Brinkman LL comparison

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Greetings from a new forum member!

Last year I bought my first LED light, a Brinkman LL. I figured it to be a 'newbie' light, heck, Walmart sold it. Nothing special, figured it would be a toy to hold me over till I got a REAL LED light. Imagine, only one LED!

A month ago, I found an Infinity, which I thought was cool, nice and rugged and ran off a single AA. Got home, compared it to my Brinkman, and the Brinkman was at least 5 times brighter!

So, a couple of weeks ago, I found and bought the ARC-AAA light. MUCH smaller than the Infinity, but at least twice as bright. But again, the Brinkman was WAY brighter.

Today I was at an REI store, and for half an hour I powered up and compared the LED lights they had.

Pilot 3 (3 LED), Brinkman much brighter.
Princton Tec Attitude (3 LED), Brinkman much brighter.

What gives here? Yes, the brinkman has a reflector (which it appears most LED lights are missing) and a focusing lens, but how is the 'Walmart' LED light outperforming everything else?

I expected the Brinkman to be the bottom of my LED collection, not the top?

I'm on the Arc waiting list for a complete set of their new Luxeon Star at close to $100, if the Brinkman beats it, then I quit!

 

[Spork]

actually the other lights puts out as much or more light than the brinkman. the reason its so bright is because its focused down into a small beam. the brinkman is probly the best led flashlight for the money you can get. however i still prefer my arc and other lights because they put out a much wider beam. when your outside and need to see something in the distance the brinkman might be better for range. if you like spotlight type beams others have suggested turtle 1 which i think would be brighter than the brinkman and maybe even a pal light.

 

[roguesoul]

Another cheddar head on CPF!!!! that's at least 4 members.

Brinkmann should use the circuit from the Arc AAA and reduce the diameter of the LLLL.
Then change the name to Brinkmann Bright Led Tactical or BLT.

Seriously, I put the Arc under the lens of the LLLL and it make a brighter spot than the LLLL led.

So the Arc is brighter but less focused.

Welcome!

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Thanks for the feedback. So, the lens makes for that bright spot effect, with little residual spread. What about the reflector? Any idea why so few LED flashlights have a reflector?

I did end up buying the Princton Tec Attitude from REI. I just couldn't resist, small light but durable case, and 3LEDs. As I had yet to add a multi LED light to my collection, I condoned that way

But again, the Princton has a standard flashlight shaped case and head, but no reflector like the Brinkman has.

 

[Steelwolf]

I believe you won't see too many LED lights with reflectors for a couple of reasons, the first being cost.

LEDs already have a tiny little reflector at the rear of the semi-conductor junction. This is part of the die. So light produced is alread reflected in a certain direction. The optics of the LED, with the lens as part of package, also help to focus the light in a specific direction. There is very little resultant spill. It just isn't worth it for the manufacturer to spend the extra effort and money to install a reflector to capture the side-spill.

The other reason could be that many of the brighter flashlights require multiple LEDs. The difficulty of this situation comes in several forms. Firstly, with sufficient LEDs, the entire head of the flashlight would be covered in LEDs and there would be very little space for any decent reflector. You could install individual reflectors for each LED (these are actually available commercially from www.theledlight.com I think), but that would be expensive and time consuming.

Even with the conversions that we like to do here on the forums, the amount of material that we end up cutting out from the flashlight reflector before we can install the LEDs is sometimes so much that it would be more convenient to break it out all together. What is left is also quite little and does even less to help the light.

I hope that helps to explain to you why most LED flashlights don't have reflectors.

 

[PeLu]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Steelwolf:

You could install individual reflectors for each LED (these are actually available commercially from theledlight, but that would be expensive and time consuming.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I used these tiny 'click on' reflectors (here some $0.15 a piece, 12mm diameter) and it improves actually not very much. I had it more for avoiding side light and it actually gave a larger 'bright' area that the 20° Nichia LEDs.
A light with, lets say, 40 LEDs will be quite large with them.