I'm amazed by the output of a cell phone camera flash LED

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

I was playing with a nexus 4 with a flashlight app, i figured the output would be like a moonlight mode on a xm-l, but i was shocked, its maybe 25-50 lumens, and better colour rendering then a 65CRI cool white XM-L U2. I can light up a room with it, not very bright but more then adequate if there were a power outage or burned out light bulb

Only thing is i assume there is no heatsinking, since its only meant as a split second flash for the camera, so i would not leave it long for more then a minute or two

2

I know that the iPhone led is 40 lumens OTF on the 4g. I forget which thread but someone tested it in a sphere on cpf.

The app on my phone gives me all sorts of fun controls, like clapping for on and off, strobe, and a few others

3

*Five minutes later;

"Halp me! My phone battery is dead!"

4

that means it must be less efficient then an incandescent :wink:

5

my nokia 928 has a xenon flash

6

My Lumia 920 has a nice warm tint of flash, I love it very much and I think I don’t need to buy an EDC light anymore. :smiley:

But it would be better if it has brightness control.

7

the one on my HTC Desire-Z is a nice tint too, and bright,. it looks like a SMD emitter of some sort.

8

Same here :slight_smile:
I have Nokia N9, and it also has quite bright warm white LED - I would say somewhere between 3500k - 4000k
The best feature of these phones LED’s is that they have a very wide angle and a nice flood light.

9

I guess you guys know that this is going to start a discussion about dedicated lights, versus phone lights.

The phone light is extraordinary, really, it is truly magic of the 21st century, but when it comes to a dedicated light it still pays for a hard core guy to carry a flashlight.

10

darn, what a perversion of the reason i started this thread :wink:

true, the 25-50 lumens of the phone pales in comparison to 1000 lumens from an xm-l2, but compared to the many incandescent lights that have dominated the last century of flashlighting, the phone is brighter

11

At least for me I carry my cell phone everyday and everywhere with me but I’m not used to carry even a small light. :bigsmile:

12

I think the Samsung Galaxy S4 uses an XP-G2 for the camera flash.

13

You will not burn out the LED from using it as a flashlight. Generally the Driver used has 2 modes. A flash mode (high current) and a constant illumination mode (low current).

14

They have no confidence in their own Samsung LED or what? :smiley:

15

LOL :smiley:

16

Haha, actually looking at their 3535 LED it could well be one of those:

They look remarkably similar (the phosphor surface itself) and I was only going on looks through the front of a TIR optic which slightly distorts it anyway. That would make more sense than using a CREE.

17

so that would mean they thought of it being used as a flashlight, but then why not include a native android app for it?

18

The circuit probably would have been designed to have a sustainable current limit and a peak momentary output limit.

This would most likely include limiting the capacitor size, heat sinking, etc to significantly reduce size required.

19

why would it need a capacitor, its an LED that would use less then the power output ability of the lithium battery

i agree that its probably barely heatsinked

20

the xenon flash need coils and one big capacitor because the flash xenón work at very high voltage

(for high power xenon flash are necessary big capacitor ) ….and no way to use it like a flashlight

but led technology don’t need capacitors 8)