21 LED Torch vs Luxeon

[smitty244]

Hi there, my apologies if this has already been posted somewhere (I tried searching but I couldn't really find this specific question). I have recently purchased one of those many 21 led flashlights off of the Hong Kong sellers on eBay, the ones that use 3xAAA batteries... it works great (I use it with 3xAAA NiMH batteries). I was looking into something that uses AA batteries instead with a regulated power circuit and was just wondering what your opinions are in terms of equivalent Luxeon LED brightness (I don't want anything that is less bright than the 21 led light). Thanks for any advice / direction you can provide!

 

[raggie33]

hello and welcome to cpf. id have to say the 21 led light will always have more flood. far as throw id guess a good 3 watt light with a decent reflecter will out shine it the lion heart is a amazeing light that use a 3 watt led lux and has many levels and is very small and rechargable

 

[PhotonBoy]

The Streamlight Jr. Luxeon 1 watt 2 AA is quite bright and inexpensive at about $30. It's regulated and runs well with either alkaline or NiMH cells. It will definitely have longer throw than any 5 mm LED type of light. In dark conditions, it's useful up to about 125 feet or so.

 

[idleprocess]

I'm evaluating one of those nonbranded 21-LED lights right now. It has good throw for a LED array, but even a Luxeon with a small reflector will generally outthrow large arrays of 5mm LEDs.

 

[DaMeatMan]

I also purcahsed one of those tiny 21 LED lights that run on 3 AAA's. It provides a nice soft flood of light and is great for reading and finding your way to bathroom in the middle of the night without blinding yourself. The beam of the 21 LED isn't all that bright, so just about any single luxeon based light of the same size will be allot brighter and throw farther then the 21 LED. However you will probabally get more runtime from the 21 LED. I have yet to conduct my own runtime tests, the stats on the site seemed very inflated and claimed 50 hours of runtime from 3 AAA's, but then again they also claimed the same 50 hours for the 16 LED lights which leads me to believe they have fudged the numbers for sales purposes.

 

[Lenny7]

I bought both the 21 LED and a 1Watt "luxeon" from a HK supplier on Ebay and I prefer the 21LED. Both were 3AAA versions.

THe 21 LED has a really nice white color with a really good, even spread. In a 14' x 22' bedroom I stand at one end, shine it in front of me and have enough flood to look the room and see what's there.

The 1W light was one of the MXDL models. It has a distinct sickly yellow cast to it and the rings in the light remind me of the maglights I onced used. Yuck! The seller offered to replace it for me, if I shipped it back on MY DIME!! I decided to keep it rather than pay shipping back. He also sent a holster that was too small, but is replacing that without having me send the small one back.

The 1W luxeon had the better throw, but I woudln't recommend it. here's the model I bought:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5132597393