Coleman Max 3AAA XR-E disappointment

[JohnR66]

Goods:
I bought this at WalMart. It claims 115 Lumens. I can't say if it meets that claim or not, but it starts out bright, but not as bright as my Fenix L2D on full blast. White shade is more warm than any XR-E I currently have. For the price the light seems well built

Bads:
It is bright for a very short time (10 minutes or so) and light output drops to about the same as a Luxeon I light. I might try rechargables, but the lower voltage of these cells should mean lower initial output, but a long runtime.

Any advice before I blow some cash on a set of rechargables for this thing?

 

[portezbie]

apparently the majority of the 3xaaa lights, especially the cheap ones, are direct driven so they will never have the efficiency of your fenix.

 

[LukeA]

apparently the majority of the 3xaaa lights, especially the cheap ones, are direct driven so they will never have the efficiency of your fenix.

Yes. Direct drive lights will be more efficient. Regulation always results in net power loss. But regulation allows you to do things like use battery configurations that can't be used directly to run an LED.

Using NiMHs will probably end up brighter than alkalines. NiMHs run above nominal voltage (they come off the charger at 1.4V) and hold voltage under load, unlike akalines which run below their nominal voltage and they sag under load.

 

[bob4apple]

I have this light, and with NIMH rechargeables it ran 4 hours before I called it quits. It was only slightly dimmer after all that time, and it was quite bright to start with!
I'm sure someone will do a complete runtime test on this, and I wouldn't be too surprised if it managed to run 6 hours of bright light, based on my little test.

 

[TORCH_BOY]

I have this light, and with NIMH rechargeables it ran 4 hours before I called it quits. It was only slightly dimmer after all that time, and it was quite bright to start with!
I'm sure someone will do a complete runtime test on this, and I wouldn't be too surprised if it managed to run 6 hours of bright light, based on my little test.

Mine is the same at about 3 hours of good usable light