Lumens?

[Syrlinger]

I'm new to flashlights and i was wondering why a $100 Tiablo ACE has 700 lumen while a high end $150+ surefire like the E2D LED only has 200 Lumen?
Is the price difference in the metal body?
Should i be looking at lumens as a measure of power at all? I'm so confused.

 

[nick-nack]

You should never buy purely off of lumen ratings.
There are many more aspects to what makes a quality light.
One of the main reasons Surefires are generally more costly is because they are built in America - and they are extremely durable.

While lumens is a decent measure of brightness, the accuracy of those readings may vary. The LED bulb's output may be 100lumens but the light that eventually comes out of the light may be less or more.

For me personally, I have found the Surefire lights to have the most accurate readings.

But in the end if you are not sure, post what you aim to use the light for and what your price range is. And I'm sure you will get plenty of good choices.

 

[jellydonut]

Lumens is the total amount of light emitted. It's not the only metric though.

When you go to look for a car to buy, do you look solely at one single performance rating number and ignore everything else?

 

[LEDninja]

:welcome:

The Tiablo ACE uses an MC-E LED which has 4*EZ1000 dies in it.
The Surefire uses a XR-E LED which has 1*EZ1000 die in it.
As a result the Tiablo burns through batteries 4 times as fast.
If you are a soldier climbing the mountains of Afghanistan, you will not appreciate having to carry 4 times the number of batteries.
Surefire's single biggest customer is the US military. They did experiment with the SSC-P7 (equivalent to the MC-E) but decided not to go into production in the smaller torches with the more powerful LEDs

The P7/MC-E lights run hot in the smaller torches. TOO HOT TO HOLD in 5 minutes. I found that out the hard way during a hike with some Toronto members of CPF a couple of years ago.

The Tiablo also have a BIG HEAD which makes it difficult to carry around. The E2D can go in to the back pocket of jeans or in a holster on your belt. If you do not have the light with you in an emergency you have wasted a lot of money buying the light.
I suggest you buy a keychain light and an EDC (every day carry) before looking at the bigger lights.

As to the lumens the Surefire claims 200 OTF lumens. MrGman measured 210 lumens in a calibrated integrating sphere. (Check his sticky on top of the LED forum page.)
Tiablo claim 700 lumens. Cree spec sheet say the MC-E produces 700 lumens at 2.8A. Looks to me like Tiablo just copied the number. Allowing for 80% light transmission the Tiablo probably have 560 OTF lumens.
Check MrGman's and Bigchelis' Actual Lumen Reading stickies and you will find very few if any MC-E torches actually make it to the 700 lumen mark.

Cheap Chinese labour. Don't pay to have the lumen rating verified. The cost is lower. So Tiablo can charge less.
At least I have not noticed any complaints on the reliability of the Tiablo.

You gets what you pay for. There are many '900/700 lumen' P7/MCE lights from DX below $50, some under $30. Some new lights claim '1000/1200 lumen'. But there are plenty of reports of dead lights or lights dying in a few weeks. Burnt out LEds, drivers, switches. Flaky UI. And lately LEDs falling off!