Hello ,
If an XML 6500 is in a flashlight, would this be the best for brightness and throw or would an XPG 6500 be better?.
a light with best throw best brightness is what I am looking for.
i don’t want to lose the brightness but want the throw at the same times!.
Possible?.
what LED and optic?.
can an XML throw just as good as an XPG?.
hope that made some sense.
thank you.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. The XP-G will offer better throw because the die is smaller, and thus the mathematical focus of the emitted light in the reflector is closer to true. But having a smaller emitting surface, it can’t put out the same throw.
If you want a great throwing XM-L light, look into a HD2010 or the SmallSun ZY-T08, those both have large reflectors so even the large die of a XM-L will focus well in them. They both offer lots of battery capacity [26650 or 2x 18650 respectively].
Theres a couple of pictures comparing the XML and XPG leds here in the HD2010.
I had a similar experience but with stock items. I had a Solarforce XM-L drop in with an orange peel reflector (2.7v 9.0v run off a 18650 fully charged to 4.2v) which is nice but thought I wanted something with more throw. So I bought a Solarforce XP-G drop in with a smooth reflector (.8v 4.2v run off the same 18650 battery). Although the XP-G did reach out, the hot spot was rather small and didn’t fully light up the area. Where the XM-L reached the same area but with no hotspot just a lot more light in the area. So I changed the reflector in the XM-L to a smooth reflector and improved the throw a little. Now I am spoiled I do want it all. Lots of reach and also more lux. It could be the XP-G wasn’t being driven as hard as the XM-L since they were both stock assemblies. But now I want XM-L2’s driven harder to gain more lux as well as distance.
XPG- Throw>Lumens
XML- Throw<Lumens
Your best bet for keeping lumens and throw is a de-domed XML (still loose some lumens but will be brighter than XPG)
A de-domed XPG will give even more throw than XML but even less lumens
To sum up… I’d say a de-domed XML is your best bet for a throw vs lumens mix
Sounds right.
XPG- Throw>Lumens
XML- Throw<Lumens
Your best bet for keeping lumens and throw is a de-domed XML (still loose some lumens but will be brighter than XPG)
A de-domed XPG will give even more throw than XML but even less lumens
To sum up… I’d say a de-domed XML is your best bet for a throw vs lumens mix
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Unfortunately I don’t have a good test ground. My longest test space is only 100 feet and the XM-L does a much better job at that distance than does the XP-G. I think my next experiment is to find a driver that can draw more current to really push the XM-L
Hi 
I think we need to clarify a few things and you need to be a little more specific on what you actually want to achieve.
First off, XM-L and XP-G are old emitters. The current ones are XM-L2 and XP-G2. So it’s probably better referring to them, as they do perform differently to their older versions.
Also the 6500 you quote, I’m guessing this is a temperature Kelvin (K) rating from somewhere?
Few flashlight makers will list this specifically, although many Chinese companies list something at random.
As a rule it’s easier to simply classify them as WW (warm white), NW (neutral white) and CW (cool white).
Anything that doesn’t fall into these categories is likely to have an ugly colour tint to it and not be nice to use.
6500k would typically be classified as CW.
CW as a rule offers the highest lumen output, so should in theory offer the best throw. However the lumen advantage CW has over the others is often not massive. And CW doesn’t always have the best colour rendering (CRI), so despite being able to throw slightly further, may not actually allow you to distinguish anything extra at distance with the naked eye.
That said, tint colour is generally quite a personal thing and only has a minor effect on output and throw.
So moving to your other points.
Output brightness.
This is not as simply as it first may appear. A good analogy is think about torque and horse power for car engine. Having lots of torque does not always mean lots of HP, or vice versa.
With LED’s, the XM-L2 is physically a larger LED. This means it in total puts out more lumens for a given current. But this does not mean throw. The smaller LEDs will offer up less total lumen output. But they do offer other benefits.
So, when you say “throw”, I think you need to be specific on what you are after. This is because there are two ways to look at it.
1. The nature of the beam profile. A “throwy” beam will be one with a very tight and focused hot spot, and generally a large contrast between hot spot and spill beam.
2. Or you could be meaning about how far out you can light up an area, this then splits into two further points:
2a. Are you just wanting to get the hot spot to light up something as far away as possible, i.e. you want to throw the light out there.
2b. Or are you meaning you want to light up a wider area than just the hot spot over a wider area at distance?
The difference is, if you just want to throw the light as far as possible, then it’ll make the light very specific in it’s use, it will only light up a small area at a time and may not be all that useful for seeing where you are going.
All of these factors will also need to have some bearing and relation on physical size of the light, budget and power source.
As others have mentioned, XM-L2 LEDs are typically not “throwy” due to being a large LED and having a lower surface brightness than smaller LEDs. But they do pump out the lumens.
In compact lights you get a very large hot spot and bright spill beam. The hot spot will not be sharply defined, giving more of a “flood” characteristic to the beam profile. If you add in an OP reflector, then you can truly get a nice even illumination out of them. But they won’t be throwing the light. That said, due to the bright spill and dispersed hot spot they do have a nice “beam distance”. As in they will light up a wider area at their maximum throw.
If you want to get an XM-L2 into a throwy beam profile, you’ll need a much larger reflector. Such lights can be very nice and very useful, but they do tend to lose their pocket friendliness.
And XP-G2 by contrast, will offer a smaller hot spot and less bright spill beam, hence why they are lower lumen output. But because the LED is smaller and has a higher surface brightness, the hot spot will be more focused and often more intense. Which translates into more throw for the given reflector size.