Stop with the BS flashlights with low sustained output.

Enderman · 2019-01-29T05:40:54.000Z

DavidEF:

You know, in high school, I learned that in weight training, there was such a thing as “reps” and such a thing as “maxing out” and that those were two totally different things. Why is it hard for people to understand that “unsustainable” Turbo mode is useful and desired by many, while there are usually PLENTY of lower modes you can use if you want a “sustained” output level? Just turn the light down to a lower level! How hard is that?! :person_facepalming:

False advertising if it only sustains turbo for 20 microseconds because that’s unusable.

Also false advertising if it is a direct drive flashlight and can only reach turbo on a freshly charged battery.
So if you have used the flashlight at any other mode from the last charge then you never can reach the rated turbo output.

chadvone · 2019-01-29T05:42:08.000Z

Round 2 ???

Blinkinglights · 2019-01-29T07:27:22.000Z

That guy has some serious skills!!! :+1:
Wonder how many he crashed before he got that good??

A lot of crashes, many years of crashing, I know the guy. He builds and mods his own machines. He is out in CA, travels to East cost a few times a year to fly at many events.
Flying at night is why I need the bigger more powerful throwers.

Blinkinglights · 2019-01-29T06:22:31.000Z

This what I currently use, it runs ALL NIGHT never overheats or step down, however I am tethered to my car or generator, forget lipo packs. Want to replace this with a portable thrower that can match. Has more distance than MF04S/35, BLF GT/70, any Haikelite or whatever factory thrower Led flashlight that is out there currently.

teacher · 2019-01-29T07:23:53.000Z

Blinkinglights:

That guy has some serious skills!!! :+1:
Wonder how many he crashed before he got that good??

A lot of crashes, many years of crashing, I know the guy. He builds and mods his own machines. He is out in CA, travels to East cost a few times a year to fly at many events.
Flying at night is why I need the bigger more powerful lights throwers.

I can only imagine the years it took to become that good! That was some very impressive flying!! :+1:
Thanks for sharing….

mmalive · 2019-01-29T09:42:37.000Z

Well, look at reason why not possible to sustain ” turbo ” for long periods of time.

1. Dangerous. Extreme heat generated from so much output. All the heat sinks, fins can only diffuse heat so much. Unless a fan is added to help aid along with the other safety features of light non sustained drop down is required. Will cause FIRE or COMPLETE flashlight damage because electronic features ” DID NOT ” step down from continuous heat.

2. Safety. The light ” MUST ” step down from sustained high output to PREVENT serious burns or explosions due to generating high amounts of heat from light

3. The step down feature built in is EXCELLENT Engineering for both safety of light and person using light.

I would not call it ” BS ” but rather a safety feature in case of non sustained ” Turbo ” for long periods of time.

ZoomieFan · 2019-01-29T10:14:48.000Z

Personally I call a light with a sustained output of 100 lumen a 100 lumen light. Even if it has a 10k lumen turbo.
Personally I would be very satisfied with 1k sustained.
But still I see a big fat turbo as a bonus. I won’t use it often, but who cares it’s a free bonus.

What I don’t like is the deceptive advertising.
Stuff like “Max output 10k, max runtime 2 weeks”
It’s not a lie but we all know why they pick those numbers.
ANSI lumens are another example of that.

I bought a maglight with three D cells in it 7 years ago. It’s still as bright as when I bought it using the same cells!
How’s that for advertizing? I ‘forgot’ to mention I never use the light, so it’s no lie, but utterly useless information.

prototype3a · 2019-01-29T10:38:11.000Z

I’ve been wondering lately why we don’t see flashlights using heatpipes instead of blocks of copper. I suspect the biggest reason is the difficulty in fabrication and additional expense of the heat pipes themselves.

On the other hand, I’ve been planning to build a light using some old PC heatsinks that use heatpipes and widely spaced fins to hopefully have a passively cooled light that can sustain stupid amounts of output.

polarweis · 2019-01-29T10:58:19.000Z

Did you ever try a blf gt?

Deputy_Dog · 2019-01-29T12:02:41.000Z

Blinkinglights:

When do you need a 20000 lumen turbo light for more then 45 seconds

Want to cut the lawn at night, cuz
cutting grass at night can be deadly fun!

That video reminds me of the videos where terrorists that blow themselves up while trying to build their bombs. :zipper_mouth_face: It’s just a matter of time before something breaks.

LouieAtienza · 2019-01-29T12:19:46.000Z

It wouldn’t be hard for a manufacturer to make an extrusion for a flashlight body that had provisions for heat pipes coming feom the head/pill… This however qould require a different method to attach the head or pill…

LouieAtienza · 2019-01-29T12:46:05.000Z

For those who have interest in DIY CNC, stepper motors are advertised at their stall torque… Which is somewhat useless you want your machine to remain stationary. Which also isn’t 100% sustainable because the stepper would overheat. The drives do have idle current reduction but that means loss of torque. The drives are also current limited and steppers rated for max current, and they can be overdriven or underdriven based on the drive and PSU uses - sound familiar?

The opposite is true with servomotors. Thet are rated at continuous rpm and power, and can peak 20-33% above rated specs for brief periods - turbo mode if you will. Of course with machinery once you get an axis moving it takes les and less power to keep it going at a desired speed, unlike a flashlight LED.

BlueSwordM · 2019-01-29T13:01:59.000Z

@prototype3a, it would not actually work well.

You need very large active thermal dissipation for heatpipes to be effective.

They do work with phones, since they don’t output as much power but at the levels we push our light, it is not sustainable.

wolfdog1226 · 2019-01-29T13:02:40.000Z

Every modded light I use on the trail does NOT have a timed step down where I have no control.Mine are programmed at 20 minutes,then I just bump it back up, but usually If I continue with that light, this is the point of battery change!

My one BEAST OF A LIGHT TN42vn90 has a thermal protection[in the head] that has never kicked in.

I agree 100%[brought this up in a thread 4 years ago on CPF] that these manufacturers give deceiving and phony numbers based on how they[ANSI] calculate turbo run times.

SOLUTION: Learn how to mod a light or Buy modded ones like me!

TN42vn90 5000L/1Mcd.

I can run it CONSTANTLY in the late fall and winter. In the summer, not because of step down, but because of HEAT, I can run 9 to 10 minutes b/4 dialing down.

My hand 25 minutes after using light in summer!! lol! Normal on LEFT ,TN42vn90 workout on right!!

ALL TN42vn90[CFT-90] Beam shots below

Orion The Hunter to the left of the top of light saber.

Tower 900 yards away across frozen Schuylkill River

1 Mile and 27 yards to same water tower.

teacher · 2019-01-29T15:38:00.000Z

Nice pictures wolfdog1226!! Thanks for sharing….

deleted-200707 · 2019-01-29T15:52:23.000Z

I pray that pilot does work at any airline I frequent.

Lemons_for_the_Lemon · 2019-01-29T16:30:37.000Z

I have next to zero knowledge about flashlight building, but from my experience with PC hardware, it looks like the biggest obstacle to cooling a flashlight is sinking the heat away from the emitters. CPUs, fets and other devices can have the coldplate of a heatsink directly applied. You obviously can’t put a coldplate on top of an LED emitter, and there doesn’t look like a good way to apply one unless you mounted it on the reverse side of the PCB.

If what I just said makes no sense, please forgive me.

coherent-rambling · 2019-01-29T16:57:14.000Z

Lemons for the Lemon God:

unless you mounted it on the reverse side of the PCB.

Yep, that’s exactly how flashlights are cooled. The high-power LEDs we’re talking about have a third solder pad on the back, which is an electrically neutral thermal contact. That contact is soldered to a copper disk, which is in turn covered in thermal compound and screwed to the body of the flashlight, or other heatsinking system.

The “problem” with this is that the flashlight can absorb a tremendous amount of heat for the first few seconds until it warms up, but can only dissipate heat at a slower rate. Flashlight manufacturers capitalize on this to advertise extremely bright settings which can only function until the light heats up. I personally think this is fine, basically giving me free light. But a lot of people very reasonably argue that the manufacturers should at least advertise how much light can be produced once the flashlight has reached equilibrium and is trying to dissipate the heat created.

Lightbringer · 2019-01-29T17:38:13.000Z

Okay, where’s nottawhackjob when you need him??

Random_Dan · 2019-01-29T17:50:33.000Z

It doesn’t bother me too much as I know enough to be skeptical and I’m not really in to high lumens anyway.

However it seems the whole issue could be very easily resolved by updated the ANSI spec to require 2 numbers: output at 30 sec and average output over full runtime at room temperature without extra cooling. Or better yet, manufacturers could start publishing cooled and uncooled runtime graphs like reviewers do. Sadly though, neither of these is likely to happen.