Since I have joined BLF I have learned plenty from members. Still a newbie, I was looking for the brightest lights with T6 or U2 but I have noticed that other members prefer Q5, Q3, R5, R2 etc with different shades of white.
I realize that to get the brightest lights it will require high amps to drive them…which creates heat…lowering the life of the LED. So there is a balance between how bright you want from your light and how much to push the LED to produce the light.
What is your favorite LED emitter, how much amps to drive the light and the shade of light?
I have enjoyed all the topics, giveaways etc on BLF.
LED life isn't a big deal. I'll want to upgrade it long before it dies. Over the long run the driver would probably die first anyway. I want the highest mode to be as bright as possible. I don't care if it makes the light really hot. I can always switch to a lower mode. The big deal is that the next lower mode is set appropriately. Once I learn how to program drivers, this won't be a big deal.
I'm only using the XM-L2 right now. I've used nearly 4A, but want to use 1-2A more. I have some high CRI lights that use warmer tints, but other than that, I'm not picky about tints.
I'd really like to start using MT-G2's, but I haven't seen any drivers I want to use yet.
For me for now, my favourite set ups for edc are qlite and either 80+cri xm-l2 or xp-g2.
Going bigger, I love my convoy l2 build, dedomed xp-g2 on copper at 5a its usefully bright and very throwy, some lights are just wow lights with little practical use other than showing off.
my edcs see daily use, they can be pretty bright on high because as said above, they have lower modes, those are the modes that see most use, I want a bright high, just because, then I want the other modes to be moon, less than 5, less than 30 hence my like of the qlite driver.
There are too many variables for a single definitive answer. It comes down to the intended use and your preferences. It's not about reducing the life of the LED with heat. It's about the compromise between output and battery life. How long do you plan to run it on high mode? Does the light have enough mass to absorb and dissipate the heat generated? Is it an indoor or outdoor light? Do you need maximum lumens or is accurate color rendition more important? Will you be lending the light to friends and/or family or will you be the only one using it?
I personally use the lower modes for EDC much more often than the higher modes.
A few use cases:
1. For just around the house, most of the time I don’t need 800 lumens for routine chores like looking under a sink or shining it under the hood of a car. In fact, too many lumens makes for an unpleasant bounce-back effect that usually makes the people around me say “jeez, stop trying to blind us.”
2. When I’m camping, I wake up in the tent in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Too much light is not only unnecessary, it can be a nuisance to other nearby people. Or if I’m using the nearest tree, I don’t want the entire camp site seeing me do my business, which has actually happened.
3. Even in the middle of the woods, sometimes other people and houses are close enough to where pointing your powerful flashlight in wrong direction can cause people grief. It turns out that people don’t like being blinded or led to believe they are participants in a UFO encounter.
For these reasons, I like having a wide range of modes to give me flexibility For EDC I prefer lights with control rings that allow me to dial up to just the amount of light I need for a situation, usually from < 1 lumen up to 500+. And for bigger lights and throwers I like to have them to provide a wide range of modes with the lowest being under 30-50 lumens or so. I’ve been in the woods where the lowest mode on my powerful light was still too high.
A control ring, slider, dual buttons, scroll wheel or something like that would be ideal. Hopefully we have diy parts for this in the next year or two. I could say almost every mode sucks. I hate having to switch past all those modes to get to the one I want.
Sometimes I find the low mode on my Preon P0 is too bright for night-time use. I would prefer something lower but it has a nice flood beam so I try to point it away. I would prefer warmer tint as it’s one of the coolest temp LEDs I have.
I’m very photosensitive so indoors I only use brighter lights with diffusers and on lower modes. Too bright (and flashing) can trigger a migraine. :_(
For me it really depends on the intended use of the light. For EDC I really like the Nichia 219 B10 at a current of around 1.5 amps max to increase run time with some lower modes or a control ring. Its not as bright as say a xml t6. The color just seems like natural sunlight, it doesn’t seem to overwhelm my vision like a cool white does. For a EDC 800 lumens would seem like to much for me, but for some I suppose they would like it, depends on its intended use.
As for a floody light or a thrower I don’t care so much what the tint is as long as its not greenish or bluish. A xm-l2 is fine for this use to me. The brighter the better, drive it hard with a copper sink pad to help manage the heat. Giving it that “Oh Wow” effect, mines brighter than yours. :bigsmile:
It depends on what I will use the light for. I'm with Moderator007 for my favorite all around emitter (Nichia 219 H1 B10). For general purpose, I really like the MT-G2 (forget the bin and tint, but the one with the highest bin). It's fairly neutral and has better cri than traditional xml's. I'm trying to warm up to the xml2 with the high cri's. For the most throw, I prefer a dedomed xml2 U2 1A or dedomed MT-G2. I like big hot spot throw. Not much into pencil beams of xpe's and xpg's.
But to be honest. I may build a particular light for max throw or big flood, but I actually tend to use most lights in the lower modes. Just nice to have the big lumens available.
I’ve brought my 4 mode L10 with the Nichia 219 in it on several road trips and it’s worked out great. I keep just a regular Eneloop in it and the output is more than satisfactory. In fact, on my last camping trip, I took the L10 and the EA4 and the L10 on high had more output than any flashlight I saw from any other camper, and the campgrounds were packed. This one lady had this giant, old fashioned incan the size of a large blender and it was putting out less light than the L10 on low. I put the EA4 away because every time I turned it on I heard “owww turn that off, it hurts”. There was just nowhere to aim it without hitting someone’s tent or RV. The L10 on moonlight mode was enough light to get in and and out of my tent, and on low it was enough light to walk down the path to use the restrooms but not so much light that I was disturbing other campers. Next week I’m going on a road trip where I’ll be sleeping in a couple strange places like hotels, and I’m only bringing the L10 with the usual E01 on my keychain as a last ditch backup. Most of the time, less is more.
Is brighter always better? YES! :) But that does not mean you have to use max brightness all the time. There is a reason light have several modes...
NW, sometimes warm can be much more pleasant than CW IMO. When it comes to CRI, more is always better. Top bin, which are the brightest emitters are normally low CRI, and Cool white. That normally means cold-bluish white washed out colors.
So when it comes to current, more is better. More is brighter. :)
When it comes to emitters, it depends on the light and type of use.
I use a bunch of different emitters. I think you will find that high output and 80+ CRI are fairly common for a lot of my lights.
Being a daily (OK, nightly) user of my flashlights while walking for long periods of time through rural, mostly open spaces filled with all sorts of wildlife (even human ones, at times), brightness with good throw & sufficient flood is definitely a priority for me. Being able to scan longer distances could mean the difference between being able to have your bear spray, or other protection at the ready, as opposed to fumbling in a panic because the danger has gotten too close before being seen. I also enjoy watching the deer, coyote, opossums, raccoons, etc, instead of just seeing some glowing eyes. Besides, even for less frequent users, I haven’t run across anyone who has lamented having too bright of a light. Just switch to a lower mode for normal usage, and have the extra for when it’s desired.
For practical usage such as this, the light needs to have the thermal dissipation properties to maintain the high output over a sustained period of time, as well as the batteries to push the current over that period of time.
I do love my c8’s (XinTd v4, etc), but I would like a light with even more output and throw. I tend to leave a C8 on high until it either gets very hot, or the battery loses juice, at which time I reach for another C8 with a fresh cell (C8’s easily fit into back pockets) and continue my journey.
At present, getting more output and longer run time then a good C8 offers seems to require a large light with multiple cells and a large head with plenty of mass(the TK75 comes to mind).
Everyones needs are different but for my usage, I would prefer less light than more light, to a point… To me, my main work light is too bright on high (700 lumens) as I use it at close range and at times it reflects back off light coloured objects, dazzling me and temporarily taking away my vision (its also fairly throwy so that doesnt help either). Thats a problem as I am usually working in close quarters with horses in the dark and I want to be able to see properly to keep myself safe around them. So to me, a floody 400 lumen NW light would be better/more useful/less dangerous for me than something a lot brighter.
For an EDC, I prefer neutral whites around 3C. 400 OTF lumens is around 1.4A for a XM-L. For throwers, slightly cooler is ok. I dont like warm white.
That is what is usually said here, but there is a little more to it. I know of no time when cool white is better than neutral, unless you really need the extra few lumens, but warm or even as far as red can be more useful in some situations. One reason is preserving night vision, and an other is Rayleigh scattering.
To see only with the light, it is better bright and high CRI. To see both with your light and with natural light or maybe also by other dim artificial light, it is a compromise in color as well as in intensity with a dim red light interfering least with night vision. You probably already know that but didn’t bother to mention it.
Rayleigh scattering is best known as why the sky is blue and the sunset red. The longer the wavelength the less is scattered by very small particle or other scatterers (largely statistical density fluctuations in the case of the blue sky). Small in this case means about size of a wavelength. That is probably the main reason fog lights and old French headlights are yellow. Fog and smoke particles may not be small enough for it to make much difference, but apparently it is a factor. It is not so important how much light penetrates the fog as how much is scattered back to cloud your vision.
In addition, if all lighting around you is very dim, you can’t see color anyway so CRI has no meaning.
I disagree a little about CRI. For a work light, I prefer cooler light like daylight CFL to halogen bulbs. It’s almost like the highest CRI is too much visual information. But in the kitchen I prefer halogen (under cupboards) to light the work area. As others have said it can vary depending on situation and application.
None of my lights are so bright that I'd rather cripple the light instead of using a lower mode.
If I ever get a light that's so bright that my hand gets burned in the moment it takes to cycle past the highest mode from the air in front of the lens getting superheated, then I'll want a light that isn't so bright...or gloves.
For a work light, I prefer cooler light like daylight CFL to halogen bulbs. It’s almost like the highest CRI is too much visual information. But in the kitchen I prefer halogen (under cupboards) to light the work area. As others have said it can vary depending on situation and application.