XP-L HI overload?

I for one love the XP-L HI emitter. I feel like throw is easily measured, whereas flood requires more of an in-person experience.

But I'm starting to see more and more manufacturers use this, and some making models with ONLY the XP-L HI. In contract, some like Eagletac offer a range of emitters in the same light.

So I'm wondering, will this turn into a fad for flashaholics and allow marketing guys to put out another numbers game, eventually hurting the "general public" looking for a balanced-beam flashlight? I'm not saying those will disappear, but simply wondering if they'll take a back seat for the time being. I don't want to walk a dog at night with a 406m pencil beam thrower!

markr6 said:

I for one love the XP-L HI emitter. I feel like throw is easily measured, whereas flood requires more of an in-person experience.

But I'm starting to see more and more manufacturers use this, and some making models with ONLY the XP-L HI. In contract, some like Eagletac offer a range of emitters in the same light.

So I'm wondering, will this turn into a fad for flashaholics and allow marketing guys to put out another numbers game, eventually hurting the "general public" looking for a balanced-beam flashlight? I'm not saying those will disappear, but simply wondering if they'll take a back seat for the time being. I don't want to walk a dog at night with a 406m pencil beam thrower!

Click to expand...

Unless makers trend towards using the XPL-HI to make lights in every class throw as far as possible with the narrowest beam possible, I think it will be ok.
My personal experience with the XPL-HI (one in an Armytek Dobermann, one in a P60 module with smooth reflector, and another in a P60 module with OP reflector): the very noticeable gain in throw has not sacrificed much spill/flood.

markr6 said:

So I'm wondering, will this turn into a fad for flashaholics and allow marketing guys to put out another numbers game, eventually hurting the "general public" looking for a balanced-beam flashlight? I'm not saying those will disappear, but simply wondering if they'll take a back seat for the time being. I don't want to walk a dog at night with a 406m pencil beam thrower!

Click to expand...

Actually, after getting more and more floody finally we have some flashlights with decent throw in a fairly compact form factor.

phantom23 said:

Actually, after getting more and more floody finally we have some flashlights with decent throw in a fairly compact form factor.

Click to expand...

Yes, and I like that. Very useful throw in small packages. But my main thought had to do with manufacturers that would normally make a general use beam may skip that and go right for the throw. Not useful for many applications. I doubt it, but it was something I started to think about.

Fortunately, so far, manufacturers seem to be doing both. For example, Eagletac, Nitecore (P12 and P12GT), and so on. Or throw-specific lights with that being the only intention (i.e. Olight SR52UT) which is also fine.

According to the Cree web site the new XP-L-HI is a big savings in cost of production and an increase in throw; the manufacturer's will be beaming with smiles on the way to their bank accounts.

I have been waiting patiently for more XP-L V3 HI to buy, but i can only find U6 The wait continues.

Manufacturers can use either XM-L2 U4 or XP-L V6 for a good general beam and higher output over the V2 HI version. I believe there is room for both.

Zebralight will be offering both HD and HI versions of the Cree HP35 emitter in its upcoming Zebralight SC600 Mk. III.

Yay!

We need to see XP-L HI lights in NW or warmer tints offered.

I think it's just the "me too" effect. Olight was the first to release a super-thrower with this XP-L emitter in a small package so it made them look very good. Others jump on to get similar high performance throwers out there. I bet it dies down after a while. While cool, super-throwers just aren't as overall useful as a general purpose mid range beam. Some are into having better and better throw, but it just becomes silly to me to be honest. They can be useful sometimes depending on where you live, but mostly it's just "look I can see the base of that tree 1000 meters away slightly better than with my last super thrower."

I doubt it will be a lasting trend nearly as much as say the XM-L platform has been which is much more of a balanced emitter and can do flood to throw depending more on the body and reflector you pair it with.

One thing about the XP-L that is amazing though is that you can make tiny thrower lights. I've always loved the XP-E emitter because it throws so well in small lights, but it looks like the XP-L will allow fairly small lights too that throw well, but with much more output.