Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED'S

[BuddTX]

Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

Just wondering?

The life of the LED is 1000,000 hours. Let's say you overdrove it, and reduced the life of the light by 80%. That would still leave 20,000 hours. Now let's say that you loose 20% of the light when the light reaches 80% of it's expected life, that still leaves 16,000 hours.

That leaves 3,200 DAYS of using the light every day for 5 hours. That's 8.7 years!

So, If I could get 30-50 % or more light out of my Photon, or Pulsar, or Microlight or whatever, and it ONLY lasts for 8.7 years, but I got more light out of it, I would say that was 5-10 dollars well spent!

Any way to do this?

Thanks. Just a thought!

 

[JollyRoger]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

Well, the photon lights are already being overdriven....if you're talking about trying to make the white or blue or turquoise or green brighter...they're already running off 6V. I wonder how the red or amber or yellow, etc. would look at 6V....

 

[Brock]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

Most of the smaller 2 coin cell light are overdriving somewhere between 100 and 200 percent ABOVE the specs. Standard white Nichia are rated about 20mA and Photons run about 40mA most of the time. Some lights run them up to 60mA. Also as you double the mA you make the light about 1.5 times brighter, so you have to about triple the mA input to double the light.

I did however cram 3 2012's in my photon when I first got it, it is brighter and dims in about 10 minutes, but bright for that short time.

 

[snakebite]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

if you could cram 2032's in it it would drive the led a bit harder.
the larger batts have lower internal resistance and the voltage would drop less.
might let the smoke out though.

 

[Brock]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

Nope with the 2032 you are running a total of 3v through the LED. With 2 2016's you are running 6v and with 3 2012's your running 9v. Now the voltage does drop quite a bit with the load of the LED but you get the picture. The three smaller batteries are brighter then the one larger capacity battery.

 

[snakebite]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by snakebite:
if you could cram 2032's in it it would drive the led a bit harder.
the larger batts have lower internal resistance and the voltage would drop less.
might let the smoke out though.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
note that 2032's above as in 2.

 

[Brock]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

opps, yup if you could get two 2032's in there it would most definetly be brighter.

 

[Alan]

Re: Anyway to "overdrive" the small keyring LED\'S

BuddtTx, you might want to try Pelican L1 which is overdriven and very bright. It's a bit bigger than photon-like LED, it's definitely a key ring LED.

Alan