Incans, How much longer will they be prevelent and other questions...

1.) I was wanting to get the opinions of the all the members on the lifespan of incans. LEDs have really come a long in the past few years and are steadily gaining/passing incans' performance. How much longer do you give incans a significant preence in the flashlight world? I say in about 5 years most higherend lights will operate with an LED light source due to their efficiency and output. Am I totally wrong? Give me your opinions.

2.) Here is my second question: In ten years; what are some of the specs you think the major flashlight brands' lights will have? (Surefire, Inova, Fenix, and the like..)

3.) Am I annoying anyone? I sure hope not! I love getting discussions started.


* I hope I started this in the correct place if I didn't I am sorry.....

i ahve no idea but i can't wait to see what is going to happen. i can't see retiring my A2 just yet.

In five to ten years I really see LEDs starting to pick up a lot of ground. Until this latest generation of LEDs (Seoul, Cree, others on the horizon with their efficiency or higher) I would have said that Incandescent was still the better choice for all but smaller, lower-powered flashlights (LEDs do better and better when driven at lower power -- incan has the opposite trend). Now though with the prospect of LEDs in the next few years that can produce 600 lumens from a single die running off around 8 watts of power, I see LEDs beginning to take over for the higher powered flashlights, and even being sold for use in the home in track lighting system etc.

I also suspect that the next generation of LEDs that should be more efficnient, and higher powered, will start to put some focus on improving the light quality -- such as using multiple phosphors to generate warmer color output with better color rendering, as they will start to market LEDs for fixed lighting applications such as residential lighting, street lighting, and car headlight applications in place of lower-powered HID (HID will hold the advantage for huge light sources like stadiums though for a very very long time though). I can also see the niche of HID powered flashlights going away as well -- just as LEDs are now replacing low-powered incandescent due to the trend I mentioned earlier, I suspect they will soon be replacing low-powered HID lights (street lights, handheld spotlights etc) in much the same way.

Maybe incans will keep up - tho' I can't see it, purely because companies like Surefire are concentrating their R&D in LEDs - but either way, I think the gap between what is sold in the big-box stores and what is raved about here on CPF will continue to grow. . . with CPF become the reserve of mail-order-only lights. The public isn't going to pay more than $30 for a light, no matter what is does.

Regardless of the lumen count, if you can still see better with an incan that has a lower lumen count, there's something seriously wrong with today's LED's. Until they produce LED's with a decent spectrum, they will always be second string for me.

I think LED's are still in their infancy.

Incans have been around for 125 years, I'm sure they will be around for a while longer. I still prefer my 100 lumen incandescents in the woods over my 100 lumen LED lights. I'm not sure how that will change.

If we're talking about diy flashlights then I like the simplicity of my ROP. No converter boards to fail or leds to overheat.

It's becoming more common for led lights to ship with electronics and this is just another weak link in the chain.

Incan is also easier on the eye. My TSP is just as bright as my rop low, but the rop is less blinding if you catch an eyeful of the business end.

It's for this reason that I've fitted incans in my ceiling down lights. The led equivalent is so harsh it gives rise to headaches.

Led lights will no doubt take over, because the technology is new and led lights will be marketed as 'better', so people will go for them. Incans will then be seen the same way VHS is over DVD.

InfidelCastro said:

Regardless of the lumen count, if you can still see better with an incan that has a lower lumen count, there's something seriously wrong with today's LED's. Until they produce LED's with a decent spectrum, they will always be second string for me.

I think LED's are still in their infancy.

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Very true. Wel said.

I agree with killingtime. I don't think they'll ever totally dissapear because of their simplicity. No converterboard required at all. Unless leds get really good and somehow integrate control boards into their tiny bases...That would be interesting.

They will be around for a long time yet

leukos said:

Incans have been around for 125 years, I'm sure they will be around for a while longer. I still prefer my 100 lumen incandescents in the woods over my 100 lumen LED lights. I'm not sure how that will change.

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Pretty soon the incans we use today will be outdated, renewed, and advanced into something totally different...but it wont disappear, incan will always be incan...

Somethings like intensity, color rendition, and temperature color of incandescents cannot be replaced with LEDs, perhaps in the future LEDs can serve as an "alternative" to incans filling in the gaps of inefficiency better...

They will always exist.

Daylight color tints and increased outputs, and incans may phase out.
Or HID may be the next replacement if hot restrike becomes a standard.

I think besides color rendition, incans don't have much other advantages. Short bulb life for the high-powered bulbs, so called 'fragile' filament, a lot of heat...

They will still be around with $1 flashlights and such.

But I'm looking forward to seeing more and more tiny little led lights which may sport lux's and cree's for cheap too. I know its still early but do you remember the days where 5mm led lights that cost $30 to $40 ? It was not too long ago!

So I can't wait!

Incand will be around for me until LEDs can throw a decent distance
and their beams can cut through water and fog.

I'm pretty sure there will always be a use and place for incans.

I don't know...

When I see LED lights competing with the $0.99 2 D cell incandescent lights I will consider the end of incandescent lights may be closer. Until then, people will grab the incandescent and not worry about any technological advances.

If given a choice between a 2 D incandescent and an AA LED that produce the same amount of light, and if both are $0.99, and if the LED light advertises longer run time, then people may go for the LED light.

Tom

I agree with killingtime. I don't think they'll ever totally dissapear because of their simplicity. No converterboard required at all. Unless leds get really good and somehow integrate control boards into their tiny bases...That would be interesting.

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For cheap throwaway flashlights there's always the option of direct-driving the LEDs with a small resistor.

Illum_the_nation said:

Regardless of the lumen count, if you can still see better with an incan that has a lower lumen count, there's something seriously wrong with today's LED's. Until they produce LED's with a decent spectrum, they will always be second string for me.

I think LED's are still in their infancy.

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I absolutely agree. There is also a huge difference between good LEDs and poor ones. For example, many of my cheaper lights I upgraded to Cree LEDs which have good color rending for LEDs. The combination of efficiency and better color rendering means I can actually see just as well or better with Cree lights running at less than 1/3rd the drive power of some the old LEDs!

This phenomenon also shows up with Sodium lights which produce a huge amount of lumens but absolutely suck at useful lighting when compared to metal halide lighting.

The color temp/color rendering issue is by no means insurmountable however. There's no reason from a technology standpoint that we shoudln't already be seeing LEDs as good or better than the best fluorescents. I don't doubt in 5-10 years they could make LEDs that would be almost indistinguishable from incandescent by using the right combination of phosphors and emitters to fill in any gaps in the spectrum.

What I would actually prefer to see though is an LED with nearly 100CRI at 3500-4100k color temperature (hotwire mods can begin to push 3500k, but those last a matter of a few hours as the tungsten is on the brink of melting), or right in beteen typical incandescent and typical LEDs. That's the color temp of fluorecents I have all through the house and I generally prefer that to ~2700k incan, and 5000k+ LED.

Maybe incans will keep up - tho' I can't see it, purely because companies like Surefire are concentrating their R&D in LEDs - but either way, I think the gap between what is sold in the big-box stores and what is raved about here on CPF will continue to grow. . . with CPF become the reserve of mail-order-only lights. The public isn't going to pay more than $30 for a light, no matter what is does.

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I do agree with this. I suspect in a few years they will still be selling crappy, long-since-obsolete LED lights in stores as people won't know/care about the difference. For one thing, they don't have standardized packaging like they do with lightbulbs where they give the lumen output, power consumption, lifetime, and CRI right on the box. If they had such a standard for flashlights I think you'd see a lot more quality LED products.

I think that advances in KISS rechargeable battery technology and/or energy dense battery technology will give incand's a new lease on life. Aside from bulb life issues, the real "deal killer" w/ incands is battery drain.

I haven't seen any AA-powered led lights for $0.99 in the USA but I do see them for $3.99 (3AA's, resistored direct drive, four 5mm leds, appearance sort of like a longer minimag). I think that 3aa design is great for a household light even if the total output is less than the traditional 2D incan. The runtime is certainly a heck of a lot longer and you don't have to worry about bulbs burning out.

Overseas I've seen Xnova-like 1aa led lights in the two dollar range so that should give an indication of what's coming.