How hot is your Quark?

[rookiedaddy]

Does your Quark runs hot? Both my neutral AA² and 123² run pretty hot after ~10 minutes on Max, holding in hand, turn off at ~20 minutes coz worry of damaging the LED surrounding temperature is ~28 degree Celcius, it takes ~5 minutes for lights to cool down. Has anyone been running theirs continuously for more than an hour?

using the included primaries in lights.

 

[zipplet]

Hi,

Out of my 2 quarks (Quark AA and Quark 123-2), I have only tried my QAA on max for an extended period. It does get quite warm, but not hot. However I can very well imagine with 2 AA's in and the higher output it will get hot.

I'd say this is normal and equivalent fenix lights I own (Fenix L2D for example) also get hot on max.

 

[rookiedaddy]

:shrug: so far, the other light that I've experienced to get this hot is Nuflare Rebel 90. It gets uncomfortably hot to hold after ~10 minutes. I wonder if thermal management will be key to win the race for the ever increasing lumens in these compact form factor lights :thinking:

what direction do you think our flashlight manufacturer be taking to address these thermal management issues? fin-based design? microstructure? nanostructure? (ok... ok... i think i need to stop watching Star-Trek... )

 

[bcwang]

Yup, mine gets hot too. Only one minute of max and it feels quite warm, warmer than any of my other lights get within one minute. I've never left it on max for even 10 minutes so I don't know if it would be burning hot by then, but I know compared to my L2D, it heats up significantly faster.

In fact, with a 5 second burst on max, it's already warmed up the body enough that you know the flashlight has been used on max. In fact, holding only the head to do some measurements, a 5 second burst of max makes it uncomfortable to hold as you instantly feel a lot of heat being generated.

Hopefully the temps reached is safe for the LED, and hopefully there is some safety mechanism if the temps get too hot to protect the LED and board from damage. I do know on my 2 AA lights that the front battery ends up running at a higher temperature and the two batteries always fall out of balance quite easily.

 

[rookiedaddy]

do you think it is feasible for future reviews to incorporate a section on temperature reading along with runtime (without any external cooling) for the first 20 minutes or less?
any comments?

 

[bcwang]

Based on my efficiency test, if you're using 2 nimh in turbo with 2.4v, you'll burn over 1.6 watt as additional waste heat compared to running the head at 4.1v. So give a try to a fully charged li-ion and see if the head runs much cooler. It may make a significant difference.

In fact, at 2.4v it is consuming 47% more power so potentially generating 47% more heat than at 4.1v. That's a lot.

 

[rookiedaddy]

:shrug: don't have neither 14500 nor AA body, will try to nag a friend to do some test... :buddies:
your idea is very interesting indeed. thanks.

Edit: Just done a temperature reading on the Quark AA² compare to EagleTac P10A2, this Quark AA² is definitely hotter.