Thrower Defined? in terms in min. meters of throw

[PolarLi]

Sure you did the math right?
What about candela/lumens for throw rating numbers?
Deftx 2166 (1300000/600)
microstream 24.1 (683/28)
protac 7.8 (550/70)
Short arc lamp say maxabeam 8000 (12000000/1500)
My fenix tk22 23.2 (15800/680)

Just an addition, under 15 is floody, 16-30 mix flood throw, 31-60 throwish, 61+ real throw, 1000+ omg crap thats impressive where is my telescope.

Yes, pretty sure I did the math right.

With the candela/lumens system, a high lumen thrower will come out "worse" than a low lumen thrower. Not sure why that's such a great idea.

Maxabeam 12000000 cd / 1500 lm = 8000
My 350W short arc 55000000 cd / 16000 lm = 3437
DeftX 1300000 cd / 600 lm = 2166
My 850W short arc 62000000 cd / 56000 lm = 1107

My 850W light produce 0.25 lux at 15700 meters. I consider that a bit more "throwy" than a DeftX that produce a 0.25 lux at 2300 meter.
Or to put it another way, the 850W light has 47 times more candela, an 93 times more OTF lumens.

 

[herektir]

Well the higher the number the better indicator that its a pencil beam. Does that 850w short arc have a noticably wider spot at all vs what maxabeam has? 55mcd for 350 watt, 62mcd for 850 watt but nearly 4x the lumen output kinda indicates one floods a little more. Either way its over 1000, they are pure throw requiring binoculars or a telescope to really see the limit of thier illumination range.

As an aside i did a quick lux/lumen on a xintd xpg2 becuase i just ordered one, comes out to about 70. It has something around 450 to 500 yards of throw base on reviews. How do your arc lamps do on the distance^2/lumens?

 

[flashy bazook]

Hi there D6859,

many thanks for taking the time to explain these difficult concepts. I certainly learned a lot more than I knew before about lux/lumen formulas.

I see your point about the integration operation "destroying" information about the shape. And you are right, in general.

My non-mathematician understanding was based on a simpler approach where the integration operation is done over a simple geometry, resulting in the formula:

Lux = Lumen divided by beam cross-sectional area.

In layman's terms, each LED has a fixed beam angle. This is then fed into the geometry of the flashlight reflector, and perhaps further through an optic, giving the final lux measurement given a lumen input.

But, another way of thinking is this: once we fix the LED and flashlight geometry, if we are able to pump more lumen out of the flashlight (say, by increasing the current we feed to the LED), we also increase the lux.

That's why I came up with the Lux per Amp draw as a useful measure.

Maybe I am a bit influenced also by my strong focus on runtime in flashlights, which led me to be interested in a measure that combines the lux and the current draw.

Anyway, as you explained your measure more it does sound like it could be an interesting approach, I hope to find some time to input it into my database and maybe see how it correlates with the measure I propose, or how it classifies flashlights that I know about to see if I agree with its classification scheme.

To be continued!

So as indicated in my earlier post (quoted above), I went ahead and plugged in the alternative formula for throwiness:

"Throw distance squared over Lumen"

into my own database.

First conclusion: there is some significant correlation between this proposed measure and the one I proposed earlier (lux per Amp draw), at 0.61, but, indeed, the correlation is not perfect.

Next, the "distance squared over lumen" formula does capture flashlights that I consider more throwy:

--The Vihn thrower still comes out on top (measure about 360 ).

--the M30/M60 Malkoff drop-ins come in between 60-90 or so (a bit under-rated, I'd say).

--a Tekna 6 (which also has an XR-E LED) diving flashlight, which is a strong thrower, which I wasn't able to calculate using my own measure, can be calculated at 260.

--The Nailbender XPG-2 smooth reflector drop-in also comes in strong at 135.

--The MacGizmo classic, the Ti-PD-S continues to show strongly (despite its LED being so many generations behind by now), at 105.

Does it miss anything? (in my opinion, naturally!).

--For LEDs in the color red, it seems to over-state the throwiness, maybe because the color LED needs a higher current to produce its throw than the white LEDs, a factor which of course it ignores.

--Also for the same LED driven at different current, sometimes it looks to me to be producing insufficient variation; of course, LEDs have different efficiencies at different currents, and it is an advantage of the lux/amp draw measure that it can account for these.

Finally, for those who wish to focus on the distance squared/lumen measure, is there a kind of "natural" breakpoint" between throwiness and non-throwiness?

Eyeballing my database, perhaps at around 60 or so.

Though, mainly for the highest current at which the flashlight is driving the LED, as this number can vary quite a bit in some cases especially for very low current draws. (you see that the current draw matters!).

 

[PolarLi]

Well the higher the number the better indicator that its a pencil beam. Does that 850w short arc have a noticably wider spot at all vs what maxabeam has? 55mcd for 350 watt, 62mcd for 850 watt but nearly 4x the lumen output kinda indicates one floods a little more. How do your arc lamps do on the distance^2/lumens?

I don't own a maxabeam, so I dont know. Both the 350 Watt and 850 Watt has a similar total beam width, but a different light distribution in the beam itself. Depends a lot on how I want to focus the lamp too.
If I use distance^2/lumens (based on 0.25 lux meters and OTF lm) the 850W get 4401 and the 350W 13690.

 

[flashy bazook]

I calculated the throwiness index (distance squared over lumen) given by D6859 for several Surefire flashlights, using the manufacturer indicated measures from the 2016 catalog.

I thought to record some of the findings here before we lose sight of this thread.

--Scout lights (with TIR optic), M300 through M600, index ranges from 93-128.

--E1B/E2B Backups and E1D/E2D Defenders (with TIR optic) range from 120-132.

--The 6PX/G2X Pro and R1 Lawman and P1R Peacekeeper are similar at 111-117.

--The P2X/P3X Fury is at 88.

--The Titan, Minimus/Maximus (headlamps) are naturally low at 14-16.

--The UDR Dominator achieves a 333.

--The ARC-3 (HID) is at 453, and the ARC-2 (HID) and Hellfighter 5 (HID) are at just over 700.

OK, these are the numbers. Any useful conclusions?

--Generally it looks like Surefire emphasizes throw in most of their products.

--If you want decent throw in a small form-factor and want to use AA batteries, look to the M600 Scout version with 2xAA, which achieves an index of 128.

--The TIR optic helps some, but especially for the E-class flashlights.

--Note that several Surefire flashlights are actually direct drive, and the figures here give the maximum throwiness, not what you would necessarily experience over the full runtime.

--The figures do not take account of the current; so the big indices you get from the HID lights rely on rechargeable integrated Li-Ion batteries, or even connection to vehicle DC power. The UDR Dominator uses either a rechargeable Li-Ion or 12 (!) CR123A primary batteries, so you see a bit that the integrated Li-Ion does not clearly explain just how much current is needed to achieve those high figures.

Next interesting topic is how the Surefire throwiness index compares with what other flashlight makers achieve. Personally I can comment mainly on Malkoff and a few other custom products for which I already gave several throwiness index figures in earlier posts in this thread.

The Surefire figures seem sometimes a bit larger, but generally within the ballpark, of what the Malkoff and other custom maker products achieve.

I should actually comment here that the comparison may be a bit unfair to the custom makers, because I use my own measurements wherever possible, which I believe are conservative, whereas for Surefires I can only use the manufacturer claimed figures.

Also, the Malkoff and other custom products almost always are regulated drive, so you get the indicated throwiness for the full runtime (on high).

Nevertheless, it says something that the "old" Malkoff M30 achieves a similar throwiness index to the "modern" Surefire P2X/P3X Fury, and a Nailbender XPG-2 smooth reflector drop-in matches or exceeds the Surefire Scouts and E-type flashlights.

At the highest end, I was pleased to see the Vihn modified light achieve a Surefire UDR Dominator level of throwiness, using only a 1x18650 battery and of course a much smaller and lighter formfactor!

So, a lot of helpful information on throw here, with I think interesting implications all around.

 

[bykfixer]

When I saw the new 2200 lumen Streamlight ProTac HL4 mention 30k candela I was preeeeeetty sure it's not a thrower.

 

[herektir]

About as throwy as a tk22, which means not much, just takes double the amount of light and current to get 25% more effective throw.

 

[SG Hall]

So as indicated in my earlier post (quoted above), I went ahead and plugged in the alternative formula for throwiness:

"Throw distance squared over Lumen"

into my own database.

First conclusion: there is some significant correlation between this proposed measure and the one I proposed earlier (lux per Amp draw), at 0.61, but, indeed, the correlation is not perfect.

Next, the "distance squared over lumen" formula does capture flashlights that I consider more throwy:

--The Vihn thrower still comes out on top (measure about 360 ).

--the M30/M60 Malkoff drop-ins come in between 60-90 or so (a bit under-rated, I'd say).

--a Tekna 6 (which also has an XR-E LED) diving flashlight, which is a strong thrower, which I wasn't able to calculate using my own measure, can be calculated at 260.

--The Nailbender XPG-2 smooth reflector drop-in also comes in strong at 135.

--The MacGizmo classic, the Ti-PD-S continues to show strongly (despite its LED being so many generations behind by now), at 105.

Does it miss anything? (in my opinion, naturally!).

--For LEDs in the color red, it seems to over-state the throwiness, maybe because the color LED needs a higher current to produce its throw than the white LEDs, a factor which of course it ignores.

--Also for the same LED driven at different current, sometimes it looks to me to be producing insufficient variation; of course, LEDs have different efficiencies at different currents, and it is an advantage of the lux/amp draw measure that it can account for these.

Finally, for those who wish to focus on the distance squared/lumen measure, is there a kind of "natural" breakpoint" between throwiness and non-throwiness?

Eyeballing my database, perhaps at around 60 or so.

Though, mainly for the highest current at which the flashlight is driving the LED, as this number can vary quite a bit in some cases especially for very low current draws. (you see that the current draw matters!).

Throw distance squared over lumens is a great measure in principle.

The new Vinh RC40vnF comes in at about 40 on the index though it throws 900ms. The RC40vnT is about 280 rough figures.

TM 26 4000 is 51, and is certainly a flooder.

the TX25Cvn, on the small end of the scale is about 180 and is a dedicated thrower.

The K70vn is around 800, but is no more a thrower than the TX, its just larger.

My point? The figures seem to need calibrating according to light size before being applied relative to each other. Having said that, around 60 seems to be pretty right, but I may rate a thrower slightly higher ( which is subjective, I know).

 

[eh4]

I might learn something here if I'm not careful.