Led Lensers

[Egsise]

How is the M14 circuit protected agains water, is the driver in the battery tube where the water can get?

Lo-hi sequence would've been so much better, now it's still blinding 130% as first mode..

 

[McAllan]

How is the M14 circuit protected agains water, is the driver in the battery tube where the water can get?

It's in the tailcap (or actually in the battery assembly in the tail cap) which seems very water tight - even tried put my mouth to the button and blow while battery assembly was unscrewed. Don't know about the head though but the circuitry seems to have no problem keeping water out.

Lo-hi sequence would've been so much better, now it's still blinding 130% as first mode..

We always can find one thing we don't like about a particular light can't we?

If it starts on low some people complaint they have to click like crazy to ramp it up. On high other people complaint they get blinded. I guess that's just one of those things which there's no right or wrong. It's pure personal preference (and if starting on high you can just cover it while turning on - either pointing it to your stomach or covering by hand).

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

If it starts on low some people complaint they have to click like crazy to ramp it up. On high other people complaint they get blinded. I guess that's just one of those things which there's no right or wrong. It's pure personal preference (and if starting on high you can just cover it while turning on - either pointing it to your stomach or covering by hand).

High brightness first for me. I'm by no means typical of people on this site but I look at it this way - if I really NEED very bright light I'll most likely need it "right now". In other instances when I only need dim light I've usually got the extra time to root about navigating a sequence to get to it.

One the reasons why I find my Quark "regulars" to be such a pain in the posterior is that they start low when I'd prefer they started high. It's got a lot to do with the fact that at night I mostly use my torch in outdoor open spaces and I also use it regularly in daylight.

 

[Egsise]

Erm, Quark, bezel loose it starts from moon mode, bezel tight it starts with turbo...

 

[mcnair55]

Got it today :twothumbs
However there wasn't a user manual for the M14
They said it was a "known issue" with the UK package. I don't see a need to return it but I will try to see if I can hunt one - either English or German - either is fine with me.
Hey I even got a very low twin prime serial number! :naughty:

Haven't done any long tests to can't comment on that yet.
Flood is very nice. Spot is... well very spotty Approx. the size of the spot in Fenix TK20 but much more intense as it's lens can direct most of the spill too. Can be I do some measurements in the near future when I get some time.

UI is quite nice too and rather unique. It's sort of a mix between forward and reverse click. From off press to momentary on (with 130%) and you may morse with it if you want. Press and click and it'll turn up in 100% mode. Actually subjective there's only a very thin hair of difference between 100 and 130% - just as expected. While on you can soft click like a reverse click to advance modes. When in 100% mode and you press and hold (still a soft click) the light fades slowly in and out between 100 and 15% or so. Release at the wanted level.
To sum up. Practically all the positives of both forward and reverse click almost without their drawbacks - very nice!

It uses PWM regulation for dimming. But at a very high frequency (tint don't change like PD20). My guess would be around 5-10 kHz based on the sound I hear by lighting on a solar cell connected to some earphones.

Just for fun I bought the M1 too. A simple single CR123A based one with 100%, 15% and strobe - only a little bit longer than the Fenix PD20 (Q5). Despite being rated lower lumen wise it's noticeable brighter than my Q5 PD20 (or LD20 as they're practically the same). Again nice flood to a tight spot. Although not as tight as the M14 naturally but still no problem out throwing PD/LD20.
The M1 is a forward click. Wonder why they chose that. It would have benefited more from a reverse click as it's driver is like the typical driver without memory - short power interruption to move to next mode.
M1 uses PWM regulation too. Not as high frequency but IMHO high enough not to be an annoying (unlike Fenix LD01/05, MiniM*g Rebel and many DX lights etc.).

So far I'm quite impressed with the lights. My only fear is the lenses is made of plastic not glass - wonder how's the best way to clean them when they get too dirty.

If you get by in German there is a forum on the makers site all about there lights including your new ones,appears to be people who use LL rather than the makers themselves.

http://www.world-of-moppel.com/LL_forum/viewforum.php?f=11

 

[LeifUK]

Erm, Quark, bezel loose it starts from moon mode, bezel tight it starts with turbo...

+1. It also takes about 1 second to switch from moonlight to max when the bezzle is loose. And one really nice feature is that once you set the low mode, you can tighten the bezzle to switch to turbo, and loosen it to go back to the previously selected level. Quick, easy, nice.

One the reasons why I find my Quark "regulars" to be such a pain in the posterior is that they start low when I'd prefer they started high.

May I suggest using your hand to grip the torch.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

Erm, Quark, bezel loose it starts from moon mode, bezel tight it starts with turbo...

Erm, being able to switch instantly to turbo might indeed assist in those situations where one wants immediate access to full bright but it does nothing to solve the issue that the low-to-high order of the brightness modes on my Quark regulars (and my fenixes and my P7) is a pain in the posterior for me.

Based on my own experiences I single out the Quark because it's bottom modes are so low and useless to me. As I mentioned in the post in question, I use my torches a lot in the daytime and the quarks are so low in brightness at the beginning that I very often can't tell whether they've come on or not. I don't want to look down the barrel so then I'll have to shine them on my hand as I step up the brightness just to see each brightness state so that I can count the levels to ensure I don't overstep into lollipop flashing modes and have to go half way round again. I find that annoying when having the order reversed would mean I have none of that malarky to worry about.

My comment in that earlier post was designed to re-inforce a poster's comment that different people have different preferences when it comes to brightness setting order. I have my preference, I have my reasons, and no amount of condescending "erms" is are going to change that.

The fact that the Quark has direct access to turbo notwithstanding, I prefer to ramp down in brightness, not up and anything that doesn't is less than fully effective for me. I have a lot of less than fully effective torches due to having to compromise on some issues to get access to certain other desireable features.

 

[Egsise]

Yes it's often a matter of personal preference.
But still I don't understand why not use the Quark(and similar) with bezel tight. One click for turbo, one click off.

If I need lots of light from my Quark or Fenix, what do I do?
Start bezel loose, halp press through low-med-high-uups sos-start from low again-med-hi-oh yeah now i need to twist for turbo.

Or do I just tighten the bezel and click once....if I need less light I just loosen the bezel.

 

[jimmy1970]

I will admit to some bias here. I admit I can't stand beams that have a separately defined bright ball shaped central spot surrounded by a large much dimmer spill. That very distinctly separate central spot is one of the half dozen or so reasons I hate my Fenix TK20 (and my quark's turbos are little better) and I'm guessing it's also why I'm finding my new Eagletac p20c2 MkII so damned great, it throws reasonably and the spot fades so smoothly and progressivley into the spill that it's not like having two completely separate torches in the one beam that so many othe rtorches feel like. Great beam shape on the P20c2MkII but it still can't compete for amount of light on the target with my P7 though. The LLP7 manages its light extremely well that it lords it all over many other fancier brands who have much higher lumens ratings. I've had to buy a lot of torches to come up with one that works as effectively in my environment.

My most favoured light for quality of beam would be my Surefire U2A. Nice hot spot centre with a very gradual spread to spill - just awesome (very similar to my Ra Clicky 140Cn).

James.....

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

But still I don't understand why not use the Quark(and similar) with bezel tight. One click for turbo, one click off.

Because battery life often dictates that I'm going to have to work using the brightness level that's next underneath turbo and sometimes the actual situation means I might instead even want the one just futher underneath that.

yes, it's logical to assume I could simply count the "half presses" and be sure of where I am but if I can't see the light changining as I do I can't actually be sure that I've half clicked strongly enough. If I don't see light when I expect it my automatic reaction is to press again and that's why I often overstep into kiddyland flashing modes. I find this uncertainty to be exacerbated by the fact that, with the quarks I have, almost every one of them has a different amount of travel (and pressure) in the switch before it does the "half press" action so I just don't feel sure the click has registered unless I look. It might be dead easy if I aways used the same tailcap but I don't. Another factor that can make it difficult to operate just by counting clicks with my ones is that if one half presses too fast the torch won't actually step the brightness so the count is out.

 

[Turbo DV8]

They (LED Lenser) just announced they have a 160 Lumens per watt LED. Just bought 2 Fenix LD20s, 2AA, 180 lumens. the new one is 205 or 210 lumens.

ITP A6 Polestar, Cree MC-E, 6xAA, 700 Lumens. 80 US$

Oh boy, the "lumens" game again! May I play? I bought an A6 Polestar at Fry's, which has the MCE Cree. I returned it because the non-adjustable beam favored spill over throw, and the over-abundant spill actually interfered with the eye's ability to see farther into the throw by causing the pupils to contract. Basically, the lights spill was blinding me, and this was immediately apparent when going back to the P7 and P14 on spot mode. Yes, the A6 Polestar showed quite a bit more light output in a ceiling bounce, but in actual use (my use) the "700 lumen" A6 was outdid by the "lowly couple-a-hundred lumen" LED Lenser P7 and P14.

 

[Egsise]

Because battery life often dictates that I'm going to have to work using the brightness level that's next underneath turbo and sometimes the actual situation means I might instead even want the one just futher underneath that.

That doesn't make any sense, LL P7 runtime is just a little over an hour, just like 2xAA Quarks and Fenixes.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

That doesn't make any sense, LL P7 runtime is just a little over an hour, just like 2xAA Quarks and Fenixes.

None of the things I say seem to make much sense to you. I'm obviously not writing them clearly enough. I was not making a comparison between a led lenser and a quark and I wasn't particularly referring to an AA2 Quark either.

What I was doing was referring to why the low to high brightness order of the quark regular is a pain in the posterior to me. It's a pain in the posterior because I don't like it. I only put up with them because I like a couple of the other features of the lights.

As to the battery life thing all I was doing was trying to give a simpletonian example of why there are times when switching directly to turbo mode is not a way that I can use to avoid using the part of the interface that I don't like. Here's a real world example from last week. This time just play along with what I write, don't make up your own scenario to try to work around it.

Let's say that I'm using my Quark for a job that's going to take an hour but I've only got enough battery charge left for half an hour on turbo. Since I carry no spare batteries on me I'm going to have to find a setting to make it last that hour and that's obviously not going to be the turbo setting. It means I'm going to have to use the "loose head" setting and go through the low to high sequence. I already told you I prefer high to low and don't like low to high and I've previously explained quite clearly one reason I personally don't like it.

It's my preference. It's not something worthy of pages of justification, just my own personal preference. That's what a preference is, my personal feeling as to what I like best. You can't argue that, my personal preferences simply do not fall within your bailiwick.

As I said, and will now say again for clarity for anyone else still listening in on this banal to-ing and fro-ing between us, I was merely trying to re-inforce another poster's point that the light companies will hardly ever please everyone because some will want a low to high interface sequence and others will want high to low.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

and I did actually have one perhaps more relevant comment to make on the brightness sequence order of the Led Lensers that follows on from a discussion I had in another thread.

Despite my preference for high to low, I do see one very important reason why LL should be low to high and it's to do wiht the fact that with the LLP7 you have to cycle through all the modes to get to the off setting.

In the case of the P7 (or at least my earlier model), as one switches it off, the last mode before off will always be high. High is usually much easier to see in daylight even in the flood mode. Flood mode on low in these torches is quite hard to see in daylight, sometimes even when looking across the lens.

If the order was reversed to have low as the last mode before off, I could imagine after using it in bright mode flood setting in DDaylight, that it might look as though you've clicked it off even though it may actually have only reached low mode.

 

[Egsise]

None of the things I say seem to make much sense to you. I'm obviously not writing them clearly enough. I was not making a comparison between a led lenser and a quark and I wasn't particularly referring to an AA2 Quark either.

To me your opinions are not consistent, you prefer LL P7 because it has hi-lo sequence.
Other light has high or low selecteable by twisting the head, you don't like it because you need the modes from somewhere between.
But there are no modes between Led Lensers high and low either.

Comparing apples to oranges and sheeps. :thinking:

Anyway I agree that too low low makes things overcomplicated, that's why I like Fenix modes better, the low is not too low.
And I like preset levels, that way you know the runtimes for sure, ramping to the desired output leaves you guessing the runtime.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

To me your opinions are not consistent, you prefer LL P7 because it has hi-lo sequence.

Actually if you read my words as I wrote them, rather than just jumping in and responding to something you've imagined I'm thinking you'll see that my opinion is quite consistent in regards to high low switching.

to the contrary of what you assert, I never said I prefer my P7 because it has high low switching. That would be because it doesn't actually have high low switching. It's the first generation and switches low high.

In fact, I actually said that I don't like the low high aspect of my P7, nor my fenixes. I also said I singled out the quarks for special attention because they have additional much lower low modes than the others which cause me even more trouble when using in daylight.

here, read what the post said again, I've underlined the pertinent bits.....

the low-to-high order of the brightness modes on my Quark regulars (and my fenixes and my P7) is a pain in the posterior for me.

Based on my own experiences I single out the Quark because it's bottom modes are so low and useless to me. As I mentioned in the post in question, I use my torches a lot in the daytime and the quarks are so low in brightness at the beginning that I very often can't tell whether they've come on or not.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

Other light has high or low selecteable by twisting the head, you don't like it because you need the modes from somewhere between.

I do admit that I occasionally desire a low mode in addition to the very necessary bright and medium and I now actually have the perfect torch for that. It's called the Eagletac P20C2 MkII. It comes on in my choice of high or medium and for those very rare occasions that I truly need low I can grab it by a simple twist-untwist and I never ever have to progress through any carnival merrygoround blinkies to change brightness levels. It's Perfect. It even comes with a clip which so much seals the deal that my P7 now lays on the gunsafe for emergency only though let me be the first to say that even though the eagle is just perfect for my usage, the LLP7 still throws further and has a brighter spill than the eagle MkII with XP-G.

 

[Egsise]

Oh sry, that explains a lot, the old P7's throw better than the new ones don't they?

 

[McAllan]

Oh boy, the "lumens" game again! May I play? I bought an A6 Polestar at Fry's, which has the MCE Cree. I returned it because the non-adjustable beam favored spill over throw, and the over-abundant spill actually interfered with the eye's ability to see farther into the throw by causing the pupils to contract. Basically, the lights spill was blinding me, and this was immediately apparent when going back to the P7 and P14 on spot mode. Yes, the A6 Polestar showed quite a bit more light output in a ceiling bounce, but in actual use (my use) the "700 lumen" A6 was outdid by the "lowly couple-a-hundred lumen" LED Lenser P7 and P14.

Wrote it somewhere. It's the same with the TK40 (really no surprise as they're both MC-E). And you really don't need a lux meter to convince yourself or others that the P14/M14 easily out throws the TK40.
Just point the two lights at the same spot on the wall. Put an object in the front and it'll cast two shadows. You can easily see which light has the darkest shadow. And then I haven't even tried to taken the bright "blinding" spill into account.

I can find many great uses for the TK40. It's not a bad light. It's a great bicycle headlight, walk the dog light, urban exploring, general lighting when mains power is out etc.
On the other hand the M14 is really great too. A nice flood when you don't need a blinding hot spot. While still having access to really great throw.

 

[JaguarDave-in-Oz]

the old P7's throw better than the new ones don't they?

I haven't had much of a look at the new ones but I do know that things were a bit variable with the old ones too. Some focussed well, some were over focussed and a number of them that I've seen don't pull forward far enough to get the spot focussed well.

There are two things that limit the head movement forward on the first gen p7's (I don't know if it's the same for the next ones). First thing is the little block that's screwed to the heatsink. It runs up and down in a slot in the body of the head (well actually the slot runs up and down on the fixed block). It's this block that stops the head spinning. This block and its relationship with the slot milled in the head limits forward movement of the head.

Secondly, there is also a step on the end of the torch barrel near the heatsink that ultimately would limit forward movement of the head if the little block were not there.

As mentioned, in some cases the little block stops the head movement a ways short of full focus and that was the case with mine at first so I filed down the block and extened the slot in the head to the point that the barrel step became the limiting factor and my torch fousses a lot better. I'd estimate that it added about 25 yards to the throw on momentary turbo, maybe more. By allowing it to pull further forward the better focus also dealt with a slightly duller area within the centre of my hotspot. I also made a little transverse slot so I could lock the head in full focus.