Is something wrong with my Rayovac 3W 2/AA?

I bought a Rayovac 3W 2/AA penlight a few months ago, and have been quite happy with it. It is always in my pocket, along with an ancient Mini-Maglite with a 3/LED "Nite-Ize" drop-in kit (w/battery cap button switch). I use the Maglite when I am walking around in the bedroom at night and don't want to wake up the baby. It provides plenty of "walking around" light.

I use the Rayovac when I'm working on something (car, furnace, etc.) or stumbling around during a power failure (rural electric coop, need I say more?

Of course, working with a penlight means working with one hand. So, after reading lots of stuff here, I decided to get the 3W headlamp sold under Rayovac and Rock River brands. We have no Costcos in western MI, but there's a Target store about an hour away. My wife went there and was unable to find it, c'est la merde.

So, she went to the Meijers, and picked up the Rayovac 1W headlamp (the one with the red and blue 5MM LEDs and a swing-over diffuser, works off a single AA cell). I'd wanted more power, but this was a decent light, from what I'd read, and in any case would allow me to work with both hands.

Well, when I powered it up, lo and behold, it seems to be pretty much *identical* in output to my 3W penlight!

These are the two lights:

High Beam 3W Luxeon LED Flashlight (80 lumen)
Sportsman Xtreme 1W LED Headlight (45 lumen)

Is there something wrong with my 3W penlight? Is it possible it's really the 1W version, mislabled at the factory? (It's got "Rayovac 3W" silkscreened on the flat sides of the metal tube, and the packaging was clearly marked as 3W, but when I was in the store, the 1W light looked identical except for the labeling. I have never seen the 1W version powered up, so...)

I know that power-LEDs do lose brightness over time, but I doubt that I've had even ten battery changes through this one. I use Kodak "LSD" NiMH cells, which give me better time that alkalines. And, just to be sure, I compared it against the new headlamp with a pair of brand new Alkaline AA cells, which read a tad over 1.6V each before dropping them into the penlight.

Or, is it somehow possible that they dropped a 3W LED into the headlamp?

I don't know whether to be disappointed, or overjoyed. (???)

I must say that as much as I like the construction of these lights, I am less than thrilled with the fine print of the "lifetime guarantee" (i.e., "excludes bulb/LED"), so it looks like I've no recourse if something *is* wrong with my penlight.

FWIW, not really trusting "my lying eyes," I aimed both of them at my Weston Master III light meter, at a distance of about a foot and a half, with the high-level plate in place. Both of these lights read within one stop of each other. WELL within one stop of each other (they had essentially identical readings), so, it's NOT "psychological" on my part. These two lights really do put out the same output, even though one was sold as a 3W/80 Lumen, and the other as a 1W/45 Lumen.

Can anyone give me any clue as to what's going on here?

First of all, you have to forget watts because they have nothing to do with the amount of light a flashlight will put out. Second it could very well be that the Lux III flashlight uses a lower bin and the Lux I light uses a more recent bin meaning their output will be more similar. Third, you eyes dont see linearly so a light source has to be 4x brighter for it to appear 2x brighter.
Hope that helps :thumbsup:

edit: Oh ya :welcome:

The numerical difference in lumens isn't representative of how it appears to our eyes. Human perception of brightness is not linear, meaning it takes around a 4x increase in brightness for something to look twice as bright.

Also, those watt ratings are only the capability of the LED, not necessarily what it's actually being driven at. Also, the watt ratings loose all meaning in LED's when comparing brightness.

Thanks for the replies. By way of clarification, prior to my near vision going to hell, I spent the better part of my life as a photographer (commercial and studio work) and wholesale camera repairman. I do know the vagaries of the inverse square law, which was why my first reaction was to not trust my eyes, and grab the nearest decent quality light meter. And, sure enough, they read *well* within a stop (1 stop = a doubling or halving of exposure/light value, i.e., open or close lens one f-stop, or double or half shutter time). By "well within" we're talking perhaps a tenth of a stop or so -- for all practical purposes, identical.

At "across the room" Mark I Eyeball (spots against wall), with the penlight focused to maximum spot concentration, they *still* appeared identical. My next step will probably be to dig out an incident meter and/or Kodak Gray Card for more precise readings (aiming the light at the "honeycomb" of the Weston meter ain't quite by hoyle, but it's more than close enough for government work; still, given the circumstances I'd like to eliminate *all* variables). Given my personal circumstances (mostly housebound due to health, living in very rural area with no "big store" closer than a half-hour drive) it's not really practical for me to do the "buy a few and try them out" thing (which I am loath to do anyway on sheer ethics considerations).

BTW my assumption that the outputs should be different was *not* based on the wattage (I am aware that there's a Moore's Law variant that results in power-LED efficiency doubling every yay months or so), but rather, on the *Lumen* numbers that the two lamps are rated with.

Regardless of wattage, an 80 Lumen lamp ought to be approx one stop brighter than a 45 Lumen lamp, n'est ce pas? (Just shy of one stop, well within (photographic) industry tolerances.)

By that, I mean that my understanding is that if a .5W LED is rated at 100 Lumens, and a 5W LED is rated at 20 Lumens, the half-watter will be quite a bit brighter than the 5W light. (Absurd numbers, but the illustrate the principle.)

So what I'm left with are two lights, one rated at 80 Lumens, the other at 45 Lumens, which are putting out essentially the same amount of light.

Since they are both badged by the same company, and, they're both spotlights -- with pretty much identical spot size -- I am thinking that the "different companies, different metrics" problem should not be an issue.

Does anyone besides me have both of these lights? Or, the 1W headlamp and the 1W version of the penlight? Can you check to see how the outputs compare?

I can accept that the headlamp might have a more efficent LED -- however, 80 Lumens is 80 Lumens, and 45 Lumens is 45 Lumens, regardless of how many mA are pumped into them.

If it's a case of my 3W light having *such* a bum bin LED that it's only putting out 45 Lumens, then I am probably going to tell Rayovac that I don't consider this to be part of the "Lifetime Guarantee/Excludes LED" boilerplate, anymore than it would be if I bought a power LED flashlight and found a ten cent tapered-lens "classic" penlight bulb stuck into the head. That's because it would seem to indicate that I bought a 1W model at 3W labeling and pricing.

OTOH, if it's a case of my 45 Lumen headlamp being the odd bird that puts out 80 Lumens, I'll smile, count myself as having the flashlight equivalent to the "100 mpg carburetor" and find something else to worry about. -- at my age, with my health, trust me, there's plenty to pick from.

another thing to consider is that the lumen ratings are most likely bogus too. Many if not most companies rate their lumen output by the led manufactures specs or test at the led instead of out the front of the light which makes more of a difference than you think.

My ROV 3 watt is a power house. It is very close to being as bright as my Surefire G2L.

I also have the ROV headlight in question.

It is nothing when compared to the 3 watt flashlight.

Garand said:

My ROV 3 watt is a power house. It is very close to being as bright as my Surefire G2L.

I also have the ROV headlight in question.

It is nothing when compared to the 3 watt flashlight.

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Thanks! This is exactly the information I was looking for.

I guess my next move is to call Rayovac and ask them how they plan on resolving this little situation. (I do NOT consider them selling me a 1W flashlight -- labeled and priced as a 3W flashlight -- to be CYA'd on their part by the "Lifetime Warranty -- Excluding LED" fine print!)

If this is the flashlight in question, i used to have it and i was less than impressed. The tint was horribly purple and not very bright. i was thinking about returning it but then i lost it.

Yup, that's the one, but I've no complaints about the light quality -- it's nice neutral white, and it's pretty bright -- as bright, it seems as a ONE Watt edition of the same flashlight.

Now I'm wondering if they're gonna either pull the "no warranty on LED" line, or the "proof of purchase and all retail packaging" gambit on me. I hate this kind of crap...

Seems apparent to me that someone in China grabbed at least one 3W tube and popped a 1W LED into it. Parts is parts, and all that...

"No receipt required"
http://www.rayovac.com/consumer/warranty.htm

Update: I took my ammeter to them. The headlamp draws 1.11W -- the penlight draws 2.25W (w/fresh alkalines).

I have no idea how much of that is in-circuit loss due to buck/boost inefficiency.

Edited to add: I am wondering if I have a fairly inefficient -- and considerably underdriven -- 3W light, and a very efficient, and somewhat overdriven 1W light?

The LEDs are obviously different models -- the one in the 2/AA penlight appears to be nearly twice the diameter of the one in the 1/AA headlight.

The one in the headlight is VERY small, tiny diameter -- maybe 2MM wide; the one in the penlight looks like it's the same diameter as a 5MM LED, but very different construction -- tiny square yellow phosphor "brick" sitting on a hexagonal die that appears to be seated in a "donut" ring curved mirror, with two gold wires attached to the die at opposite ends.

I wonder if they changed the specs on the headlamp without changing the packaging? NOTHING "Made in China" surprises me. (I recently picked up some "fair to middlin'" speakers at a thrift shop -- KOSS Bass Reflex, labeled as two-way, with the tweeter being a piezo unit.

Well, I opened one up -- they are THREE-way speakers, with *all* drivers being paper cone magnet/voice-coil jobs.

They sound OK for the intended application (upgrading my cheap computer speakers -- when hooked up to the amplifier in the existing plastic speaker boxes they sound several times better - well worth the two bucks I paid. No, not sand-filled Wharfdales but hey, for two bucks, they make the minor amount of sound coming out of this machine sound more intelligible. But, *nothing* even vaguely resembling what's printed on the ID labels.

Maybe my headlight is a better than average (or new design/run) job? Maybe my penlight is a "this bin don't cost you much" run? Maybe if I send it in, they'll replace it with one that's nice and "full 80 Lumen brignt" -- with *purple* cast, as per the one described above?

I'm not a gamblin' man... maybe I ought to leave well enough alone. They both are acceptably bright, they both have nice neutral white light, and if it's a bin batch crapshoot, I'd hate to trade light quality for light quantity.

It's a cryin' shame that Deming-think never took root in China the way it did in Japan. (On the other hand, if his methods ever *do* find traction there, it may be the end of *this* country as we've known it. Feh.)

r-s said:

Update: I took my ammeter to them. The headlamp draws 1.11W -- the penlight draws 2.25W (w/fresh alkalines)....

Click to expand...

Did you mean Amperes?

Nope, Watts. I was wondering if maybe I should have clarified that. I multiplied milliamps times volts (3V for the penlight, 1.5V for the headlamp).

r-s said:

Nope, Watts. I was wondering if maybe I should have clarified that. I multiplied milliamps times volts (3V for the penlight, 1.5V for the headlamp).

Click to expand...

Ok.

I wonder if there was a silent "slipstream" change to use this LED?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4362

Is there any other LED in that range with such a tiny diameter? (1.5 - 2 MM or thereabouts)

It could explain the strangeness. And, it might inspire me to see if I could hotrod it to run at full output...

(I remember during the "cowboy days" of the computer trade, when a certain vendor (Leading Edge, IIRC) was unable to obtain enough 20MB hard drives to install in the machines they shipped -- so, they installed 30MB drives, and formatted them to 20MB.)

edit: nvm, i misread your post

I also have the 1 watt ROV light that is just like the 3 watt. My 1 watt is also brighter than my ROV headlight.

Wow. I guess that sorta clinches it -- I have a slightly underperforming 3W penlight (but with excellent untinted white quality), and a majorly OVERperforming 1W headlamp.

BTW, last night I stepped outside with my wife, and aimed both of them at the garage, about 25' distance. She said "the one on the left looks brighter." That was the headlamp.

Looks like they started using that tiny Rebel LED in the headlamp, underdriving it by roughly half -- with the results being roughly the same output as the 3W penlight.

The temptation is to open it up and see what would be involved in souping it up, but I suspect there'd be nontrivial issues WRT stuff like battery placement and heatsinking. Oh, well. With it driven at perhaps half its rated output, that ought to be really good for its "halflife" time.

The Rayovac 3W(aka a Nuwai X3) is around 55 lumen out the front. The Rayovac headlamp uses an optic, which is more efficient the the reflector + window combination(70% vs 80-90%). So the "1W" one requires less at the LED output to equal the "3W"'s output.

Seems like the headlamp also use the newer Rebel LED (probably does, comparing the size) and because the LED is more efficient (depending on the bin, can be more then double) then what they previously used, more output isn't too much of a surprise.

I've heard the headlamp is hard to get into, so maybe you should swap out the Luxeon III for a Seoul P4 in the Rayovac flashlight.

Weird! I just took my first really close look at the front end of the headlamp, and you're right -- it's got a lens in the front, instead of a reflector. At superficial glance it *looks* like a reflector, but upon inspection, it's a *very* unusual aspheric lens -- it's "donut"-shaped, with the center spot appearing flat, at the size of the actual LED.

It's real hard to look through the lens due to the distortion introduced by the weird shape, but it *looks* like the LED is a the size of a small (metal) transistor, with gold leads acting as standoffs, mounted on a green PCB with (illegible) silkscreening.

If that highly distorted view is anything like what's actually in there, it does not look anything like the Rebel LED (i.e., wires coming out the back). Whatever it is, it does appear to be extremely efficient -- and, it does indeed look well nigh impossible to get into the thing in a nondestructive fashion (unless there's some uber-seekrit 'push-here' thing, which I highly doubt)