What is streamlights C4 LED?

[joshth09]

Ive got the TLR-2...its got the C4 led at I think "135" lumens...but its brighter and throwy...er than my 230 lumen quark 123-2 R5!

What is the C4 and why are the lumens so understated?....or does everyone else just overstate them.

 

[veleno]

I have the TLR-2 too. Great flashlight!!! Beam and tint are really beautiful!

I think the led is a K2 TFFC.

 

[Jay611j]

It's a 3 watt Luxeon LED.
I have the 185 lumen Polystinger C4 LED and it's brighter than my 295 lumen Eagletac T10LC2, or at least to my eyes it looks brighter.

 

[wwglen]

C4 is Streamlights answer to the ever changing LED situation.

They call whatever improved LED they put into their flashlights a "C4 technology" or "C4 LED".

It is different depending on the light.

wwglen

 

[monkeyboy]

This is true. It seems to be a name they use for any power LEDs regardless of who made it, just some meaningless marketing fluff. IIRC, the latest Streamlights I've come across are using luxeon K2 TFFC, which is good.

I think the reason that some of the main flashlight manufacturers do not specify the LED or bin code, is that when newer better LEDs are introduced, it makes it difficult to shift the old stock.

 

[Mr. Tone]

My streamlight TLR-1 is very bright and it is one of the older ones. I think I bought it 3-4 years ago. Streamlight makes darn good lights and there is a reason why so many LEO and emergency workers trust them. They don't overrate the output of their lights to my eyes.

 

[LED_Thrift]

When are they going to put a "C4" into the ProPoly 4AA? It seems to me they should have done that a few YEARS ago.

NOTE: I love it the way it is but I'm greedy [for lumens] and not too patient sometimes.

 

[HarryN]

When are they going to put a "C4" into the ProPoly 4AA? It seems to me they should have done that a few YEARS ago.

NOTE: I love it the way it is but I'm greedy [for lumens] and not too patient sometimes.

One of the nice things about incan bulbs is that the heat is largely dissipated with the light - as IR light. Non visible heat.

With LEDs, the waste heat has to be removed by conduction to the flashlight surface, and then into your hand. For better or worse, polymer (plastic) light bodies are poor conductors, which dramatically restricts how much power the LED can have in that type of light.

A good example is the LED drop in I am working on for the Streamlight SL-20x family. It would be nice if it would work on the polymer versions - but it just will not. 10+ watts of incan power is not a problem at all for the polymer versions, but a no-go for the LED versions, so that will only work for the Al bodies.

If you would like to improve that very nice polypro 4AA, think incan bulb improvements.

 

[LED_Thrift]

At this point I'm still a LED guy, so incan improvements don't interest me that much. On the other hand, my main dislike of incan is the fast battery drain. Since I run my PP on Eneloops the fast battery drain isn't such an issue, unless I need long runtime [backpacking, caving etc.].

Since the led in the PP isn't driven that hard, and it has that big, superbly designed, all aluminum reflector to serve as a heatsink, I'm sure they could get more lumens with an upgraded emitter. I think they could even drive it a bit harder without heat issues. I guess they look at it as too small an incremental gain to be worth it.