How many lumens from a 123

[Stickles01]

How do you go about finding out how bright an incan can be from a single 123 batt?

Or does anyone have an input on the brightest incan light they have powered from a single cell.

Ryan

 

[lightemup]

The brightest single 123 light I have is a Surefire E1E at 15 lumens (not sure how many lumens the Inova 24/7 is). The brightest I know of is 33 odd lumens out of the Arc4rev2. Hope that helps /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

 

[wptski]

This brings up another question!

A SF E2 series with the KL1 LED conversion gives you 17 lumens with 2x123A but a SF L4 is like 60-65 lumens if I remember right! Why buy a E2 series and put a KL1 on it? You could get a L4 for the same money unless it's the physical design of the E2 series that you want. Am I missing something?

 

[JanCPF]

[ QUOTE ]
wptski said:
This brings up another question!

A SF E2 series with the KL1 LED conversion gives you 17 lumens with 2x123A but a SF L4 is like 60-65 lumens if I remember right! Why buy a E2 series and put a KL1 on it? You could get a L4 for the same money unless it's the physical design of the E2 series that you want. Am I missing something?

[/ QUOTE ]

KL1 gives you about 4 times the runtime of a KL4 on an E2e body. (IIRC)

Jan

 

[juancho]

This is a little off topic, but I recently put together a new KL-1 head (with the high Luxeon) $48.00 a E2e body $40.00 and a Z-57 tailcap $30.00 and it is one of my favorites now, for long runtime and more than adecuate power
I still have my L-4 but for long hikes and work about the campsite I prefer the new LK-1 head.
Another idea is to get the head alone and swicthed to your L-4 when you don't need all of those 60 lumens!!
Juan C.

 

[wptski]

[ QUOTE ]
JanCPF said:
[ QUOTE ]
wptski said:
This brings up another question!

A SF E2 series with the KL1 LED conversion gives you 17 lumens with 2x123A but a SF L4 is like 60-65 lumens if I remember right! Why buy a E2 series and put a KL1 on it? You could get a L4 for the same money unless it's the physical design of the E2 series that you want. Am I missing something?

[/ QUOTE ]

KL1 gives you about 4 times the runtime of a KL4 on an E2e body. (IIRC)

Jan

[/ QUOTE ]
Runtime vs output, of course. SF doesn't list the KL4 head as a option but did they in the past? Unless you can get one as a replacement part?

 

[JonSidneyB]

It almost sounds like you want an adjustable output light....

 

[Stickles01]

The reason I was asking because I want to buy the Springfield Armory XML to put on my Springfield XD subcompact and thought that you could possibly get more than 50 lumens out of a single 3v battery. So runtime isn't really a priority here, I'm looking to blind an intruder.

 

[JonSidneyB]

well, there are Led mods that can produce 100 lumens on a single 123, and Pila 3.7 volt lamps are 80 lumens to a lot is possible but I do not know what is available that can do what you ask without custom work.

 

[PaulW]

Hi Ryan,

Welcome to CPF!

Theoretically it is possible to get more than 50 lumens out of a single 123 cell and an incandescent bulb. Practically, I don’t know how to do it. The problem is in finding the right bulb.

A SureFire 123 cell will feed 2.5 amps into an incandescent bulb for about 20 minutes. In fact, the M3 HOLA operates at this current level. The voltage supplied by the three 123s in the SF M3 is 6.8 volts, slowly dropping during the run. This performance can be extended conceptually and reveals that a single cell can supply about 2.26 volts at 2.5 amps.

That’s 5.5 watts into the bulb. I have run Welch Allyn Bulbs at 15 lumens/watt. If WA (or anyone, for that matter) made the bulb needed, we’d have an easy 80 lumen light. But, alas, 2.2 volt bulbs are hard to find, especially with current capacities of 2.5 amps.

It appears to me that the XML is coming close with their 50 lumen light. However, I would seriously question the validity of their 50 lumen claim. I don’t know how realistic Springfield is in their statements, but I know that some manufacturers exaggerate.

You could ask Springfield what the run time of their light is. To get 50 lumens, I would estimate that they would need a configuration feeding about 1.3 amps and 2.6 volts to the bulb. The run time at that current would be about 50 to 60 minutes. If they say it will run much longer than that (say 90 to 120 minutes) I would be suspicious of their 50 lumen claim.

Paul

 

[Stickles01]

Thank you for the welcome Paul.