The lumen output change is small when using the frosted lens. The human eye can’t make the difference. It should not be a game changer. It is a beam pattern taste question IMHO. But its true.
Hard to assume anything about runtimes without a real test. I’m pretty sure about the expected graph pattern for a Zebralight but don’t know about the number of minutes. I looked into the database before lunch and only found uncooled runtimes (relative output) for the previous SC600FD Mk III on zeroair website.
Lumen output doesn’t change much with a frosted lens. Maybe a few percent at most, which is generally imperceptible. But it often seems like fewer lumens, because the less-focused beam reduces lux by quite a bit.
The drop in lumens is more than almost nothing.
The drop in lumens is due to several thing: Frosted lens, perhaps other optics and a different led (it’s higher CRI so the led must be different).
The lumen output is still very good for my purpose.
For me a flashlight isn’t about how bright I can light up things but how well I can see them.
Obviously brightness is an important factor in seeing things, but a better CRI may compensate for lower brightness.
I’ve measured Zebralights which were identical except that one had an “F” in the name and one did not. Like H52 vs H52F, for example. The difference in lumens was only like 3%… and was probably even smaller, since most of that was likely due to the difference in beam pattern. Floody lights often measure lower than throwy lights, due to the measurement equipment used. It’s hard to do a perfect integration.
Cree’s LED binning system allows for up to 7% variation within a single bin. That means the frosted lens at 3% has a smaller effect on lumens than the random variation between individual LEDs. It’s below the error margin.
Yes, those things can make a pretty big difference. But I was talking only about a frosted vs clear lens.
2 Thanks
agree
I tested some DC fix and it only had a 7% lumen penalty
otoh, it had a 50% reduction in Lux on target, just 2 feet away
maukka found the loss in intensity was 4 times the lumen loss:
1 Thank
I wasn’t trying to say frosted and dc fix take away a massive amount of lumens. I used them both, and both are good.
The problem is that not all possible combinations are for sale (would be way to much combinations), and some specs are missing. The high CRI frosted one lists no runtimes and the led type is unknown.
Or is XHP50 the same as XHP50.1 ?
Maybe I’m forced to forget about it because ZL no longer ships outside the USA and my local ZL dealer doesn’t sell the SC600Fd.