Burning Time Infinity Ultra

[ledlurker]

I have been burning one for over 48 hours (as of last night) on an Interstate AA. I used it to check on my son around 9:00pm and it still put out enought light. Looks like the Infinity Ultra will be a nice night light for when we go camping

 

[paulr]

You have an Ultra (not the earlier Infinity) and it's still running usefully (not just a firefly glow) after 48 hours?

For reading, I saw a claim on the PALlight page that blue LED's don't cause the glare that white ones do. I'd never heard that before, any experience? I think I have a blue Photon around here somewhere and will try it if I can find it.

 

[UnknownVT]

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
For reading, I saw a claim on the PALlight page that blue LED's don't cause the glare that white ones do.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no expert on this.

I think any single color has fewer wavelengths than "white", so should in theory dazzle less than white.

However from my personal experience/preference I find yellow dazzles less (evidence anti-glare yellow paper pads, and the use of yellow/amber in fog lights to prevent reflected dazzle from the white fog).

If my experience with yellow is correct, then blue is the complementary color/wavelength - so is probably the culprit component that causes dazzle.

Also bear in mind that under dark conditions most artificial lighting is rich in red and yellow and very poor in blue - so any blue would "shock" the eyes in contrast - and would be very noticable - hence the use of Blue flashing Police/emergency lights......

I would love to read more definitive discussion or references on this - there was quite a bit of discussion on colors and visibility in these 3 threads:

LED Colors and Vision (pics)

Preserving Night Vision - Colors?

Red "nigh tvision"?


(sorry to go at a tangent from the main discussion)

 

[batterystation]

Reading the package of the Ultra Infinity, it says nothing about a sun/moon mode. I agree with average run time tests though. With a regular dry cell (non-alkaline) I got about 15 hours peak brightness. With a metal hydride about the same. Alkaline was about 24 hours and the Energizer L91 lithium was about 30 hours.

I did not let them go until they were dead, so I am sorry I cannot tell you if the 100 hour claim is accurate. I just ran them until a noticable drop in light occured. For the record, Duracell calls the capacity of their alkaline copper top 2200mah. The metal hydride I used was only a 1500mah cell.

There are now some 2000mah+ capacity metal hydrides, but the drawback to the metal hydride is that it goes dead awful fast with NO load due to the lower internal resistance between the electrodes. It makes a very poor spare or backup battery as you might find it dead with a few months of no use or charging. They are nice fresh from the charger though.

future lights /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twak.gif

 

[Dave Wright]

The question of battery ratings came up some time ago. I had been baffled by mAH ratings. dat2zip has comparative run graphs, all done with a single sandwich, that show the best performance AND life coming from high capacity NiMH. This doesn't jibe with the Duracell listing of 2700 mAH (a figure I've seen elsewhere) @ 1.5v compared to the NiMH rating of 2000 mAH @ 1.2v.

The following points were made in the thread:

-- Duracell runs their batteries to 0v, and uses the best sample they can find. Both of these practices are unrealistic, particularly the 0v part. Alkalines have high internal resistance. Their voltage drops under draw. Many people pitch them way before their life is over.

-- NiMH manufacturers stop counting mAH at about 1v, and they use the worst sample they can find. Some people charge batteries by the clock instead of with a pulse charger that can tell when the batteries have been topped off. You don't want to overstate the mAH to these people; doing so can lead to overheating and damage to the cell.

Alkalines are a good choice for voltage-sensitive low draw applications. The Infinity is such an animal. Only use NiMH if you like the long term savings more than a little more light.

NiMH are a good choice for voltage regulated or (better yet) current regulated high draw applications, such as dat2zip's sandwiches.

 

[paulr]

Future_lights, are you sure you did your test with an Ultra and not a regular Infinity? Can you put it next to an Arc AAA and see if the brightness is about the same?

Everyone else who's done a test with an Ultra seems to have gotten around 12 hours.

NiMH beats the pants off alkaline at high loads, which would include Luxeon lights, but the CMG's are still in the range were alkaline should win.

 

[batterystation]

Paulr, Yes it was an Ultra, but again it was not very scientific as it could have been. I was trying to do a test that would more duplicate a real situation. I loaded up three Ultras at the same time and set them off and running. I will do it again with one of each here.

Agreed on the previous battery post. The alkaline AA cell is considered dead at 1.05V by the Motorola pagers. Nicads are 1v as stated. The problem with running a nicad to zero volts is that it has the potential of reverse polarity which cannot be fixed except by correct polarity capacitor discharge on the battery or similar procedure. This problem is more prone to older worn cells though. A nicad is almost a better choice for a light because it has a much lower self discharge than a metal hydride cell. It is more likely to be there when you need it.

future lights

 

[obeck]

[ QUOTE ]
future_lights said:
Reading the package of the Ultra Infinity, it says nothing about a sun/moon mode.


[/ QUOTE ]

No. They say "usable light" which is what I call "moon mode"

 

[batterystation]

I guess I would consider "usable light" to be moon mode. I am preparing another test now.

future lights

 

[batterystation]

Ok, the Alkaline battery went 18 hours (Panasonic). The metal hydride dropped off at about 15 hours (nexcell) and the lithium is still going strong (Energizer L91). I did not run a dry cell this time because I could not find one.

future lights

 

[paulr]

I think of moon mode as being maybe 5% of full output, which I'd only call "useable" in an emergency. So I'm wondering how many hours til the light reaches say 50% of full output, or maybe 50% of whatever the output is after 1/2 hour from starting with a new battery (some lights are very bright during the first few minutes).

The lithium is going strong (i.e. something like normal brightness) after 18+ hours? That's good to know.

 

[batterystation]

At 18 hours I would say the alkaline was better than 5%, maybe 25%. The lithium dropped off overnight somewhere between midnight and 7 am. I believe that put the lithium in the 24-28 hour area. I will have to start one in the early AM so as to have it dropping off the following day during daylight hours. At one minute and one hour, I could not tell the difference.

future lights

 

[paulr]

Future_lights, if you still have the alkaline cell that was dim after 18 hours, I wonder if you could put it back in the light (now that it's rested a while) and see how it does? Same thing with the lithium.

In my Arc AAA test, I got several hours of additional sun mode from an AAA after it had already dropped to moon mode. But that was with a rather old AAA, so the chemistry may have been in an unusual condition.

 

[Blikbok]

As far as I can tell, the CMG, ARC, KL1, Opalec, etc. are all voltage and current regulated. I'm not completely sure about the CMG, but since the Infinity and Ultra have differing brightness, I strongly suspect it is.

But I think that the ARC and KL1 have specifically designed moon modes, which the Opalec and CMG do not seem to have. If the Ultra is current regulated, which I believe it is, it has a gentle free-fall. The Opalec also has a free-fall after it turns on the red LED.

So unless the light drops perceptably in brightness and is still current regulated, I don't think it's a moon mode. Completely unregulated lights have a constant freefall, and we don't call that moon mode.

I prefer a secondary LED (Opalec), refusal to enter high-beam (SF A2), or moon-mode to free-fall, but I'd rather have free-fall than have the light turn off suddenly with no indicator. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[treek13]

Arc-LSX, Surefire KLx, Opalec, and BadBoys are current regulated. Constant current equals constant brightness until light falls out of regulation.

CMG Infinity (normal & Ultra), Arc-AAA, and MadMax are voltage regulated. Tries to maintain constant correct voltage, current varies (lessens) as battery dies but not as quickly as a non-regulated flashlight. Ouput isn't constant but does not decrease as quickly as a non-regulated light.

Moon mode isn't so much a design feature as a marketing term invented by Arc to describe the light output after it has fallen out of regulation (the dim light that will go on and on).

Hope this helps,
Pat

 

[Roy]

Good point Pat!

Notice also, that none of the runtime plots, for the lights mentioned here, ever get to zero output! In fact, the only light that I remember actually getting to zero output, was my UBH with a P91 LA! And I think that was due to thermal shut-down of the batteries (way HOT!!).

There needs to be a standard definition of "usefull light", so that manufactures claims mean something.

 

[Inverse Square]

The minimun useful light for me is one burning candle. So is that 1 lux?

 

[batterystation]

Paulr-I just put the alkaline back in and it is indeed bright. Full bright I believe. I also agree with the conclusion that most of these lights including the Ultra Infinity do NOT in fact have a specific "moon" mode, but rather just drop off to a lower burn. They seem to have a drop off curve similar to an alkaline battery rather than a curve of a nicad which is pretty sharp and gives no warning.
By this, I mean the curve of the nicad, not related to the light. Just a chart comparison. The lithium has about had it now but still produces more than enough light to read by.
I also took a "dead" battery out of a regular flashlight and it produces lots of light in the Infinity.

future lights

 

[batterystation]

I did get a few more hours out of that Alkaline battery. Also just saw the new Sonic from CMG. It has the SAME LED as the Ultra Infinity!!! Should really be something.

future lights

 

[FalconFX]

You can probably milk an alkaline for 30+ hours on an Ultra just by letting it cool down and recovering itself and turning it on momentarily... Most of the runtimes are on constant use, but on intermittent use, I'm sure it'll go up to the advertised 24-25 hours runtime...