Output or runtime?

[Egsise]

Which do you prefer more between output and runtime (if you allowed to have one single stage light only, ie. between 120 lumens for 1 hour and 10 lumens for 12 hours)?

Runtime, my edc's are single AA torches and I rarely carry backup batteries, and 10 lumens is enough for most tasks.

 

[LEDninja]

Preferred:
Minimum output 15 lumens.
Minimum runtime 3 hours ON HIGH. I figure in an emergency I would start up on high, forgot to switch to low, and OOPs my battery is dead.

I had to FEEL my way up 7 floors during the big blackout of 2003 due to a dead battery in my Solitaire so I am a bit paranoid about bright-dark. I prefer dim-dim-dim-dim.....

 

[elho]

In my experience, any light that extinguishes it's power source in a 30 minute burn time will produce too much heat to run back to back battery changes.

In my experience heat becomes a problem within 10 minutes if it does become a propblem. It only takes that long for a light to heat up (exhaust its thermal mass) and after that point heat either is dissipated at the rate that it is generated or not.

I do agree that "runtime" to me means continuous runtime with regard to heat - when I read about a runtime test resulting in a runtime of 1h that was done in bursts of 10 minututes due to heat problems, I think (besides how the regeneration time for the cells makes the result nonsense) "ok, so that light has a runtime of 10 minutes, period".

And while my answer was meant purely hypothetical ignoring all other issues such as heat, I gotta say that I happily cut though 3-4 cells back to back with my Moddoo Triple a couple of times so far and I can safely laugh at the hypothetical 120 Lumen for 1h figure being the example for "output". :nana:

 

[RoBeacon]

So I answered runtime but I think I lied. Now that I think about it i'm more of an output person.

 

[lovenhim]

For my use which is mainly close up I would prefer runtine because a bright light at 3 feet is just too much.

 

[recDNA]

All I care about is output. Like most flashaholics I have plenty of flashlights that provide runtime. At this point the way to sell me on a new flashlight is output that my older lights can't match.

 

[kramer5150]

I answered output... but I am not really a brighter is better kind of user. To me its more about Lumens/Watt efficiency. To me there are all kinds of applications. I can find just as many uses for a 5L light as a 500L retina scorcher. Its about picking the right lumen output for the task.

So I voted output over run time... but If either is at the expense of overall efficiency then generally its not something I'm going to get terribly excited over. This is my viewpoint for LED lights only BTW.

 

[DeadButAlive]

I have to go with runtime on this one. All the photon-slinging ability in the world won't do you any good if you don't have any power left. For a working light I prefer reasonable brightness (>60 lumnes OTF), preferably with a low mode (<10 lumens OTF), with an efficient, flat-regulating driver that can get the absolute most out of a set of batteries. I'm more impressed by good regulation and efficiency than peak lumens. I'd rather run a lower-powered light all night long than have to change batteries several times during the course of whatever activity I'm engaged in. Of course I'd like have a battery-smoking, reach-out-and-touch-someone mode as well, but I wouldn't sacrifice efficiency to get it.