Brightest 14500 LED

JeffW

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 14, 2007
Messages
63
Who has the brightest led running on a single 14500 / AA battery?
 
Who has the brightest led running on a single 14500 / AA battery?

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Jeff, thats a good question.
I'm amazed there are not more 14500 lights.
Most people will say NiteCore DI or JETBeam JET-1 Pro as the brightest for stock lights.

You can make/modify lights to run off 14500 cells.
Last year I put Dereelight pills in a couple of Romisen RC-G2 lights. They are real 'sleepers' if you know what I mean.
One of them is running a 3SD,.. so 1.2Amps to a Q5 on high.
Super powerful for a pocket light.
 
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@jeffw - edit your post if you want stock or modified.

for stock - either Jet pro R2 and Fenix L1D
for mod - i dont know, im not gonna spend over $100 for AA/14500 light
 
My brightest with a 14500 is the Jetbeam MKIIx( it gets hot pretty quick on 100% with a 14500)
 
Assuming non-modded stuff, the below observation comes from owning several of these lights at one time or another, in combination with Selfbuilt's data from his amazing AA roundups.

Fenix L1D CE Q5 or R100 will be the brightest, but the use of 14500 gives you a single mode light.

Olight T15 Q5 is just a bit below based on Selfbuilt's data. Never had one of these.

Next up will likely be the older Jetbeam MKIIx and Dexlight X.1, which go direct-drive with 14500. Very bright for a very short (~30 min) duration, but they do keep multi-mode capability. Low modes aren't very low with 14500, longest runtime on a low mode is ~6-7 hours (as opposed to almost 24 hours on alkaline).

Then comes the NCDI and Jetbeam Jet-I Pro, which have about the same output on 14500. I've never owned a Jet-I, but I can confirm that the NCDI is noticably dimmer than the Fenix or MKIIx/X.1 on 14500. WAY better regulation however.

I'm probably forgetting something.

Selfbuilt's threads are an AA goldmine, I highly recommend a read.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=186665
 
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One could buy the cheapest AA light and direct drive it with 14500. For example, buy the $11 Romisen G2 and run it with 14500. You would instantly burn out the driver but hey you did not care about that anyway :)

This was extremely popular mod for Elly in the past.

- Vikas
 
One could buy the cheapest AA light and direct drive it with 14500. For example, buy the $11 Romisen G2 and run it with 14500. You would instantly burn out the driver but hey you did not care about that anyway :)

This was extremely popular mod for Elly in the past.

- Vikas


Can you post a link for that? I want to try to see how bright it is.
 

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