The New King of Throw: Reflector Types Only; Tested and Confirmed!

[ernsanada]

wbp,

Your lux readings at 1 meter with the DBS R2 is close to my readings.

Dereelight DBS V2 R2 1S WC, 18650 - 20,001 lux @ 1 meter

Dereelight DBS V2 R2 1S WH, 18650 - 21,500 lux @ 1 meter

Dereelight DBS V2 Q5 3S, 18650 - 20,767 lux @ 1 meter


This is my 1 meter reading for the Tiablo A10 R2

Tiablo A10 R2 WC, 18650 - 27,115 lux @ 1 meter (1 level switch)


BTW, Im using a Meterman LM631 Light Meter.

 

[jenskh]

The DBS that we tested is a V3 (black) and it had a 3SD R2 pill running on a single 18650 for our first set of tests. The reflector was the SMO. I just repeated the measurements at 5 meters and 1 meter, this time with a 3SD Q5 pill.

At 5 meters I got 1080 lux at first turn on, dropping to 1060 in a minute or so.

At 1 meter, with several measurements trying for the highest I could get, with several different 18650 cells, the highest value I could get was 21740 lux.

I did a cross check with a properly calibrated AEMC CA813 meter. With that I managed to get 22.1 klux.

I would think that anyone measuring 26,000 to 30,000 lux at 1 meter from a DBS has a wildly optimistic meter.

For reference this DBS V3 Q5 measures 255 lumens in the I-Sphere.

I also measured a second Tiablo A10. At 5 meters was able to get it up to 2380 lux. At 1 meter, adjusting it for tight focus, I am able to get it up to 35,500 or so. (using a pair of LiFEPO4's)

Measurements at 1 meter are very difficult to do with any consistency with this type of light. A small change in focus, producing what looks like a brighter more uniform beam, and which is probably much more useful to actually light up a subject, dropped the reading to 22,000 lux!

Switching the DBS between MCE with 2 cells and 3SD with one cell is hazardous. I forgot to switch the cells and fried my favorite (and best) 3SD R2 pill. 😳All in the cause of doing these tests for you folk.

William

Thanks a lot for all your quality readings. I am looking for more of these to try to find out how accurate my lux meter is. I have compared my readings of several lights with the readings given in light-reviews. My readings have been very consistent with those, and also with several other readings I have found around. This has earlier lead me to believe my light meter is OK.

The statement you make above does how ever mean that the light meter used in light-reviews is wildly optimistic, and then so are mine.🙁 I would really appreciate getting good readings for other torches than the throwers because I think small differences in focusing or in the reflectors, easily leads to big differences in lux readings. Do you know of such readings, or is it something you could do?

One more thing. I have observed that you get 15 % higher lux reading for your Q5 pill than for your earlier tested R2 (at 5m). Isn't that a little strange?

Many thanks from
Jens

 

[wbp]

One more thing. I have observed that you get 15 % higher lux reading for your Q5 pill than for your earlier tested R2 (at 5m). Isn't that a little strange?

The R2 pill was damaged...

 

[Power_of_the_Sun]

Re: The New King of Throw Tested and Confirmed!

DEFT independent testing is here http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=211519

Just FYI LED-lenser X7 has also around 50000 lux with fresh alkaline cells. Yesterday I've tried it with four AA eneloops in D holders (1AA in one holder) and it scored over 90000 lux (current draw was 7A) and I'm pretty sure that with rechargeable D nimh it would have more than 100000 lux (before it will make ). This is a retail light, so is it a new King of throw now ? 😛

I'd like to see the LED Lenser X7 tested against other standard retail (non-mod/non-custom) lights. It amazes me that no one has yet bothered to really test these lights! Most people here at CPF seem to hate LED Lenser. Well, how about a test! Let's put the P14 up against the best other 4AA thrower you can find, and the X7 up against the best 4D thrower you can find, and see which one comes out on top. Sure, they don't use high powered batteries- just every day common ones... but that's the point! (At least, it is for me) I want a powerful, reliable light, that I can recommend to others, that is easy to use, readily available, and uses common batteries- batteries you could buy at any gas station, Wal-Mart, or supermarket. I work with missionaries, and I can tell you right now, for them, complicated is bad. Throw complicated in the mix, and the product recommendation goes out the window. So they need simple. Simple is good. And throwing four AAs or four Ds into a flashlight, screwing the cap on and pressing the "on" button" works for them. LED Lenser offers that. I work as an audio/video tech for a large missionary organization and have enjoyed learning more about the inner workings of LED technology. But LED Lenser flashlights are actually what got me wanting to learn more about LED flashlights in the first place. I never would have come to CPF if it weren't for them. How about it guys? Can somebody please do an actual lux and/or lumens rating on the X7 and (if possible) the P14? Run times also would be appreciated by (I'm sure) more than just me.

Also, I'm new to all this, so I'm not really sure how it all works. Do you normally get a "sample" item from the manufacturer and test that? Or do you need someone that's purchasd one (like me) to send you one? If I sent you one for testing, I would expect it back.

Regards,

Power

 

[MrGman]

If you haven't figured it out by reading this thread, we aren't in the business of testing flashlights, we do this because we are flashoholics with a capital HOLIC. We have bought the flashlights we tested and I have no interest in buying a LED Lenser. However if you want one tested then you could send me one plus cash for the return shipping to you if you want it back. We don't get paid for this, we don't advertise, we don't have a website to promote. We do this for the love of science and the truth. If you want your Peewee 14 tested 🙂party🙂 send us one. Don't make us have to spend money to send it back. I work at a real job for a living and so does wbp. I already have way too many flashlights I bought and have no intention to buy anything from COAST.

On a side note it is my understanding that the LED lensers are not regulated and whatever output that have with fresh batteries doesn't last long because they drop with the output of the batteries. So their output at that may be really high with a brand new set of batteries doesn't stay their for long. If that is true then whatever their "fresh" battery output level is kind of meaningless because they don't hold it. That may be the reason nobody cares to test it because its a constantly moving target in the wrong direction. If I am wrong so be it, but that's what I understand.

Like I said if you have one that you want to submit, I am sure we can get it tested. We have some lights coming in for testing in the near future. If you are serious pm me for an address to ship your light to. G.

 

[Bushman5]

whats Lux compared to Lumens? ie is 1 lumen = 1 lux or ??????

 

[HKJ]

whats Lux compared to Lumens? ie is 1 lumen = 1 lux or ??????

You can't do that.
Lux is used to measure the brightness of a single point, mostly the brightest point in the beam.
Lumen is used to measure the total light output of the flashlight.

With a typical led it is possible to focus about 250 lumen to a spot of about 30000 lux at 1 meter (Tiablo A10), but a "normal"" light is not focused that much, it is more in the range of 2000 to 6000 lux.

 

[jirik_cz]

Re: The New King of Throw Tested and Confirmed!

I'd like to see the LED Lenser X7 tested against other standard retail (non-mod/non-custom) lights. It amazes me that no one has yet bothered to really test these lights!

Can somebody please do an actual lux and/or lumens rating on the X7 and (if possible) the P14? Run times also would be appreciated by (I'm sure) more than just me.

I've posted runtime test of X7 here.
According to ceiling bounce test (very unscientific method of testing :green🙂 and comparison to other lights it has around 900 lumens with fresh alkaline D batteries.

 

[Ryanrpm]

What type of emitter does the X7 use? I didn't see it listed in the specs in that info page.

 

[jirik_cz]

7x Cree XR-E

 

[WadeF]

The DBS that we tested is a V3 (black) and it had a 3SD R2 pill running on a single 18650 for our first set of tests. The reflector was the SMO. I just repeated the measurements at 5 meters and 1 meter, this time with a 3SD Q5 pill.

At 5 meters I got 1080 lux at first turn on, dropping to 1060 in a minute or so.

At 1 meter, with several measurements trying for the highest I could get, with several different 18650 cells, the highest value I could get was 21740 lux.

I did a cross check with a properly calibrated AEMC CA813 meter. With that I managed to get 22.1 klux.

I would think that anyone measuring 26,000 to 30,000 lux at 1 meter from a DBS has a wildly optimistic meter.

For reference this DBS V3 Q5 measures 255 lumens in the I-Sphere.

I also measured a second Tiablo A10. At 5 meters was able to get it up to 2380 lux. At 1 meter, adjusting it for tight focus, I am able to get it up to 35,500 or so. (using a pair of LiFEPO4's)

Measurements at 1 meter are very difficult to do with any consistency with this type of light. A small change in focus, producing what looks like a brighter more uniform beam, and which is probably much more useful to actually light up a subject, dropped the reading to 22,000 lux!

Switching the DBS between MCE with 2 cells and 3SD with one cell is hazardous. I forgot to switch the cells and fried my favorite (and best) 3SD R2 pill. 😳All in the cause of doing these tests for you folk.

William

So how come I got basically the same LUX results you did with the Tiablo A10, but with my DBS R2 (I've tried a few R2 pills and some perform better than other) I get around 28,000LUX but that's "I would think that anyone measuring 26,000 to 30,000 lux at 1 meter from a DBS has a wildly optimistic meter." ? 🙂

I would think if my LUX meter was wildly optimistic the A10 would be reading much higher, rather than agreeing with your #'s.

There are some variations with the DBS's. Some reflectors appear to perform better than others, some pills perform better than others (could be down to the actual emitter's output, how it focuses in the reflector, etc).

Also in real world use I didn't see that much difference between my DBS R2 and the A10. The A10 was slightly brighter, but it wasn't a big difference.

 

[wbp]

So how come I got basically the same LUX results you did with the Tiablo A10, but with my DBS R2 (I've tried a few R2 pills and some perform better than other) I get around 28,000LUX but that's "I would think that anyone measuring 26,000 to 30,000 lux at 1 meter from a DBS has a wildly optimistic meter." ? 🙂

I would think if my LUX meter was wildly optimistic the A10 would be reading much higher, rather than agreeing with your #'s.

There are some variations with the DBS's. Some reflectors appear to perform better than others, some pills perform better than others (could be down to the actual emitter's output, how it focuses in the reflector, etc).

Also in real world use I didn't see that much difference between my DBS R2 and the A10. The A10 was slightly brighter, but it wasn't a big difference.

I suppose it's possible that you have a very different reflector than any of the ones that I have seen on a DBS. If there is that much variation then my statement is incorrect. However, I also know that it is really difficult to get accurate readings of this kind of output using inexpensive meters at short distances. I'd like to see how your DBS V2 measures at 5 meters compared to the A10 - why don't you do that and tell us what you get?

We (MrGman and I) do see a significant difference in both the spot size and brightness when comparing the A10's we have to my DBS V3. If you don't, that means your DBS has a significantly tighter focus than the ones I've seen...

William

 

[wbp]

WadeF,

Can you please take readings at 5 meters, of your A10 and DBS, taken at the same sitting. It seems to me that readings taken 1 meter of these lights with small hot spots are difficult to reproduce accurately.

If you can get similar readings from both lights at 5 meters that will tell us something.

William

 

[wbp]

Well, let's have some more fun, shall we? :tinfoil::devil:

I received a new 3SM WH R2 pill from Flashcrazy this week. Meanwhile someone asked me which light would I carry when camping in the woods in places where one might encounter things that one might want to be able to identify at, for example, 100 yards or so. Things that might have sharp teeth and claws, for example, or might just be a big brown bush. The idea being to be able to tell which was which before it got too close...

So I hauled my thrower collection and a camera over to a nearby community college campus, where I knew there happened to be an unlighted sports field, and took some pictures.

Disclaimer: these could be better, this was kind of a practice run, but I still think they show pretty well what I see with my eyes.

The target is an oil drum trash can, a little over 100 yards away, in front of some bleachers.

All images were taken with a Canon XSI set to manual, 4 seconds at f5.6, camera on tripod at eye level, flashlight handheld at roughly normal carrying height. White balance was set to manual, fl 4000k (probably will use daylight 6000k next time).

The camera is right next to the light, in the same relative position your eyes would be. I think beamshots with the camera back behind the light are interesting, but they don't show what you would actually see (unless someone else is carrying the light, obviously).

The Spear was running on a freshly charged 18650; the others were running on fresh CR123 primaries, except the last one...

So, here we go... First up, Raidfire Spear on high:

Next up, Dereelight DBS with 3SM WH R2 pill, new OP reflector, on high:

And now, (as he looks around for someplace to hide) the Tiablo A10, with the multimode switch, on the highest level:

Why didn't I use the single mode switch on the A10? Because that's not how I would carry that light. In practical use I want at least 2 output levels.

And finally, just because I had it with me and wanted to play with it, a Wolf Eyes Boxer 24W HID (yes, I know, wrong section, and not very practical either):

So now which one would YOU carry into the woods?

William

 

[TITAN1833]

wbp; thanks for the pictures, for me I would take either of the DBS's both show in my eyes better than the spear and A10,for one the green fence to the right is shown better due to the spill and for my eyes they show colors better look at the grass? :devil:

 

[jenskh]

I think you have posted a wrong photo for the DBS MCE or...
This makes me even more pleased that I have the DBS with the R2 WH pill.🙂

 

[WadeF]

No DBS with a smooth reflector? 🙂

 

[wbp]

No DBS with a smooth reflector? 🙂

No measurements at 5 meters?

 

[SCEMan]

Thanks for the beamshots - very interesting. But no way that's an DBS MC-E beamshot or maybe only one die is working....:thinking:

 

[electric sheep]

Stood in my garden i can replicate the comparison of R2 and MC-E and the pictures here bear no relation to my experience.