I just recieved a P3D-CE as a gift and was comparing it to my L1D-CE. Bot are stated to have a 9-Lumen low, but the P3D's is MUCH brighter.
Is it possible that I recieved a Q2, just by being lucky?
i certainly have no idea whether yours is a Q2 or not. several others have provided, IMO, excellent replies already.
i would like to just share some info from first-hand experience that some new readers of CPF may be unfamiliar with.
decades ago, my first job after discharge from military service was as a foremen in a small semiconductor factory that made diodes and rectifiers.
based upon the way semiconductors are manufactured, there IS a small chance that someone could get a higher rated device in a piece of equipment that would normally have a lower quality part.
here's how that possibility works:
keeping it short, simple, and leaving out the steps in the manufacturing process that take place when a bunch of semiconductor devices are manufactured, and instead focusing on one aspect of the final internal process.
this is how we did in that factory:
individual devices after completion of manufacture are tested and graded/binned (for some devices, this process would occur more than once during both earlier steps in the mfr-ing process and as a final step - we'll leave the reasons for that alone).
no semiconductor manufacturing process is perfect and there is always "fall-off" from the desired manufacturing process, with some devices NOT performing as intended - these went into lower BINS - you try to never scrap anything if at all possible - eventually someone may want something that is not performing too well (yes,...we had lower limits to this as some "fall-off" was on rare occasions so bad, that we knew that the device would fail in the "infant mortality" stage and simply would not ship these for the lowest bin).
now, after binning a lot of diodes or devices, that particular department in the factory has a bunch of binned devices out of which to fill its particular orders.
orders for a particular BIN were filled with devices from that BIN.
however, what would sometimes happen is that we wanted to ship an order but we didn't have enough devices of the ordered bin. in which case, we would take 1, 2, 5, 10, etc. of a HIGHER BIN to complete that order (we couldn't use lower BIN devices as that would be unethical and a bad business practice which would reflect badly on our quality).
we wouldn't fill an entire order with higher bin devices, we would just wait until later in the day or the next day until more devices were made. but, if the order had to go out, higher bin devices were always used to complete an order - sometimes even more than one bin greater than ordered - a real bonanza for the lucky person!
so is this scenario possible?...
...it's the end of the month and Fenix wants to get end of the month billings done ($$$ - a huge driving factor in many arenas in life), the Fenix factory is building lights and needs to get 10,000 (or a 1000, whatever the large order size) out the door by end of day and run 11 LEDs short and so, grab 11 Q2's to finish assembly and ship that order out the door so that an end-of-the-month billing can be made and $$$ are maximized on the books for that month.
so, do you have a Q2? no idea, but there is a small possibility someone who never ordered a Q2 just might have one in their particular light.
also, i've seen tables of BIN specs and some have a 20 lumen range to them.
i have a number of Fenix lights. taking just two for an example, i have a P2D-CE and P2D-Q2. VISUALLY with the unaided eye (admittedly a very inexact test for quantifying anything to do with light, but a gross QUALification is possible, IMO (and i stress "gross" or not-too-fine, meaning "large", not the slang meaning) .
visually, i can see no difference b/t my P2D-CE and P2D-Q2 on their TURBO output levels. maybe:
a) i have a "hotter" (nearer the upper range) P2D-CE and a Q2 that was nearer the lower portion of the Q2 range
b) my CE is really a Q2 for the reasons stated above
c) there truly is a difference, but it's small enough (<33% in my case generally) that only a light meter could tell the difference
however, this didn't stop me from getting a P3D-Q5!!!
EDIT:
i should say that i realize that the above description may NOT precisely describe the Mfr-ing process at Fenix. however, i strongly suspect that whether we're talkin' the LED stage of Mfr-ing or the flashlight assembly stage of Mfr-ing, the same type of scenario can occur. in either case Fenix can either receive as part of their shipment LEDs of a higher bin, or choose a LED, or a head assembly having a higher bin LED for completing a light in order to ship an order. same principle, but at different stages of production/assembly.
