Question re: new luxeon 5-watt

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Any speculation on the new luxeon showing up as an alternative lamp assembly for my E2e? Sounds like it's considerably brighter than the stock bulb, even. I know Surefire is offering a luxeon star alternative now at, like 20 lumens/ 3 hrs. But this new one sounds like the perfect retrofit for my pocket light! How long would something like that last on two SF123's?

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I think the question that begs asking is how long can you run the torch continously before the 5-watt Luxeon burns itself up.

With such a small light, there isn't much provision for effective heatsinking of the LED.

 

[Andre]

And if you ignore the heat issue, if one "old" 1.2 watt Luxeon can run for 3 hours, then the "new" 5 watt Luxeon will at best run for 45 minutes. It would probably be even less than that since batteries die even faster when discharged too quickly.

(I'm also ignoring the other issue of the 5 watt Luxeon needing 7 volts instead of 3.5. That would make it hard to upgrade any old Luxeon-based flashlight.)

 

[ToddM]

Anyone feel free to correct this I'm admittedly just thinking aloud.

Well if the new luxeon needs 7 volts that would really only make it good for 3+ CR123 cell surefire applications with some type of digital regulation, as I see it.

If you add on top of that the runtime say of 45 minutes (ignoring heat and high rate discharge chars.)......personally the only advantage I see over the current bulb offerings would be it's ability to take abuse and long life.

That is certainly a BIG plus in my book, but that said, with the LED application you'd loose runtime over a P90 bulb, the bulb and reflector could cost twice as much to replace. Also you'd probably be looking at a larger lamp assembly to combat the heat since LED's run brighter and longer with less heat.

So while I still think the 5 watt 120 lumen LED is amazing, I don't think it's going to replace the e1/e2/M2 sized flashlights. Maybe the larger Z3 sized lights.

Todd