Chrontius
Flashlight Enthusiast
It's new Mag rating is 8 lumens on AAs, 7 on AAA cells.
The statement of shortened life using NiMh also is used by LedLenser. Can the explanation be that NiMh batteries provide a higher average brightness for the same runtime? In this case it's a bit misleading to tell that you will lose lifetime of the bulb with NiMh without telling you will gain average brightness.
One has to specify then how often new cells are swapped in. If done as soon as light output drops then a higher average voltage and current would be maintained with alkaline than nimh. You need to use a series of tables or graphs, and specify brightness along the way, to say something truly meaningful for this -- a simple statement such as 'nimh will shorten bulb life' won't do.
One can give an average value for most common practice, but the question is, if bulb life is shorter then how much shorter -- if 10%, say, that could be acceptable to the user.
But then, how often you turn it on and off is also a big factor since much of the damage to a bulb results from that thermal shock, and that might well outweigh any considerations of running voltage -- it seems to work that way for me with house bulbs: if I leave the light on all the time the bulb lasts much longer.
I'd say just find some bulbs on sale and stock up a few, and change them when they blow and don't worry about it too much. Getting them on sale is more cost effective then fiddling with battery voltage. Or use an LED drop-in. :shrug: