% (linear?) or 80% (constant brightness) of battery runtime, or better yet you must publish a runtime graph with a standardized model of battery on the packaging or instructions that come with the light.
The manufacturers, or at least their marketing folks, WANT the somewhat vague specs as far as test conditions are concerned so that they can play their games. It is known as “Creative Marketing”! I worked in specification compliance and reliability testing for a printer division of Xerox for years in Silicon Valley and remember at least one customer who wanted tighter specifications on print quality than our engineering and marketing had specified to manufacturing and the difficulties this caused.
Most ISO and ANSI standards are committee generated and as is well known the classic definition of a committee is a critter with a minimum of 3 a**holes and an effective IQ equal to that of the dumbest member divided by the number of members. The 11th commandment in business is “Thou shall not Committee”.
Unless required by law or some government authority virtually all ISO and ANSI specifications are VOLUNTARY and are agreed to by manufacturers due to customer insistence, contract requirements or due to an out of control situation which is what the flashlight industry found itself in prior to the ANSI standard. Make them too strict and without the wiggle room then few makers will follow them unless required to.
Much of the China flashlight industry still does not follow ANSI test standards with the results that you observe on eBay, Amazon and Chinese web sites with ridiculous flashlight output and battery capacity claims. Japan solved similar quality problems in their camera and optical industries after WWII by setting up camera and optical test groups, JCII and JTII. These by law had to approve each lot of cameras or optical devices that were intended for export. I remember being in Japan in 1964 and being requested by a Japanese to buy a camera for him in the base PX store as the cameras sold there had the JCII approval sticker on them while the ones sold in domestic sales stores did not. Having a camera with the export sticker was considered a prestige item by the Japanese at the time.
I know they want the specification to be as loose as possible but thats the rub, the specification exists because companies will say and do anything to make a sale and customers want accurate specifications, so the ISO standard is supposed to provide that, but the same companies work as hard as possible to weaken the specification so they can play the same game and the specification is just window dressing bringing us almost back to the same problem. I’m shocked at how many people refuse to believe what is happening in front of them but i suppose thats why politics survives to this day.
I have no problem with voluntary, its better that way, but i do have a problem with it being useless or almost useless. I expect any specification to promote useful and accurate information otherwise it has no reason to exist. If someone does not want to follow it then i don’t want to buy their products, and a output vs time graph is not an expensive test, if it had exorbitant costs to comply then that would matter, but a few hours and a piece of equipment they already have means its cheap to design and comply.
If they want to be able to take advantage of people by spitting out lies then why should people buy from them, if dishonest companies lose sales because their honest competitors were getting customers instead i think thats a good thing. Unfortunately honesty is rare in the business world and will continue to be so unless society rewards it and punishes the liars and cheats.
I’m afraid accomplishing change is difficult at this point. Businesses have the funds to lobby against it. Look at the net neutrality monster. They got their lobbyist appointed as the head of the FCC.
Change will be slow. Excruciatingly slow.
When we get the technology to improve ourselves, humans, society will finally be able improve massively.
I'm surprised they're saying that's with an Eneloop. If they just said AA, I'd assume it's a lithium primary, and then the claim would be feasible. I'd love 550 lumens with a lithium primary AA since that's what I use backpacking since they're significantly lighter than Eneloops, have >50% more mAh, and I don't have the hassle or weight of a charger.
Remember what the politicians and many businesses count on is human stupidity. If the median IQ is 100 then 50% of the population has an IQ below that. Based on what I observe on TV it is that half of the population that most advertising and political campaigning is aimed at. The situation is not helped by what has happened to our public schools in many areas either.
BTW I just emailed ArmyTek today to tell them that they would NEVER have me as a customer as long as they lied about their lights output rather than using ANSI OTF Lumens figures. If enough of us do the same their marketing might wise up rather than handing out BS. ANSI standards may not be perfect but IMO they are better than nothing. Ones like the battery life figures were specified the way they are I suspect due to probably 98% of flashlights being designed with NO regulation circuitry at the time the standards were agreed on. After all most lights sold at the time were still incandescent as I recall.
I know this is an old thread. But I figured that, now that I have a Tiara A1, I should say a word or two about the maximum brightness. First of all, I have the 515 lumen neutral white light, and NOT the 550 lumen cool white. But even 515 lumens is a pretty good number. Anyway, to put things simply, this light DOESN’T produce 515 OTF lumens (perhaps no surprise there). I don’t have an integrating sphere to measure the brightness. But, comparing it to other lights, I would put it at around 350 lumens. It COULD be 515 emitter lumens. But that would suggest a 32% loss through the optic, which seems a little high (but possible - the Eagletac D25A2 is shown as having similar losses).
You can certainly look at this in two ways. You could certainly look at it as deceptive advertising. And this would be valid (at least to some degree). On the other hand, 350 lumens is pretty impressive from 1xAA, handily beating the ‘king of the hill’ Zebralight SC52/H52 lights (and it IS quite a bit brighter than my SC52w). This is an accomplishment in and of itself. And even if the light isn’t kicking out 515 lumens, 350 lumens is still quite impressive from one NiMH AA.
Why I will not buy an ArmyTek is illustrated by the above discussion. Good example as well as their claim of manufacturing in Canada but reportedly shipping from China. Unethical company IMO.
Remember that even ANSI FL1 output times are from start till output has dropped TO 10% OF INITIAL OUTPUT. Most folks will have replaced the battery long before the 10% point is reached. ANSI specs are consensus specs originally written by engineers from the manufacturers and the original purpose of the ANSI FL1 spec was to eliminate the totally baseless claims of manufacturers marketing folks, still seen in the non ANSI tested lights from the China sellers. They do have wiggle room though and you have to READ THE ACTUAL SPECIFICATIONS AND TEST PROCEDURES to see this. Since they were introduced also people have figured out how to test within the specs and write marketing literature and claims that follow the letter of the specs but not the spirit. Armytek IMO does not even do that with their use of LED lumens etc. Not the only offender as Eagletac also uses both LED and OTF Lumens figures IIRC but makes it a bit clearer which is meant.
ANSI output levels are supposed to be after 30 seconds run time for some output stabilization to take place. What the light output does after that 30 seconds is not specified. Lights with turbo timers or thermal sensors may cut back drastically after a relatively short time. In those the Turbo and High run times may be almost identical as the light actually spends minimal time in Turbo mode. Others just have output droop if they are unregulated or poorly regulated.
Rich - see post #44. I've spoken with ArmyTek - they deny the usefulness of the ANSI spec. Guess they know better -- they like LED lumens, maybe because it makes their light specs look better?
I tried convincing them some standard is better than no standard... Could be benefit vs. cost, so I'll make sure they suffer the consequences by never buying one of their lights.
