Advance auto 3W with 350ma? Not 3W

[stephan2148]

Hi, can someone tell me what their AAP3W is drawing at the LED?
I measure 350ma, which is why it is not as bright as I would like, and now that I think about it, it is not a 3Watt light with that current.
I measure 1.1A at the batteries, but not the LED. Maybe there is something wrong with mine?
What are you guys getting? I also measure 3.2V at the LED.
For 3Watts, I need like 900ma or near an amp at the LED.
Are these things rated for how much the whole light consumes with inefficiencies? Like a vacuum rated at 12amps that could have a resistor as a load to increase current???
I want to push like an amp at least if I can.
Thanks!

 

[etc]

I would like to mod mine same way.

 

[LEDninja]

A long time ago there were only 5mm LEDs.
Then Lumileds came out with the Luxeon I. Manufacturers built lights for them and called them 1 watt.
Then Lumileds came out with the Luxeon III. Since it is the same size as the Lux I most manufacturers just used the same bodies, maybe tweaked the circuit a little and called them 3 watt. So many '3 watts' are really '1 watt' with an LED capable of but not running at 3 watts. So a Nuwai Q-III is only 1.2X a Q-I not 3X as bright.
When the manufacturers got around to making real 3 watt lights running at 700 mA and above they want to seperate them from the so called '3 watt' lights and called them '5 watt', '6 watt' or '7 watt'.
'10 watts' and above usually mean a K2 or Lux V LED.

There is nothing wrong with your light. All the '3 watt' means is that the emitter is a Lux III or clone.

Some companies do not follow this sales based naming convention. So surefire will tell you the emitter and the actual lumens out front.

The Soeul SSC-P4 is closest in size to the Lux-III and is probably the best replacement LED.

EDIT
If your light uses a voltage drop resistor you can calculate the value for a brighter LED here. 1st make sure the LED is heat sinked properly. Some rule of thumb #s:
Source voltage=4.5 for 3AAA
diode forward voltage=3.6 (3.3 for the SSC-P4)
diode forward current (mA)=700