Smallest 500+ lumen flashlight?

[LuxLuthor]

Oh Lux you and your undying love of incans.
Not discounting what you said because it's true. Color and rendering something in it's true form is important. And it's too bad LED's aren't bright enough while achieving all that yet, and bright LEDs' can't do what you said that well.

But one day even you will have to give in when LED's have proper color temp, CRI and put out 500lumen for 1 hour in a pocket light.

And Lux I'm surprised you missed on the whole debate years ago about the 65% transmission factor. Most consumer level lights with your glass lens and aluminum reflector with an aluminum coating is only about 65% efficient. The number can be higher if you go to more exotic materials. I'll see if I can dig up the thread.

...Since I have been reading more about the various terms used to describe light from various sources, I'm not sure about most of the widely accepted terms, let alone the 65% out the front incan number. I'll just register my objections because the more times information like this gets repeated, the less people stop and question its accuracy. :tinfoil:

Tebore, thanks for your post! :thumbsup: If you are really bored, you can check my couple of posts starting here in the incan section (or not). LOL!

I am totally open to LED's or any other new technology more effectively meeting my lighting needs. I think people misunderstand that my self-proclaimed "Incan Jockey" status must mean that I dislike LED's (or HIDs, or CFL, or Fluorescents, or Lasers, etc.). Untrue.

My only real objection is the recognition that "one (lighting) tool does not fit all applications." There is much misinformation, inexperience (with incans), and misrepresentations (about incandescents) resulting in very few ever hearing about their unique value.

I was trying to find that old series of threads talking about the 65% factor. I do remember reading several of them, including posts from the "Godfathers of CPF." The reason I brought this up with guarded suspicion, was after beginning to understand many of the light related terms that I discussed starting in this thread.

In particular, I forced myself to read (many times) and understand the Ryer handbook. 65% may be roughly accurate, but I'm not sure how much of chapter 3 & 4 were taken into account. I must have read this statement & supporting documentation 20 times:

From the Ryer Manual, p. 17, under "Collimation":

Lenses and reflectors can drastically distort inverse square law approximations, so should be avoided where precision distance calculations are required.

It left me wondering how the variety of reflectors alone could adequately be taken into account. Then there was the series of questions in my mind about how the light measurements were done. I was left with more questions, and a recognition that I had previously accepted many predictive values, and terms before I really knew what they were based on.

 

[adamlau]

Similar to how I accepted predictive estimation values and colloquial terms in construction before I read Walker's Building Estimator's Reference Book .

 

[divine]

For me I'll quit when I can get 16,000 lumens for 8 hours off one 18650 size rechargable cell.

There will be a day when we come on here and people will say that 16,000 lumens is barely enough to get around in the dark.

 

[Juggernaut]

There will be a day when we come on here and people will say that 16,000 lumens is barely enough to get around in the dark.

I'll be content when I have a pocket light the size of a wolf eye's M300 that has the exact same output, and beam qualities as my 1000 watt GE PAR64, with over two hours of regulated run time on rechargeable, replaceable batteries. :devil::devil:

 

[RobertM]

So does a small 10W HID put out about the same output as a small P7 light?

 

[milkyspit]

Milky, your work, quality, friendship, hospitality, and knowledge is legendary. No question that LED's have made much progress. For me it is more than just asking your final question, which is a good one....but I don't believe that most people properly use or understand the term "lumens."

I do want enough lumens, but I also want the proper color, proper throw, proper focus/hotspot/spill to accomplish the task at hand. I have way too many practical scenarios where the 25 or so LED's I own just do not meet my needs.

Lux, thank you for the very kind words. I certainly do appreciate them! And I believe we're on the same wavelength (yup, pun intended) as to a light being about far more than just brightness... heck, my own Project-M is built around that principle.

My only real objection is the recognition that "one (lighting) tool does not fit all applications." There is much misinformation, inexperience (with incans), and misrepresentations (about incandescents) resulting in very few ever hearing about their unique value.

I was trying to find that old series of threads talking about the 65% factor. I do remember reading several of them, including posts from the "Godfathers of CPF."

+1 on the one-tool-does-not-fit-all sentiment. It's not just true about flashlights, but also in a number of other disciplines. In fact, the same tool by its very nature may be contraindicated for one application, and uniquely qualified for another! This is a concept that one tends to appreciate more and more the deeper one delves into their chosen vocation, and becomes increasingly familiar with the capabilities of its tools as well as their own personal needs. It's important to remember the PERSONAL aspect here, too... a tool at the end of the day becomes nothing more than an extension of its user.

To digress a little...

My stepfather has a passion for home improvement projects. When he visits us, he brings a full set of hand tools with him, despite the fact that I have most of those tools on hand, and in some cases my own tools actually exceed the quality of his. I asked him about it one day... turns out he continues to bring his own tools because he's grown familiar with them to the point that he's most comfortable using those rather than somebody else's.

One more...

For a number of years I was a competitive foil fencer, and over time grew increasingly specific in my requirements for a foil... I liked ONE specific style of grip, with ONE brand of blade and ONE specific type of tip... even the bend I put in the blade was specific to the point that I saved a broken shard of an old foil to use as a makeshift guide when bending my new blades... and when a good foil finally broke, it was an occasion met with some grief! I simply was not as effective using a different foil regardless of price and quality, as I was using the ones tailored to my personal needs. When I was fencing exceptionally well I really had the sensation that my thumb was sitting at the tip of the weapon... it felt literally like an extension of my hand.

Regarding the 65% figure, I did not participate in establishing it, but have spoken at length with various folks who did... Ginseng, Bwaites, JS, and SilverFox come to mind... and speaking as an LED guy, I can say with some confidence that I believe their figure to be on solid ground... their rationale and the research that went into arriving at the 65% number, though I cannot do justice in explaining it, made a lot of sense as well as being impressively rigorous. But here's the thing: it's a rule of thumb. As such it's bound to be imprecise, and you're right, any number of variations could lead to some error. The goal isn't to bring uncompromising precision to bear, though... rather to make possible a quick and easy calculation that puts one in the right ballpark.

I personally use the 65% rule of thumb for incandescent, and an 85% rule of thumb with LED. I've found these to be reasonable approximations, built on the assumption that the lens/reflector/optic are of high optical quality... if the assumption is untrue, the percentages should be adjusted downward accordingly.

Okay, enough pontification from this typist for now! oo:

 

[LuxLuthor]

Milky, I was just reading your Project-M which I was not aware of. I thought I started understanding some of it, but there seems to be so many versions and revisions in the thread that I got lost. It was coincidently about the same time I saw the red center LED, and Pilar Lastra suddenly scrolled up into view. :huh:

Regarding the 65% figure, I posted my assessment here.