Luxeon vs Xenon, an unfair fight??

[Vikas Sontakke]

I hooked up a setup very similar to what Roy has. It is Radio Shack 805 multimeter hooked up to a solar meter. The distance between the light source and the solar panel is about a meter. Here are the numbers

Luxeon (2xNiMh, LI) Output 1.5mA
MiniMag with NexStar 11.0mA
Radio Shack 3C Aluminium 50.0mA
MagLite 3D 50.0mA

Next I measured input current at the battery

LI 520mA input current
MiniMag with NexStar bulb 400mA input current
Stock MiniMag 300mA input current

Bottom Line:- A MiniMag puts out about 6 times the light of a best Luxeon flashlight while sipping 25% less power :-(

I have been analyzing the excellent graphs Roy has posted. He is getting results which are very similar. For example, his Luxeon based lights have been in the range of 1mA(Reactor) through 3mA(LGI). His Legend LX posted 170mA, about 85 times more powerfull than a typical Luxeon 1W output.

So please tell me what am I missing here. I don't want to say "Emperor has no clothes" but the available data indicates

 

[Nerd]

I would suspect that the solar cell can convert more infra red energy into electricity and since LEDs don't output much (if any at all) infra red wavelengths, the energy generated is not that much. This is just my guess though, so correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Doug S]

Nerd has it exactly right. What is being measured is not light. This was discussed at length in one of Roy's runtime posts.