The flashlight world undergoing a development in wrong way

I am very disappointed of the development in the flashlight world. The lumen race justified by the ANSI-NEMA standard has to a certain degree turned it back.
Just compare these runtime graphs. Earlier Fenix was a brand in which specifications I could trust. Fenix is not at all alone here, however. Many brands do the same today!

[URL=https://imageshack.com/i/plwhTbilp][/URL]

Absolutely correct.
Thank you.
P

As long as the crowd keeps getting sucked in by something for nothing this trend will continue.

very true, and annoying. I dislike this "down to 10%" business. The good thing is we do have a few makers that haven't given in to this trend. i.e. Malkoff ect.

This is why testers like Selfbuilt are so valuable to the community!

Thanks for replies,

Yes, Malkoff doesn't follow this trend, so great! And Selfbuilt is one of the best reviewers, so valuable!

We should compile a list of companies that still following the old school run time graph based on review testing.

A while ago it started to be a very fast improvement among many flashlight models. At least on the paper: for example: the updated successor was improved from 450 to 900 lumens! Yes; it was a new and more efficient LED. Still not close to twice as efficient(but claiming the same runtime). In some cases the initial brightness may be twice but it runs for 3min and then drops down to 60%(20% brighter than the true regulated predecessor). On the paper the successor is twice as bright(claiming regulated output) but in reality it's on average <30% brighter. Just an example of some of the newest models. This is deception and nothing else! Except from the short initial level the brightness difference then is barely noticeable.

And one example how deceptive the specifications can be: Mid mode: 200lm for 5hours. High mode: 500lm for 3hours. Something is wrong here. With higher brightness the efficiency becomes lower(because of increased temperature) with an LED. Therefore the high mode can't have more lumen-hours than the much lower level. We know it has to be the opposite!
The problem is that the statement of "fully regulated output" does not fit together with the until 10% level according to the ANSI-NEMA standard. Therefore I react when I read manufacturer statements like: "proud to present the specifications according to ANSI-NEMA...". They should not be. ANSI-NEMA should be replaced with a better more fair standard.

LeanBurn said:

We should compile a list of companies that still following the old school run time graph based on review testing.

Click to expand...

Good idea!

LeanBurn said:

We should compile a list of companies that still following the old school run time graph based on review testing.

Click to expand...

Some makers have 100% reliable numbers.
Some models by some makers are the same rule of thumb where other models by that maker do not.
So if a list is populated the makers who do all that way, say all. The ones who don't but have a few models that do should state that.

Example:
BrushFire (all models)
BonFire (models xr7, br549, the brute)
^^ something like that.

Note; if the makes and models cited in this post actually exist... oops my bad. They were supposed to be ficticious.

I agree to a certain point, however some manufacturers are very honest with the output rating, such as Olight. They mention right on the box that the turbo output runs for a short period of time and then runs regulated at a lower output.
This new phenomenon is why I'm so grateful for the top notch reviewers we have here on CPF, who show exactly how a light operates regardless of the original claims.

Two things that I try to go by:

1. Caveat Emptor, and

2. Turn the lumens to a lower setting if run time needs to be conserved.

So flashlights are really becoming flash lights.... lights that you turn on then quickly turn off before thermal step-down trips....

Not to be that guy, but, you can get those lumens out of your light even better than yesteryear. A modern light can run 500 regulated just like it can now. The problem is mainly we are tripling or even quadrupling our lumens while keeping the cells largely the same capacity the bodies the same size. You run into physics problems.

I don't much care that we can only run 1500 lumens on a single small 18650 light for a short time, the only thing I would like to know is how long will it run that time. I know it will run 500 better than the regulated lights 5 years ago.

staticx57 said:

Not to be that guy, but, you can get those lumens out of your light even better than yesteryear. A modern light can run 500 regulated just like it can now. The problem is mainly we are tripling or even quadrupling our lumens while keeping the cells largely the same capacity the bodies the same size. You run into physics problems.

I don't much care that we can only run 1500 lumens on a single small 18650 light for a short time, the only thing I would like to know is how long will it run that time. I know it will run 500 better than the regulated lights 5 years ago.

Click to expand...

The lumens race has been like the horsepower race. What we need is a better gas-mileage...like malkoffs.

Yes, this is very . This is why ANSI looks like a joke more often than not.

:thumbsup: to those manufactures that give ANSI the finger and provide graphs. I actually saw one the other day with a couple nice graphs, I can't remember who they were but appreciated the graphs. I think as a community we should complain about this more in reviews. A few bad reviews on Amazon or even on CPF (thanks to google) can mean a lot if they are factual. Although some probably skip the reviews here during shopping as it seems CPF performance is like a 5mm LED these days.

staticx57 said:

Not to be that guy, but, you can get those lumens out of your light even better than yesteryear. A modern light can run 500 regulated just like it can now. The problem is mainly we are tripling or even quadrupling our lumens while keeping the cells largely the same capacity the bodies the same size. You run into physics problems.

I don't much care that we can only run 1500 lumens on a single small 18650 light for a short time, the only thing I would like to know is how long will it run that time. I know it will run 500 better than the regulated lights 5 years ago.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

Swedpat said:

I am very disappointed of the development in the flashlight world. The lumen race justified by the ANSI-NEMA standard has to a certain degree turned it back.
Just compare these runtime graphs. Earlier Fenix was a brand in which specifications I could trust. Fenix is not at all alone here, however. Many brands do the same today!

Click to expand...

100% agree with this. It's as if you've read my mind, and it's the main reason I have stuck with older lights for EDC.

staticx57 said:

I don't much care that we can only run 1500 lumens on a single small 18650 light for a short time, the only thing I would like to know is how long will it run that time. I know it will run 500 better than the regulated lights 5 years ago.

Click to expand...

It depends on what your idea of "better" is. My inefficiency issue with modern emitters also stretches to the candela per lumen issue. Newer emitters are bigger, and as suck are more floody. Floody is good for some, but for me it means that if I want to get the same functionality out of a newer light, I need to increase it's output to a higher level. The 15 lumen low mode on my LX2 is good for 98% of the tasks I need it to do. It can act as a general purpose flashlight on this mode. The same can be said for my Fenix P2D. To get the same kind of functionality with a newer LED, I would need to increase its output, and thus reduce its run time. I would rather Cree focus on something like the XP-E2 or XP-G2 and make them more efficient, rather than just trying to increase lumens.

FPSRelic said:

It depends on what your idea of "better" is. My inefficiency issue with modern emitters also stretches to the candela per lumen issue. Newer emitters are bigger, and as suck are more floody. Floody is good for some, but for me it means that if I want to get the same functionality out of a newer light, I need to increase it's output to a higher level. The 15 lumen low mode on my LX2 is good for 98% of the tasks I need it to do. It can act as a general purpose flashlight on this mode. The same can be said for my Fenix P2D. To get the same kind of functionality with a newer LED, I would need to increase its output, and thus reduce its run time. I would rather Cree focus on something like the XP-E2 or XP-G2 and make them more efficient, rather than just trying to increase lumens.

Click to expand...

I like some of the low settings some brands are doing for the very reasons you cite.
Using the mega-whopping able to blind Mr. Sun himself emitters with a 30, 20, perhaps 60 lumen low for like you said 98% of tasks while sipping fuel.
Lots of folks didn't like that makers started to up their low settings. I'm happy as a clam with a 25 lumen flashlight in me pocket.

I don't totally agree with the OP since you're comparing a tactical 18650 flashlight and a 4AA headlamp. Also, using graphs with different scales is misleading (as well as ANSI/NEMA FL1 standard is).

Do you mean "there was a time when regulated meant you could run the flashlight for 14 minutes on max mode until it died" and "nowadays it can mean you can run a headlamp for 2 hours on ~290 lumens"? That's what the graphs are telling me.

If you count the lumen*minutes TK11 offers you about 14.5 min * 480 lm = 6960 lm*min and HP15UE about 130 min * 290 lm + 80 min * 120 lm = 47300 lm*min. If you disregard the fact that these two use different power source, I'd say there's been a huge development in LED and circuit efficacy. I'd say the development of flashlights is not going to wrong direction, I like having ability to burst 1000 lm out of my EDC even for a few minutes. It's the way of advertising that is (or has always been).

ANSI/NEMA FL1 standard was approved back in the 2009 when the flashlights were mostly direct driven, right? It is obviously not suitable for modern flashlights. Flashlight makers (or marketers) take advantage of the 10% cut-off point. I prefer the 50% standard used by e.g. selfbuilt.

I appreciate Valostore for making their own measurements and publishing them alongside with the flashlights they're selling. And more than that I appreciate our indepentend reviewers for producing their runtime graphs. They're one of the first things I check when looking for information about a flashlight.