400 lumens LED

[DavyCrockett]

Can one get 400 lumens out of 3 AAA batteries?

Or put another way, what's the most lumens one could expect from 3 AAA's, LED?

 

[Cheapskate]

Possibly, but not for long.

You can get 320 lumens out of a Quark AA mini running on a single 14500. Again, not for long as it gets hot fast.

 

[Saint_Dogbert]

At the current draw necessary for that output, it probably wouldn't be safe. You wouldn't get much burntime, either.

 

[dsche]

400 lumens?

It's easy

Driver with 1200mA output and one XPG R5 will give you 400 lum

 

[Glenn7]

well you can get 240 from one of these that use 3xAAA or step up to 4xAAA to get 500ish lumens

 

[snapjax]

@Glenn7

those lights are AA

try googling for the X2000 flashlight, if you're interested in a long throw torchlight

 

[LEDninja]

The sunwayleds use AA batteries not AAA. There is a fair difference in size.

3AAA batteries do not have enough juice to drive the more powerful LEDs. This is a typical runtime graph. Starts out at 130 lumens, drops to 80 lumens and stays there.

Even if you put in a more powerful LED that can do 400 lumens, the light will drop to 80 lumens even quicker maybe 3 - 5 minutes instead of 25 minutes for the 'Kai 130 lumen'.
And if you are using alkaline AAAs the batteries won't even give you the output. Even alkaline Ds cannot properly power a P7/MCE.

 

[Glenn7]

Oops what a butt head I missed the extra A in AAA sorry, just pretend I said nothing.

 

[DavyCrockett]

Thanks everyone. Snapjax, have you tried and liked one of those X2000 ones? Does it really seem like 400 lumens?

 

[joe1512]

That x2000 is not even close to 400 lumens just FYI. It probably hits about 100 out the front.

The fact is that an XP-G emitter fully driven can hit around 250 out the front. A Q5 or whatever is in the x2000 is going to be less efficient and even at maximum drive will only hit 200ish real lumens.

A DX light like the X2000 will not fully drive the emitter. It is probably around 0.8 amps.


So the answer is YES: You COULD custom make an XP-G overdriven light that briefly gets 400 out the front lumens. Or a special light that uses an SST-50 and squeaks out 400. Neither of which would be very practical though. You are either burning the emitter or overloading your batteries bigtime.


I suspect the question you are really asking is: Can I buy a 3xAAA light that gets 400 lumens? The answer is no.