My evaluation of the newly designed L4...

[luxlover]

On Friday 6:30 PM EST, one hour before darkness, I received my L4 with the two rounded sides and the two knurled sides. It is a beautiful light. Yes, I know that most of you like the previous version better. But this one is less busy, and the extra knurling provides a very sure grip. It still uses the KL4 bezel (A10057) with the same "Caution Hot Surface" warning. Being that this is my first L4, I don't know how well the previous version was made. But I can tell you that upon inspection, with the body, bezel, and tailcap disassembled, this light is a work of art (and science, too). All components that are visible to me are nicely made. Despite having read that some L4 owners complained about the button being too sensitive when activating the "momentary-on" feature, I think that the feel and amount of push is just right. The amount of push for the "stay-on" feature is a little long for me, and a little noisy. The only light I have to compare with the L4's clicky switch, is the Pelican M6 LED light. It has a very smooth and quiet switch. I can live with the "extra effort" of the L4's switch, I'm sure.

The L4's workmanship is flawless. My only other SureFire is an L1, and that is flawless as well. The tailcap's "lock-out" feature only requires a slight turn of 1/4 revolution, and not the 1 1/2 turns stated by some reviewers. I have seen many lights with "lock-out" tailcaps, which have to be turned so much that the o-ring is visible. This is just sloppy engineering.

The four lines of text on the curved side, opposite the clip, is not objectionable at all as some owners of the new L4 have stated. It provides a nice diversion from the overall grey color of the HA III finish.

The reflector's coating looks the same as the one on the M6, but it is not as deep and not as wide. Of all of my LED lights, the L4 has the greatest sidespill. It is also my most powerful light. If I stand at the back wall of my 24 foot living room in the dark, the sidespill pattern covers the entire room. If you like sidespill, this light is perfect. The beam has a good hotspot, although if I look real carefully, I can see a dark spot in the middle. If I make believe that it isn't there, then I won't see it!!! Looking down the middle of the reflector, the Luxeon emitter looks perfectly centered. The beam pattern confirms this.

I have only one complaint about this light.<font color="red">THE LIGHT HAS A YELLOW TINT.</font> Since I have a stock M6, an L1 with a 3 watt Luxeon emitter in it's bezel, and both of these lights have a very white output, I am having a problem accepting the yellow tint of the L4. To prove to myself that I am not delusional, I did a simple scientifically proven test that any of you can verify with your local optics physicist!!! I shined the light in my eyes for a second. (I think that I felt my retina sizzling!) Since I know that the brain takes a snapshot of what the eyes have seen, and retains it for a short time, I stared at a white wall and saw the following image of concentric circles.......... A small cyan circular area with a dark outline, followed by a larger cyan circular area with a dark outline. The fact that I saw cyan, proves that the L4's beam has some yellow component, because the brain subtracts the yellow from visible white, and gets the complementary color, which in this case is cyan.

I have three possible courses of action available to me, in order to get a white KL4 bezel.......
Have my dealer swap my light for another L4.
Have my dealer swap my bezel for a bezel on another L4.
Have my dealer swap my bezel for a standalone KL4 bezel.

For those who want a small light with an impressive output for it's size, the L4 is the light for you. The L4 with the previous design is more available than the new one, so if you must have that one, you are in luck.

Happy shopping!

 

[indenial]

Excellent review. Could you post a pic or two?? I haven't seen the new version yet.

 

[Kiessling]

nice write-up!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
as for the tint of Led-lights ... try looking at it alone without your other lights and judge the tint then. almost all my "pure white" LEDs do suddenly have a disturbing tint if directly compared together.
This is oje of the three great flashahllic's rules postulated be Al in 2004 ... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
bernhard

 

[keithhr]

when I got my first L4 and found it had a green tint, I returned it to Surefire for them to replace it with a white one. Surefire doesn't advertise green led's and they were kind enough to replace it for me.

 

[luxlover]

Danke, Bernhard.... I am aware of "Al's Laws." The first time I turned on the L4 and aimed it at the white porcelain toilet and sink in my bathroom, the light had a slight yellow tint. I just did it again, and it had a slight yellow tint. I waited 10 minutes and did the same with my M6. It was white on white. I waited 10 minutes and did the same with my L1 in high level. It was white on white. I waited 10 minutes and tried the L4 "for the last time." It had a slight yellow tint.

It would be a lot easier "on all of us" if the L4 did not have the tint. I am afraid that no matter what I do, it still has that tint. You have already read my visible spectrum test above. I think that no matter how much I wish it to be white, it is not going to be. I will have to go with my plan to replace the bezel.

Thank you anyway for the idea.

 

[McGizmo]

It has been my *limited* experience that most of the highest flux 5W's I have seen have often had a yellow/green tint to them when viewed with other ambient light present. A majority of the X3T's I built with in addition to the few W bin that I was able to get had this tendancy. Probably just the luck of the draw.

I was recently abducted by a space alien who only had time for two abductions and interviews. It is now headed back to the other end of the galaxy with a report that all earthlings from the northern hemisphere are 5'7" tall, play with flashlights, smoke too much and are named Don. From the southern hemisphere, you get the female of the species and their name is Belinda, are 5'10", much smoother and curvier in appearance, are considered "stone cold foxes" by the Don's of earth and seem to have no interest in the Don's; especially in regards to the interest in flashlights. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif Now I realize this is just a tad off topic but I frankly am tired of reviews of flashlights that key on the specific charactoristics of a specific LED and yet the review is presumed "general" to the population of product at large. Had luxlover's recently acquired L4 sported the whitest white LED ever to be beheld, this would be no more or less germain to the evaluation of the light, IMHO. I don't mean offense to luxlover here but understand if offense is taken.

Some of us on CPF have taken descrimination of tint and other attributes of the Luxeons to a degree where expectations and offerings are often met with dissapointment and rejection outright. I am guilty of this myself and have begun to realize that CPF has done the same disservice to LED's that magazines like PlayBoy have done to women. Sorry, I just can't shake an image of Belinda..... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif

I think an interesting question to ponder is whether SF, Pelican or any other manufacturer should automatically return or exchange a light if the tint is not satisfactory to the consumer. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif I know that there are claims within the specs cited on many of these lights but I don't believe color temperature, more specifically tint, are included; flux - yes. Many of the manufacturers have attempted to control this issue to some extent by only accepting certain bin classifications of the Luxeons but I believe many of us have discovered that the bin is not always an indication of what you see with your own eyes.

To return to topic of "the newly designed L4" which I believe has to do with the surface and form of the battery tube, great review and comments thereon! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

EDIT: while slowly writing this, luxlover has posted an honest response to the tint issue and I believe he has every reason and right to attempt an exchange. Whether the request is ultimately reasonable is beyond my scope as I really don't know where the lines between acceptable and unacceptable are. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

 

[luxlover]

Don,

I guess that I have been unlucky with the draw. However, I know my luck will change on Monday, when I ask my dealer to replace my KL4 bezel with one from another light, or from his KL4 conversion bezel supply.

I know that I have made this statement in some of my other posts before, so here it is again. If Pelican can make the M6 LED, a light using a 1 watt Luxeon emitter that is a brilliant white, that has almost every owner rave about it's whiteness rendering it a reference for other lights, and that sells for only $45 with a lifetime warranty, then why can't SureFire do the same thing in a $160 light? If you look deeply into all components of an LED light, and do a survey as to which one has the greatest incidence of unpredictability and elicits the highest level of dissatisfaction, you will find that it is the Luxeon emitter, and the greatest complaint is the variation in tint from one unit in a model series to another.

Good point on whether my issue is a warranty issue. I am sure that one day, light manufacturers will get so tired of the complaints from customers about the variation of tint in their lights, that they will do one of two things. One will be to modify the conditions for warranty replacement to exclude tint issues, and probably lose clientele as a result. Or two, demand that Lumileds cleans up it's act and delivers the bin of Luxeon emitters that has been ordered where "all of them" have the exact same tint. The mere existence of the expression "Luxeon lottery", makes a fool out of all of us, because it implies that getting a white Luxeon is a gamble, and we all know that the house usually wins and not the gambler.

When you wrote "Many of the manufacturers have attempted to control this issue to some extent by only accepting certain bin classifications of the Luxeons but I believe many of us have discovered that the bin is not always an indication of what you see with your own eyes", this means to me that companies like SureFire are at the mercy of Lumileds to deliver what has been promised. By your admission, what should be consistent in a bin, is not. We the consumers have no one to complain to other than the manufacturer, even though the Luxeon lamp supplier is the problem.

Regardless of what is, or isn't, should be, or shouldn't be, I will end up to be a satisfied customer, one way or another.

I thank you for all your comments, both the compliments and the criticisms. The industry is growing fast, and with the input of it's customer base, it will grow even faster.

 

[NewBie]

Tint, just like any other factor, finish, runtime, brightness, efficiency, switch, etc. is the mark of a quality flashlight.

If you are paying premo dollars, you most definitely have the absolute right to expect a premo white. The concerns of the manufacturers and what they get, is really not a good excuse whatsoever, imho.

These luxeons are only 4.00 ea in low volumes.

If the customers complain or send them back enough, maybe companies will set up their own pre-screening, before they populate the emitter in the flashlight.

If enough of the off tint Luxeons exist, maybe they should make an area light or other low cost item, and put the off color parts into those products.

Either that, or develop some lights that vary the pulse width and overdrive the luxeon during the pulse, so they can have some control of the luxeon tint. Put the off color ones in those lights and adjust the width and pulse current, to adjust the color.

A fella has every right to be disappointed and/or angry when some manufacturer tries to hock off a poorly binned LED on them, most especially when you pay premium dollars.

There is no reason that the tint cannot be measured with the proper instrumentation, and it definitely doesn't have to cost that much at all. Though a professional flashlight company should already have the equipment to make this type of measurement in house. It is quite easy to measure the X/Y co-ordinates to four decimal place precision. Your eye is no where near this accurate, even in a side by side comparision.

I do know, that some of the companies that use these in dollar levels over 1M a year, can actually purchase direct from the factory, and do get the choice picks first, before they go out to Future, since at these levels, you can buy direct from LumiLEDs. Been their discussed this with them. Of course, Future likes to deny this.

As other manufacturers come on line, and then get their LEDs dialed in to compete, hopefully they'll start reigning in their wide bins.

There are several companies buying LEDs from various manufacturers, and offering a much tighter sort for resale.

The way I look at it, flashlights that are under 20.00, a person can't complain about slight green, blue, yellow hues. Once you get into 20-50.00 range, the variation should be minor. In the 50-100.00 range, the color perception should not be apparent unless you do a side-by-side comparison. Over 100.00, they should be as white as virgin snow, and non-detectable variations in side-by-side comparision.

Of course, this is my personal feeling.

 

[luxlover]

Newbie,

Even though both of us became CPF members on 2/17/04, you write with much more experience than I do. I couldn't have said it better myself. You greatly embellished my sentiments, and made my argument for better tint control more valid. I thank you for this.

I could definitely make use of some "white as virgin snow" output, right about now!.

 

[NewBie]

[ QUOTE ]
luxlover said:
The expression "Luxeon lottery", makes a fool out of all of us, because it implies that getting a white Luxeon is a gamble, and we all know that the house usually wins and not the gambler.

When you wrote "Many of the manufacturers have attempted to control this issue to some extent by only accepting certain bin classifications of the Luxeons but I believe many of us have discovered that the bin is not always an indication of what you see with your own eyes", this means to me that companies like SureFire are at the mercy of Lumileds to deliver what has been promised. By your admission, what should be consistent in a bin, is not. We the consumers have no one to complain to other than the manufacturer, even though the Luxeon lamp supplier is the problem.



[/ QUOTE ]

There is no difficulty in making the measurement, that is the easy part. At many of the presentions, LumiLEDs spends an extraordinary amount of time dancing on the stage, talking about how this variation is such a minor issue, and talks about schemes to compensate. They do this to address it before the Q&A session. A few times, during the Q&A, various customers have basically nailed them to the wall quite effectively. At one, LumiLEDs went so far as to pick all the closest to white out of each bin, then used those to show relative difference between the different bins. The span looked pretty darn good, then we were working with some parts during the lab section of the presentation. We noticed these were way off from the bin demo board, it all didn't go over that well at all.

Myself, I'd be willing to pay extra for the 4 dollar LED, to get what I need. Realistically, I feel LumiLEDs should just price out the various bins, sub-divide the bins further, making the ones the furthest from white cheaper. Unfortunately, their response is that nobody would buy the off color parts. Well, gee, they made the point right there. You can then move on to intensity bins and find a similar arguement.

Still, the responsibility lies directly upon the flashlight maker, imho. Anything less is just the manufacturer pawning the problem off to the customer, which is not right imho.

 

[NewBie]

[ QUOTE ]
luxlover said:
Newbie,

Even though both of us became CPF members on 2/17/04, you write with much more experience than I do. I couldn't have said it better myself. You greatly embellished my sentiments, and made my argument for better tint control more valid. I thank you for this.

I could definitely make use of some "white as virgin snow" output, right about now!.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the comment.

In reality, I've been on cpf since, "Registered on
09/29/02 12:00 PM ", you just don't see this with my current account.

I used these at my previous employer, as the design engineer responsible, and I get very involved with the procurement process, as it affects the quality of my product, and issues that come up in production. A good engineer will design out the problems or resolve them through one method or another, before it becomes an issue in production.

LumiLEDs is a spin-off of HP/Agilent (and a joint venture with Philips), where they have a very long experience of providing *very* precisely binned LEDs, and they are definitely not new to the game whatsoever. They understand the problem exactly, but they need to sell their product through one means or another. I most definitely do not at all appreciate the means and lengths they go to, to try and convince you that you do not need or cannot get what you know you need.

I sure hope this changes one of these days.

Still, the final responsibility lies upon the flashlight maker. Even if half the LEDs were not close enough, if you are paying +100 dollars, so what if they have to toss out half the LEDs, it only works out to 2 dollars per flashlight, if the flashlight was only 100 dollars. If they were clever, they just put those in another product, and suffer no losses, or design the electronics to compensate as mentioned before.

Anything less is a cop-out.

 

[luxlover]

So Lumileds has a reputation of manipulating their binning system, to assure themselves more sales, huh? This is disappointing news. Your suggestions as to how Lumileds could organize their many bins, is very clever. They won't do it, I'm sure of that. They know that they have the LED market nailed down, but this will change when other LED manufacturers appear in their face.

 

[NewBie]

They don't go and change the bins themselves.

First off, here is the old binning system they used for a long time:

Then there is the new binning system announced June 20, 2003:

Now, do you see where those red circles are? A person could use those as examples to show parts from different bins. Or a person could have used the center of each bin. Or they could have used the extreme corners of the outside bins, and the centers of the XO and WA. See the Planckian Black Body Radiator line? If you want to get somewhat technical, you can call stuff on that line, the only white. Or you can use the international standard white point, ITU 6500K, which is one specific coordinate, White x = 0.3127, y = 0.3290. There are also other standard white points, such as NTSC the white point, and others.

 

[McGizmo]

Hey guys, I sure won't come to the aid of lumileds but will point out that their bunk LED's are still preferable to the "current" competition. Now as far as comparing a Pelican light to the L4, do you guys think there is any difference between a Lux III and a 5W? I have some beautiful white 5W LED's that are unfortunately a bit short of the optimal flux. My gut guess is that SF is willing to compromise on tint for luminous output, to a certain extent. I suspect that for their market, beyond CPF, they want to deliver the brightest LED's to their customers that they can.

I sure would like to see the color and tint issue become a non issue but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Of course I am not privy to the inner workings of Future nor do I know if these "pure as white snow" Led's are available in quantities that would make such a proposal realistic. I do know that the worst LED I have installed in a light this year is miles ahead of what I was using a year ago. I would love to see some healthy competition for Future and Lumileds as we could assume that there would be some market pressure towards straight shooting. As it now stands, with only one real act in town, where is any reference point?

 

[keithhr]

"feel free to skip the entire text to follow, as upon further consideration, it could be considered to be drivel, or ramblings of a tintaholic."
I can sympathize with Mr McGizmo on the tint in led's that he buys and puts in his mods. I voiced a concern of mine in one of the PR917 heads that I purchased form him and only then did I realize that he was at the mercy of the people who sell them. It is unfair to expect a private purveyor to try to sort them out when the manufacturer won't. I believe everyone here offering an opinion is correct, because we all have expectations about what a light should look like. When we buy a car , we carefully choose what color it will be, when we buy a light we have expectations as to how that light will illuminate objects. When the light makes the objects we are trying to illuminate look odd(to us that is)
we feel that we have in some way been cheated. I have my own preferences as to tints, I prefer a more yellow or greener tint to a bluer tint as long as the former color still looks white when applied to a white wall but only looks more yellow or green when compared to absolute white or a bluish tint.
After stating the previous, I am tempted to erase the whole thing but felt it would be a waste.

 

[pedalinbob]

"I have my own preferences as to tints, I prefer a more yellow or greener tint to a bluer tint as long as the former color still looks white when applied to a white wall but only looks more yellow or green when compared to absolute white or a bluish tint."

me too!

i got a couple of lux3's that have a slight yellow/green tint. very slight.

niiiiiiice! i should have bought more...


Bob

 

[McGizmo]

Well while on the "tint" I also noticed, white walls aside, that those high flux 5W's with the yellow tint did a noticibly better job of illuminating some red berries in a tree next door than the LED's with the cool blue/white tint. My problem is that if I look at the beam, I prefer the "HID" cool high temperature (Cool high temp?!?!? duh! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif ) BUT if I am looking at what the beam is illuminating, then I prefer the broader spectrum of light which seems to eminate from the warmer LED's.

 

[luxlover]

[ QUOTE ]
keithhr said:
"feel free to skip the entire text to follow, as upon further consideration, it could be considered to be drivel, or ramblings of a tintaholic."

[/ QUOTE ] I am back, and I ask you not to remove any post you write. There is nothing about it making it drivel, and you are not rambling. As long as you write something, it should be appreciated by all of us. I appreciate it, for what that is worth being just one person!!!!

Thank you for seeing my point.......the point of so many of us who want nothing more than a white light. The battle must continue.....

I am probably spoiled by my M6 and my 3 watt Luxeon L1 bezel, and it is hard for me to give up the "fight for white" in the L4. If I don't try to acquire a white KL4 bezel, then I will be disappointed in myself for not trying. We all know that Lumileds is the problem, and for anything to change will require enormous pressure from all of us at CPF, and from the entire LED based industry. We must stand together on this, as we do on anything in life that needs change!

 

[McGizmo]

Luxlover,

If you don't think the industry has been beating up on Lumileds for better binning and binning acountability, think again! By the same token, no one has a gun pointed to their head forcing them to buy these LED's! If there is a better way or a better product than Lumiled's then why haven't we seen it? I find your call to solidarity entertaining! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif My guess is that stock prices will fall tomorrow morning as a result of pressure applied by CPF on the LED industry! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif

EDIT: I am real surprised that a moderator hasn't come in here and /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twakfl.gif or /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif us for what would appear to be a significant topic drift in regards to the content of the posted review! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink2.gif

 

[MR Bulk]

Imagine if you as a mfr. got the phosphor application technique down pat. Perfect proportions, sublimely even coating thicknesses, etc.

Then imagine if the surfaces to which you had to apply the phosphor were different from one example to the next.

Not supporting/denigrating anyone/anything, just stating a fact. The chip surface to which the phosphor is applied is actually organically "grown" (think of how crystals are formed) and cutting plots out of different areas of this thin flat ~100cm diameter round chip will yield not only different surfaces, but also different flux output. And the areas from which the worst and best cuttings come would not be consistent (ie., the centers are necessarily the best, nor the edges the worst, nor even vice versa, etc.) but rather a random pattern.

So it is under these constraints that Lumileds (and all other LED mfrs.) must manufacture. If I were a mfr. and absolute maximum consistency in quality/brightness/whiteness were required, I would simply keep the best and chuck the rest. Of course the keepers would cost you $300 apiece since I would lose big money on the throw outs.

In such a scenario not many of us would be able to afford, let alone mod, Luxeon flashlights...

The following may be a strictly anecdotal observation (although multiplied by several hundred examples through my own hands) but in more recent mods, around the time Lumileds seemed to be getting better at their phosphor application process, the "whiter" Luxeons were almost always slightly less bright (to the lux meter, not to the eyes) than the "warmer" ones...hmmm, Natural Selection at work?