LEDBEAM runtime on NIMH test...

I bought a bunch of 5,000mah C size cells from battery space to use in my LEDbeam... (came as Tenergy cells).. Also bought the "smart" charger they sell, which seems to do a good job..

I charged up the cells to full and put them in the ledbeam, been running it a few hours a night for the last few days to get an idea of runtime...

The NIMH seems to run this light really well, very comparable to alkalines, and the output is much flatter, but when it deminishes, it really goes...

was pretty steady with minor loss over the first 5-6 hours. then slowly started to dim out, by 7 hours it is still making light, but nothing impressive...

this run time makes sense- the ledbeam would draw *around* 1 amp at ~3.6V, so the 5ah batteries should last for about 5 hours then dim out a lot.


just thought i would let yall know my results with the ledbeam on NIMHs, the runtime is near full brightness for the first 5 hours, which is a very welcome change from alkalines.

kinda wondering if it's a good idea to continue the test and pull the batteries down to nearly nothing.

i'm out to about the 14 hour mark now..., the light is still on, but at very reduced output. At this point, the light is usable to navigate through a house in the dark, but couldn't be used for anything significant. To give a comparison, at this point, it is less than half the output of a "dorcy 1xAAA led-keychain" light.

going to stop the test. i'm sure it would probably run at very low output for many more hours, but that's not the important part. important part is that it runs at near full output for about 5 full hours on these batts, which is pretty darned cool imo.

you better never deplete you NIMH .You gona damage them

Thanks for posting that info. The ~5 Hrs of run time with the NiMH batteries is particularly useful to know since this is an unregulated light. The drastic drop that you describe at around the 5 hour point is pretty much characteristic of NiMH batteries, and chances are I wouldn't be using it beyond that point anyway unless there was nothing else around.

Thanks again for sharing that info.

mdocod said:

i'm out to about the 14 hour mark now..., the light is still on, but at very reduced output. At this point, the light is usable to navigate through a house in the dark, but couldn't be used for anything significant. To give a comparison, at this point, it is less than half the output of a "dorcy 1xAAA led-keychain" light.

going to stop the test. i'm sure it would probably run at very low output for many more hours, but that's not the important part. important part is that it runs at near full output for about 5 full hours on these batts, which is pretty darned cool imo.

Click to expand...

mdocod,

Great! I have been waiting for somebody to try this. I have 2 LEDBeams.
Would you say the LEDBeam looks as bright with the NIMHs? Does it still throw the way it did?

was doing a search for something else and noticed one of my old threads with an unanswered Q...

Alkalines- seem to drive the LEDBeam brighter, when fresh out of the package, for about the first 15 minuts, after that the NIMH wins for about 4:45, after that, the alkaline wins for the next 20+ hours of low output...

I much prefer the performance of the LEDBeam on NIMH- is almost like regulated output for 5 hours, instead of diminishing output for 30+