LED lights should only be used for general purposes

[cruzmisl]

What do you say to this statament?

http://www.ar15armory.com/forums/conclusion-LED-lights-general-purposes-t3174.html

You heard me right.

I like LED lights, they have come a long ways but for "tactical" situations they are still lagging behind incandescents.

Output wise the incan still outperforms even the most expensive "tactical" LED. For instance a simple $35 dollar Surefire G2 incan does almost 60 Lux in throw and 52 Lux in overall output. Now measure that against the premium model LED in Surefire's line which is the U2 on high, which does about 43 Lux in throw and 55 Lux in overall output. Now the U2 is a 5w LED and the 5w is not known as being a "throw monster" and is known as providing a "wall of light" and it does edge out slightly the G2 in overall output which equates to more Lumens but comes up short in throw by quite a bit to the simple G2 which is detrimental to a "tactical" light.

Now let's compare the simple G2 to the Night-Ops Gladius, the Gladius does almost 55 Lux in throw and 38 Lux in overall output. The 3w LED the Gladius uses does well with the throw but still comes up a little short to the G2 in this area and way short in overall output.

This is the problem with LED, it is either/or. The U2 is a $280 dollar light and the Gladius is a $240 dollar light and neither can match both throw and overall output of the simple $35 dollar G2, they can do one or the other but not both.

Now that we have established price and performance lies on the side of incans let's take it deeper.

Through my informal testing I have discovered the beam from an LED has no effect on animals. I can shine a powerful 5w LED light in my puppy's eyes at 3 feet and it has no effect on her whatsoever, it's like she can't even see it. I was able to duplicate this with my girlfriend's husky and had the same results. Now the incan on the other hand made both pups turn away and literally run from the powerful beam. I suspect that the reddish/yellow tones found in the incans are within the animals visual perception and the colorless white LED is not. I wonder if a color blind person would have the same perception of LED's as the pups. Now if I was a cop and had to answer calls where I entered situations at homes or possibly chases on foot into wooded areas where possible viscous animals might be in a home or outdoors I would want an incan to help repel them.

Now in weather situations the incans most definitely still hold the advantage, the natural reddish/yellowish beam from the incans cuts much better through rain, fog, and snow than LED's. This is huge advantage when considering a tactical light.

For all these reasons I feel incans are still king. Sure the new LED's have some pretty cool advantages like no bulbs to burn out or break, longer battery life, regulation found in expensive models which provide peak performance until the batteries reach unsuitable levels, as well as shock/recoil resistance but this is all back end stuff. Out the front of the light where business is conducted the beam of a cheap incan still outperforms the most expensive beam of an LED. The LED's may someday overcome these disadvantages but for now the LED's I buy are for general purpose lighting and my incans ride my hip with my sidearm.

I read this after I just bought a modded Gladius...........

Thoughts?

Joe

 

[yellow]

with the insight on leds of this guy, he is right
--> poor, low power driven, 1 year old Luxons

I could think that SF has a reason not to push its leds hard - they would kick all of their "lower power" lights (the ones that offer a runtime of about 1 hour)


As long as most ppl rely on such specialist info, its soooo good to fire up the Cree P4 light @ 1A and see them all stare in unbelieve

 

[cal..45]

well, its like always a matter of opinion and mine is that: once I encountered the advantages of led lamps, incan lamps are as dead for me as disco. still the colour rendering is (usually) better with an incan, but that can be solved with a rebel 100 (that I prefer indeed over a Q5) or with a simple yellow filter.
considering all the advantages led lamps offer over incan lamps, I would say they win the race by 10:1 but like I said, its all a matter of opinion.

as for "tactical" reasons: I don't have to blind dogs or other animals (they get tasty morsals or if absolutely unavoidable a bit pepperspray (never had need for that on animals) - except those with two legs (no, not chicken ) and for that purpose, nothings works as good as a superwhite, bright led.



regards, holger

 

[TorchBoy]

I'd like more test data about how LEDs vs incans affect animals. There was a thread a while ago where people agreed that light doesn't affect animals enough to put them off attacking. Do they react to an IR LED torch?

 

[Zenster]

What I think, is that the author of the piece in the first post hasn't spent anytime here at CPF learning what's going on in the LED field.

That's what I think.

Someone who knows him should give him an invite to join CPF so he can pull his head out of his butt and find out that there's a lot more going on than just Surefire.

 

[Khaytsus]

What I think, is that the author of the piece in the first post hasn't spent anytime here at CPF learning what's going on in the LED field.

That's what I think.

Someone who knows him should give him an invite to join CPF so he can pull his head out of his butt and find out that there's a lot more going on than just Surefire.

Careful there, them's fightin' words to some folks 'round here.

I'll try out this LED vs Incan thing on my cats. I know they certainly blink when hit with my P2D, but curious what differences between the two.

 

[pete55555]

"Now if I was a cop and had to answer calls where I entered situations at homes or possibly chases on foot into wooded areas where possible viscous animals might be in a home or outdoors I would want an incan to help repel them."


I wouldn't rely on a light to "repel" a viscous animal. If it is actually viscous and it approaches to where it's a threat, it gets something far more lethal than a beam of light .

My duty light is a Surefire C2 with a BOG drop in module. It easily beats any incan I've ever carried in my 20+ years on the street. I have leds as my weapon lights also. I've used them in "tactical" situations. Never found myself wishing I had an incan instead of the led. Your entitled to your opinion but I think leds are the way to go.

 

[Crenshaw]

thats pretty funny, i was actually trying not to laugh reading that. Clearly this guy has never looked into the business end of a U2 before, and a U2 max output of 100 is, well, not exactly bright by LED standard now, maybe someone should introduce him to a Tiablo... And what on earth is he trying to blind his poor dogs for? they probably went blind from the light and then didnt run cos they couldnt see.

You gotta love the way he says
" i shine a POWERFUL 5WATT" , hmmmmm....:thinking:

Oh well, i hope i meet this guy and hit him with 225 lumens from a T1, before he hits me with 60 from a g2 incan....that would be a SWEET moment..and then we can take a walk, and ill laugh when his batteries die, and i still have hours and hours and hours left....

and he CLEARLY has never heard of any sort of brand beyond Surefire and Gladius...

Crenshaw

 

[angelofwar]

I would have to some-what agree...my pets are almost impervious to my LED's...but if I het 'em with my G-2/6-P, they turn tail and run...but there's no question about the benefits of LED's...

 

[Gunner12]

Apparently he hasn't seen any of the newer LED lights.

Don't know about you but 170+ lumen out the front and 200 meter throw does sound a bit too much for general propose.

He has to see CPF to understand how far LEDs have come in a year.

Edit: I noticed the date of postage

 

[Walt175]

In all fairness, that was posted on Dec 30, 2005. A LOT has changed since then.....:candle:

 

[UncleFester]

Hmm. This is all kind of interesting. My neighbors have three Spaniels that like to fall into the pack mentality. Sometimes at night they'll charge the fence at my horses and me while sounding as though they'd like to eat us. (Yes I know theyre' just spaniels, but it's annoying). I have learned that they really don't like the beam from my aspheric 3D Cree Mag. As soon as the behavior stops I shut off the light. It actually has helped reduce the number of instances when this happens.

 

[Sharpy_swe]

In all fairness, that was posted on Dec 30, 2005. A LOT has changed since then....

LOL

 

[Lobo]

Only thing interesting with that article was his notion about LEDs not being as good as blinding animals as incans (on humans I must say that LEDs puts out a more blinding light). I wonder if that is true, and if so, how come so?

But as pete55555 mentioned, it might not be the smartest thing to rely on only a light to repell dangerous animals or humans unless you're going for a Darwin award.

 

[Bloodnut]

Yeah, that statement certainly does not hold up at this time. The SF of your choice with the Malkoff M60 is at the top of the tactical heap at this time. YMMV.

 

[donn_]

..where possible viscous animals might be..

1. What's a "viscous" animal? Sorta gooey and slimey?

2. If he meant a vicious animal, I'd use a 6D Mag, with any bulb, LED or incan.

 

[BigD64]

In all fairness, that was posted on Dec 30, 2005. A LOT has changed since then.....:candle:

Bingo in two years LED's have come along way can't say that about incan's.

 

[flashy bazook]

My only thought is that LEDs are improving year-in and year-out, but incans are barely improving.

Even if at time X you think incans are better, you will find that there will be a time Y where incans will be superceded. Maybe the crossing point is different for different people, but there will be such a crossing point for everyone eventually (and it looks like much sooner than we earlier expected).

Even if you think that you don't need extra output (you reach some lumens level which is enough for your needs), an LED will continue to give you more runtime, which is both cheaper and better in general, in addition to their being more durable and less breakable under use.

Or, you can choose to get the benefit of LED improvements in terms not of output or runtime, but of size. Just check out what outputs and runtimes you can get with a state of the art LED in a 1xAAA formfactor and you'll see what I mean.

Finally, I think we have several years of LED improvements ahead of us, so it's not as if we won't have enough improvements to achieve all of our objectives and more.

 

[Ilikeshinythings]

I thought disco was big in Germany....

well, its like always a matter of opinion and mine is that: once I encountered the advantages of led lamps, incan lamps are as dead for me as disco. still the colour rendering is (usually) better with an incan, but that can be solved with a rebel 100 (that I prefer indeed over a Q5) or with a simple yellow filter.
considering all the advantages led lamps offer over incan lamps, I would say they win the race by 10:1 but like I said, its all a matter of opinion.

as for "tactical" reasons: I don't have to blind dogs or other animals (they get tasty morsals or if absolutely unavoidable a bit pepperspray (never had need for that on animals) - except those with two legs (no, not chicken ) and for that purpose, nothings works as good as a superwhite, bright led.



regards, holger

 

[ICspots]

1. What's a "viscous" animal? Sorta gooey and slimey?

2. If he meant a vicious animal, I'd use a 6D Mag, with any bulb, LED or incan.

Heh, I was waiting to see if someone would correct the spelling, you beat me to it.
I had a couple of stray dogs hanging around a few weeks back, they were good natured dogs. Our dogs didn't like them on their territory, so they weren't happy about their presence. At night my SF 9p with the Malkoff M60 would make them run and hide, they did not like that light being on at all. The dogs would normally run up to you for some attention, but if that light was on, they wouldn't come near me. Same thing with my Fenix P3D Rebel.