Steelwolf
Flashlight Enthusiast
As Signals mentioned, there are no LEDs at the present moment that can compete with incandescents for long-throw, though some LED flashlights can deliver a very bright beam. The difficulty at the moment is that all LEDs come with a lens which is unable to focus as tightly as a parabolic reflector on a standard flashlight can. 20degrees versus a mere 3 degrees for some of those "million" candlepower lights.
You could put a lot together and get a very bright beam, but it still wouldn't focus. You could try and remove the lens and mount a huge array of LEDs in a parabolic reflector, but each LED is a point source, and the array takes up quite a bit of space, so that only a few could be in the point-of-focus of the reflector, so you're back to square one. You could give each LED its own reflector, but then you're getting into ridiculous sizes. And since each LED only produces a small amount of light, you would need alot to approach daylight.
Currently, the brightest LED is the Luxeon Star, commonly called the LS. One commercially built flashlight with this LED is the Arc-LS. Some forumites have also built their own flashlights around this LED. But the same problem remains, that the lens or collimator is built to focus only, I think, 20 degrees. There is a solution where one company has built a drop-in replacement bulb for the Mag-Light using the LS. The LS bulb can be focused with the Mag-light like any ordinary bulb, but it only delivers 17lumens, which is bright, but not quite as bright as the Mag-light's own halogen bulb.
Of course, the true advantage of LEDs are that they are robust and that the light doesn't yellow as the batteries die. Lumens per Watt efficiency is still only in the range of Xenon bulbs.
If you really want a seriously bright light, you'll have to look in to HIDs. Surefire is coming out with one, as Signals mentioned, but here and now, Underwater Kinetics has the Light Cannon. It is probably as robust as HID lights can get, being housed in a dive-capable polycarbonate housing. Since it was designed for diving, the entire package is not overly bulkly as some other HID packages can be. It is not the brightest available as it only uses a 10W HID, and higher wattages HIDs are available, but it seems to be the toughest of all. (We will have to wait and see what SureFire comes out with as they are also reknown for tough lights, though not dive-proof.)
As in all cases, you don't get a free lunch. The huge power output of HIDs demand larger batteries and the Light Cannon requires 8 C-cells while others may have built-in rechargeables or use D-cells. And the LightCannon only runs approx. 2hours. HIDs need some electronics to make it run and they have a warm-up period of a few seconds to reach operating temperature. The HID bulb is glass, so it can be broken. Also, they cannot come in really small packages like LED flashlights can because of all the power involved. But they deliver really bright, white daylight and they have better Lumens per Watt efficiency than LEDs.
HIDs for incredible brightness but at the price of bulk and batteries. LEDs for ultimate solid state robustness, comparably longer runtimes, but not as bright.
Hope this answers your questions.
You could put a lot together and get a very bright beam, but it still wouldn't focus. You could try and remove the lens and mount a huge array of LEDs in a parabolic reflector, but each LED is a point source, and the array takes up quite a bit of space, so that only a few could be in the point-of-focus of the reflector, so you're back to square one. You could give each LED its own reflector, but then you're getting into ridiculous sizes. And since each LED only produces a small amount of light, you would need alot to approach daylight.
Currently, the brightest LED is the Luxeon Star, commonly called the LS. One commercially built flashlight with this LED is the Arc-LS. Some forumites have also built their own flashlights around this LED. But the same problem remains, that the lens or collimator is built to focus only, I think, 20 degrees. There is a solution where one company has built a drop-in replacement bulb for the Mag-Light using the LS. The LS bulb can be focused with the Mag-light like any ordinary bulb, but it only delivers 17lumens, which is bright, but not quite as bright as the Mag-light's own halogen bulb.
Of course, the true advantage of LEDs are that they are robust and that the light doesn't yellow as the batteries die. Lumens per Watt efficiency is still only in the range of Xenon bulbs.
If you really want a seriously bright light, you'll have to look in to HIDs. Surefire is coming out with one, as Signals mentioned, but here and now, Underwater Kinetics has the Light Cannon. It is probably as robust as HID lights can get, being housed in a dive-capable polycarbonate housing. Since it was designed for diving, the entire package is not overly bulkly as some other HID packages can be. It is not the brightest available as it only uses a 10W HID, and higher wattages HIDs are available, but it seems to be the toughest of all. (We will have to wait and see what SureFire comes out with as they are also reknown for tough lights, though not dive-proof.)
As in all cases, you don't get a free lunch. The huge power output of HIDs demand larger batteries and the Light Cannon requires 8 C-cells while others may have built-in rechargeables or use D-cells. And the LightCannon only runs approx. 2hours. HIDs need some electronics to make it run and they have a warm-up period of a few seconds to reach operating temperature. The HID bulb is glass, so it can be broken. Also, they cannot come in really small packages like LED flashlights can because of all the power involved. But they deliver really bright, white daylight and they have better Lumens per Watt efficiency than LEDs.
HIDs for incredible brightness but at the price of bulk and batteries. LEDs for ultimate solid state robustness, comparably longer runtimes, but not as bright.
Hope this answers your questions.
