Re: ITP A3 EOS & Maratac AAA Reviews: RUNTIMES, BEAMSHOTS, DETAILED PICS & more!
I have the
Maratac AAA SS XP-G2 coolwhite with PWM driver. Should be Rev3 (or lower). I noticed that it has superior efficiency to any of my other AAA lights. At High mode the brightness is around 95 Fenix lumens and most importantly its High mode brightness level
is constant. I was interested in learning if the current draw from the battery confirms the logics: for constant brightness the current has to increase when the voltage goes down! So i logged the current manually with my multimeter probes and that's what i got:
Because my hand was slightly moving/shaking during the 60min test run, the contact resistance was altered, which affected the current draw. That's why the graphed curve is not a smooth curve. I effing had to hold my hands still for effing 60mins exerting constant pressure on the probes!!
So instead of letting my above test result go to waste, i decided to post/share it on CPF. It is interesting enough.
By the way, the above graph shows a poor run in a way because in my other tests, without DMM in series!, i got clearly over 50mins "of runtime", say between 52-55mins before the brightness harshly plummeted as seen in the below charts. The above graph shows that the light drops out of regulation at 43.5min already and then the current
gradually decreases from the all too sudden 1.733A peak. It is safe to assume that such unexpected behavior is due to my measuring method affecting, i.e. falsifying the current draw by the driver. However, maybe such behavior could(?) be witnessed in RL with a high-resistance NiMH AAA battery with effectively also 800mAh capacity, who knows! - In any case, the point of my exercise was to document the rising current. Make no mistake, in most AAA lights including New Preon P1, Thrunite TiS, Thrunite Ti Ti, Ultratac K18, Olight AAA, Lumintop Tool, a. o., the current draw is falling, which in turn means that the brightness is decreasing, see below charts. I can't speak for Maratac AAA Rev4, i don't know of any review which analyzed its runtime-brightness performance - maybe because Maratac AAA per se is a very old model and CountyComm does not send out sponsored Forum Review Units of this basically old model.
It is a pity that there are not more Maratac AAA reviews (of all the different driver revisions) on the forum. More people need to realize that the Maratac AAA (at least the older revision!) sets the reference bar in terms of
efficiency AND in terms of
constant brightness.
The Rev4 is afaik a PWM-free driver. But the fact that it is newer than Rev3 and or that it has a PWM-free driver does not necessarily mean that it beats the Rev3 in terms of efficiency and or constant brightness performance. A competent owner of both versions would need to test it in order to find out. I doubt that Rev4 is more efficient. I also own Lumintop Worm SS XP-G2 cw (latest production version) and Lumintop ToolTi XP-G2 cw. Both are clearly inferior to my Maratac SS: they are less bright and have a shorter runtime, while the Maratac just goes on and on like this (comparison of
ToolTi Nichia vs Maratac AAA Cu Rev3):
Seeing how great the Rev3 performs, i absolutely don't mind that it is a PWM driver. Afaik the Ultratac K18 is also a PWM driver and i don't see owners complaining that it is too low frequency or any issue. Here a compilation of AAA with some relevant models:
