?help? I'm so confused about led color. Arc, Photon, others

[JonSidneyB]

?help? I\'m so confused about led color. Arc, Photon, others

Do comparing Led colors from one light brand give you a good relative comparison to other light brands. I was thinking about getting all of the color's in the Photon line to judge what colors that I want in future light purchases.
At first I was planning on only White LED's except for a couple of reds.
Later I see people saying that turquoise is the brightest. Later I see that it is not the brightest but the red or amber is. Another place I here that red is dimmer. Help, I don't know what is going on. I just want to be able to see things. Ok, here is where I am at now. If I want to see full color, I want white, Check! When I want to preserve my night vision I want red, Check. When I want the maximum ability to see objects and color rendition is not on the top of my list, ???What do I do??? ???does this vary from light to light if we keep everthing else on my part and the light a constant??? I'm so confused.

 

[Quickbeam]

Re: ?help? I\'m so confused about led color. Arc, Photon, others

OK. It's not as confusing as it may seem:

If I want to see full color, I want white, Check!

YES!

When I want to preserve my night vision I want red, Check.

mmmmmmmaybe.... What really counts is how bright the source is, not the color. A very bright red light will blow out your night vision. Some astronomers are switching to dim green to preserve their night vision because the human eye is more receptive to green so it doesn't need to be as bright as red to see the same ammount.

When I want the maximum ability to see objects and color rendition is not on the top of my list, ???What do I do??? ???

Get a REALLY bright incandescent light

! No, I take it you mean with an LED light. Turquoise is the brightest Nichia LED bulb available, but Red and Amber are the brightest Luxeon Star LED modules available. Although they both use the same basic technology to produce light, they are different animals. Check previous posts for details.

 

[Gransee]

Re: ?help? I\'m so confused about led color. Arc, Photon, others

Some flashlights like the Arc-AAA, photon, Infinity, etc use the 5mm Nichias. The turquiose is the brightest percieved color for the Nichias.

Other flashlights (Arc-LS) use the Luxeon Star LED. The brightest color is white but the most efficient colors (for now) are red and amber. Since the Arc-LS regulates the power at a certain wattage (whereby the LED is not run at it's maximum), the red and amber will actually produce more lumens than the white.

Let me explain this again in a different way. You have x amount of watts produced by the Arc-LS regulator. Since the wattage is below the maximum for most of the LS colors, the LEDs with the higher efficiency will produce more lumens with that same wattage.

Long story short: If it uses a 5mm LED, turquiose is the brightest. If it's the Arc-LS, red and amber are the brightest.


Peter Gransee

 

[Badbeams3]

Re: ?help? I\'m so confused about led color. Arc, Photon, others

Ditto what Doug and Gransee said, with one minor change...the soon to be released high dome line orange-red LS will be the brightest single LED at 55 lumen followed by the red at 44 then the amber at 36...the human eye does not nessasrily see the same as a meter and the ratings may not be what you and I see...I suspect the red high dome LS may not appear as bright as the amber. Further these may have a narrow beam angle...accounting for the higher ratings.

 

[danno]

Re: ?help? I\'m so confused about led color. Arc, Photon, others

When will the "high dome" Red-Orange LS be available? I've been playing around with the specs on the Luxeon Star datasheet and, if I've correctly divided luminous flux by watts consumed, it looks like the efficiency of the orange-red module will be over 3 times that of the white LS. Can't wait to get my hands on that one. The red-orange unit should also make conversion a lot easier as we can use 2 cell flashlights.