What is the brightest red LED flash light out there?

LED Flashlights – General Info
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Tell us something new.

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Update of my earlier posts - since nobody posted any broader experience with it my son ordered the SolarForce 1 mode red XPE drop-in. We’ll try it with and without an aspheric. This should help him get a frame of reference as to what he wants. If it’s really 225ish lumens it may meet his needs.

This is probably just another gateway path . . .

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I think that it’ll be great for an hour after dark. There are some brighter options but the Solarforce red xpe is great bang for your buck

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let us know how it works out

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My son came by this afternoon with the SF Red led drop-in and some other SF parts so we did a little lego-ing.

Inside on a wall or ceiling, the XRE with OP reflector looked a bit like the XPG beam of the SF 3 mode low volt drop-in, only red and smaller. Brightness of the spot seemed good, even at about 45 feet, even in comparison to the better 320 lumen XPG white we had for comparison. We don’t have another red to compare, but I’d say on a white background it was a dark pinkish type of red. More like reddish orange on a beige ceiling. My initial impression is favorable as to lumens for cost.

We tried it with an aspheric but the spacer didn’t thread on correctly so we quickly gave up with that. The XRE hot spot is already pretty dense, so we didn’t see a big enough improvement to mess with the aspheric much more than that. It did clip the spill, and maybe there was a slight improvement at the incorrect focal length, but more on this will have to wait until we’re together one evening.

My son also bought the SF articulating mount and tail-cap combo. The mount is interesting, he didn’t like it due to being a bit wobbly from only having 2 points of contact on the rail. Only a guess, but should be fine on smaller calibers. On the positive side, it is easily movable and offers a wide range of mount choices.

http://www.solarforceflashlight-sales.com/product_detail.php?t=FA&s=34&id=141

The tail-cap remote clicky is not silent, but I suspect under some rescue tape it won’t be too annoying. The setup is cheap and functional - his goal seems met.

Hopefully he’ll send me some phone camera beamshots after it gets dark. When/if I get them, I’ll post them.

Edit - Guess we’re going to wait till we can do some lego-ing at night . . supposedly the OP beam washes out at ~100’.

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Thanks for the update! Wish they would come out with some updated leds in red and green to play with.
How much pressure is needed to activate that remote switch? Also what kind of current is the dropin pulling?

Thanks again

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At my home we were using the red led indoors (afternoon heavily filtered light) with both laser and holo sight and red markers of every shape remained quite clearly distinguishable.

Pressure was more than soft touch mode changes on the 2100 and less or similar to a clicky, though with a very short throw. Seems to be set to require deliberative effort - a good thing IMO.

Edit - UF4000 at 3.82v charge gave 640mA but my crappy batts were all mostly just under 600mA; probably a 0.7 to 1.0A driver would be my guess based on this.

Update - Easily lights up adequately out to 200’ and probably closer to 100 meters (have to get the range finder out) with the OP reflector even at the modest draw. At least for my eyes both without and with 2.5x scope. Didn’t notice the usual flurry of flying insects drawn to the light, either!

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I use the Solaforce dropin with a blacked out reflector and aspheric lens from DX in an L2.

Works OK on shy foxes out to just over 100m or so.

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The 100w red, the host and heatsinc would be massive

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Modded my small sun c10 with a green xre, and a direct drive driver. Last saturday had it out at the farm and shinned it across the field at a group of trees and with scoped rifle was able see nicely the trunks and branches and do believe that i could have identified an animal. The distance measured was 260 yards with google maps.

Posted with iphone.

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Yeah, there eyes would show brightly, a hair past your beams distance if they look your way

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I am very impressed wit the throw of the light! It is highly recommended!

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Modified another small sun c10 recently with a red xrc (supposed to be xre but looks like xrc) and an east92 driver (same as in the hd2010). On high it shows 2.0a at the tailcap. Had it out at the deer lease this weekend and it does 100 yards without blinking and 180 yards no problem at all with scope. Dont know how long the led will hold out at those kind of amps but time will tell. To help I filled the pill up with copper wire and solder to help out with pulling some heat away from the led. When the led goes south on me I am thinking about putting a setup like willie uses, pt54 and lipo 18650. Found the pt54 on ebay for $13 shipped.

Also ordered a xpe red from IO and trying a direct drive it and see how it does.

Was out sitting and waiting on some hogs to show and was bored so started scanning the area binoculars with the red c10 and came across some eyes of a deer. Its eyes were lite up like christmas lights. The deer was bout 50-60 yards away. I thought I had come across two reflectors on a fence or something like that. It was a trip how bright the eyes lite up!

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i have a red led in a uniquefire hs-802 single mode from lightmalls, with a fresh battery it shows 2.4amps at the tailcap and i believe it is a red xpe in it
intersting work, keep us posted

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Hi guys, I am looking to get some triple stars xpg or similar in red orange or orange, where can I get those cheap?

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Cutter electronics, or maybe illuminationSupply ?

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Thanks, find it…

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RED LED with 340lm for just $22 - even the Wolf-Eyes T3 II has just 270lm and did cost $140 :smiley:

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Remember the eye generally is much less sensitive to light at the red and violet ends of the visible spectrum than to the middle (green)
so you have to be putting 5x the power, with the example below, to get what looks equally bright:

and another set of numbers:

We see only from violet to red. Infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) are just outside our ability to see. The eye is most sensitive to yellow-green light (550 nm). At the same power, 670 nm red light is only 3 percent as bright.

(this is also why those 405nm “blu-ray” lasers are so dangerous — most older people can barely see the visible spot at all (kids have clearer lenses, they get yellower with age) but the photons are extremely energetic hitting the retina

EDIT, always worth looking this stuff up; even a dim green laser (frequency-doubled infrared, defective IR filter) can hurt, don’t rely on perceived brightness, you might have

http://www.laserpointersafety.com/laser-hazards_head-eyes/laser-hazards_head-eyes.html

But — main point here is you have to put 5x as much power through a red LED for it to seem as bright as the usual flashlight does.

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I’m not up on the percentages but don’t count on the colour of the laser to save your retina.
Anything over 100mw wear laser goggles.