Fenix L1/L1P fully regulated

Will Fenix be offering in the future a L1/L1P model with full regulation like the current L2/L2P model? The L1/L1P is a great light & if it had full regulation that would make it PERFECT! Unless it is not possible to do in a 1AA/1.5v luxeon I light. Maybe you need 2AA/3 volts for great regulation. Anyone know?

Regards,

John

I doubt it. I believe the L1/L1P circuitry was designed to be a "good compromise", sacrificing overall efficiency and "full" regulation in exchange for longer runtimes from alkaline cells.

I'd suspect that for every L1P sold to a CPF member, there's got to be twenty sold to normal, regular, non-flashlight-obsessed moms and pops. They wouldn't be able to stay in business otherwise. The "ordinary" users are just going to pop in a Duracell (or worse) and expect it to work. They're not going to bother with rechargeable NiMH cells, since they self-discharge too fast. They've probably never even heard of Energizer L91 cells, and if they have they think they're way too expensive. They've definitely never heard of BatteryStation.com or any of the other online retailers.

If the L1P were fully, flatly regulated, I'd suspect the alkaline AA would just poop out on current way too early to make it a viable power source. I still believe the ability to take any old AA battery is half of the L1P's charm.

Guess a lack of regulation doesn't bother me on the L1P. I've got plenty of 2500mah NiMh batteries laying around to throw in it whenever one is needed. I think its as close to perfect as it gets right now.

I'm happy with the L1P I have, even though it has a voltage boost ciruit
I have many rechargeable AA's lying around, if needed disposable batteries are easy to find.

check this out http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/img/amart_led050aaa/050aaa.gif

if they can manage under $10 .... with regulation.... why cant fenix do it for $50?

ViReN said:

check this out http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/img/amart_led050aaa/050aaa.gif

if they can manage under $10 .... with regulation.... why cant fenix do it for $50?

Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that light just using a 0.5 watt part? It might be a little harder to do while driving a 1 watt Luxeon with a regular alcaline part...

ViReN said:

check this out http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/img/amart_led050aaa/050aaa.gif

if they can manage under $10 .... with regulation.... why cant fenix do it for $50?

Click to expand...

Come on....be realistic.......the Fenix is using a 1W LED that puts out 19 Lumens of light. That $10 flashlight you are talking about puts out 6 Lumens output using a 0.5 W part. That's 1/3 the output.

You are ignoring the electrical constaints of powering a 1W part on the poor old alkaline battery.

i was wondering if any one has Fenix Efficiency and LED current curves?

ViReN said:

check this out http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/img/amart_led050aaa/050aaa.gif

Click to expand...

Can you post the HTML page owning this GIF image? I can't find it and would like to see the complete review of that flashlight.
Thanks.
EDIT: never mind, found it
http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/amart_led050aaa.htm

I tend to agree with ViReN here.
In Silverfox's shootout, most common alkaline can give 1Amp over 1V for at least 30min (Duracel, Energizer, Panasonic). So, a good driver should be able to provide regulation to a Luxeon I from one alkaline (maybe a bit underdriven to 250-300mA to stay below 1W power extracted from the cell).
Ok, runtime would be short at only 30min with full brightness, so it may be not desirable for the average user. But for us I like the idea And with a good NiMh we can expect 1 hour runtime.

Considering that CPF members have bought a lot of fenix's (or is the plural feni?) between us, others will have bought them having seen ours. The forums members have probably vastly contribited to the future success of their products.
Therefore a nice reward would be a limited edition CPF regulated L1P - whatsmore we would all pay to own one (or two!) so it wouldn't cost Fenix anything.

We just need someone who deals with Fenix to suggest this to them, get a few hundred off them and then sell them on here.

the manufactur should go back to v2.0
or should build an efficienter v2.5 regulator.

~80% @ 1-1,3V


@ viren

this?
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/99516&highlight=Fenix

newbies fenix testresult was pretty similar.

jezzyp said:

Considering that CPF members have bought a lot of fenix's (or is the plural feni?) between us, others will have bought them having seen ours. The forums members have probably vastly contribited to the future success of their products.
Therefore a nice reward would be a limited edition CPF regulated L1P - whatsmore we would all pay to own one (or two!) so it would cost Fenix anything.

We just need someone who deals with Fenix to suggest this to them, get a few hundred off them and then sell them on here.

Click to expand...

That is an EXCELLENT idea!

glire said:

I tend to agree with ViReN here.
In Silverfox's shootout, most common alkaline can give 1Amp over 1V for at least 30min (Duracel, Energizer, Panasonic). So, a good driver should be able to provide regulation to a Luxeon I from one alkaline (maybe a bit underdriven to 250-300mA to stay below 1W power extracted from the cell).
Ok, runtime would be short at only 30min with full brightness, so it may be not desirable for the average user. But for us I like the idea And with a good NiMh we can expect 1 hour runtime.

Click to expand...

1 hour run-time with a 2600mah nimh AA sounds great to me!

jezzyp said:

Considering that CPF members have bought a lot of fenix's (or is the plural feni?) between us, others will have bought them having seen ours. The forums members have probably vastly contribited to the future success of their products.
Therefore a nice reward would be a limited edition CPF regulated L1P - whatsmore we would all pay to own one (or two!) so it would cost Fenix anything.

We just need someone who deals with Fenix to suggest this to them, get a few hundred off them and then sell them on here.

Click to expand...

Re CPF version fully regulated, I would buy several for sure!

I think there is a solution and it will be coming in the mail on my side of the world in the next week or two. The MillerMods L1P. He takes the L1P apart and installs his own regulator that is 88% efficient at higher than 1.1V and pushes the LED at 1.7 watts. At 1.00 volts, it puts out 1.445 watts or still putting out 85% of the power of a charged battery. Sounds like amazing regulation to me!

Took my Cadex 7400ER battery analyzer that we have at work and threw a Powerex 2500mAH cell on it for evaluation at 1.7 amp load. It returned a 84 minute runtime at that load fdown to 1.00V or a total of 84 minutes. Figure an hour and 24 minutes of regulated runtime on a single NiMH AA cell is pretty freakin' good!

An R bin puts out an average of 45 lumens at 350mA and 60 at 500mA (at the LED) so my MM L1P should be a little photon cannon with great regulation and decent runtime on rechargables. Miller also gives you the option of either specing a LuxeonIII (add $10) or sending your own U-bin LuxIII for even more lumens. Mine was spec'd as the stock R bin with 5 ohm two-stage switch, add shipping etc and it costs $78.

The MillerMods L1P will punch out 600mA (2.1 watts) to the LED using a lithium battery in case that is your thing. I have a light meter, amp meter and battery analyzer on standby to test my little monster when it arrives.

Want a regulated L1P? Run it on NiMH and send it to Eric for a good time. If you don't want the two-stage switch the light costs $75 complete. He will also drop the price around $47 to ~$28 if you send him your L1P.

Read about it in the modders section and reviews will start popping up in a few days.

I saw MillerMods' mod for L1P. But it seems it's not "regulated", I mean output current depends on source power. His driver looks more like an overboost (too much for my taste). But I might be wrong.

Why not just run the head from an L2P on the body of an L1P? I think this only works with rechargeable NiMH's and Energizer L91's, though. It's too much of a drain for a common Alkaline AA. I've been running this combo (with an Energizer L91) as my EDC for a few weeks, now. Not sure how the actual runtime will end up, but it gets frequent daily use and, so far, no trace of dimming, yet.

Then you can send the L2P body with the L1P Head to MillerMods for a fantastic mod (like I did).

The MillerMods L1P is not made for alkalines (see 1.7 amp draw) but if it pushes 1.7 watts with a charged NiMH and 1.445 watts with an almost dead 1.00V NiMH... sounds like a nice regulation curve to me. I will post the results with my light meter/amp/volt meter when the light comes in.