Over driving a flashlight?

I was rading the thor 3x article. Made me wonder if this could be done or already been done with flashlights? I know an led one blow up, but a regular one would just get brigher and fail faster.

What about cooling? Could forced cooling from a fan or heat pump allow an led to be over drive safely?

This is a no too? Seemed like a good solution for one who wants a compact bright light for short term use. I had the brain storm the other day to load up my mini mag with cr 123 lights and buy a xenonbulb for the voltage or maybe less to get that extra burst of light. Then of course you got the electronic route to suck your batteries dry.

The problem is that a good incandescent light is already operating close to its theoretical optimum, both in terms of efficiency and how hot the filament can get without burning out quickly. Pumping more current through the filament will increase the brightness and may even increase the efficiency, but that will last only a few minutes (or seconds) before the bulb goes *poof*. A better strategy would be to regulate the current at an ideal level like the Surefire A2 does.

Most incandescent bulbs can be overdriven to some extent.

It varies between bulbs on what they will tolerate, however.

A general rule is that 25% is about the max, but some will tolerate no more than 10%, while others will tolerate 50% or more.

Another general rule is that the longer a bulb life specified, the more tolerant of overdrive. A fifty hour bulb will tolerate minimal overdrive generally speaking, while a 2000 hour bulb will tolerate many times that.

There are lots of threads about this, some of which include the tables to calculate increased output vs. life.

Bill

In addition, you can put a soft start circuit in there, as when the bulb is cold, it can draw 10X the normal current when you turn it on. Once the filament resistance goes up, the current drops down. This is why bulbs normally blow when turned on.

I've noticed about the same thing with incandescent bulbs at work. A few of the guys put pr-2 bulbs in a 3d mag and get a greater brightness but a significantly shorter burn time. The best solution seems to be to keep one old battery and put 2 new ones in then you can get more burn time and more brightness than when using the pr-3 bulb.