5w LS @ 1 amp - Life expectancy?

[StoneDog]

Has anyone seen a degradation in the quality or amount of light generated by 5 watters driven over 700ma (~1a or more)? (--edit: over the life of the light, ie has anyone used an overdriven 5w a great deal and noticed adverse effects)

Jon

 

[FalconFX]

I think few here can attest to using a 5W LS for over 500+ hours cumulative to even notice a difference... Give it another year or 2, and you might have your answer, though. Anytime you overdrive something, you're going to lose some durability in life to heat and other component failures. So I wouldn't doubt that the stated life expectancy of a 5Wer would decrease... Of course, every luxeon varies, so there's no set date for an LS to die...

 

[lambda]

StoneDog,

I've got a couple 5W 9V (6AA) direct drive lights that have more than a dozen sets of batteries through them, and one with over 50 sets of NiMh run time. That's no where near 500 hrs, but it took months to use them that much, and that was when trying to put some hours of run time on them.

The point being, that by the time you run the flashlight even 200hrs, Luxeons will probably be two generations beyond where they are now, and the replacement will so much brighter you won't care about the life time..... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif