FirstDsent said:
Until then, you'll settle for dim lights?
In your example, the 160 lm is what counts.
Efficiency is irrelevant for a fun-light. when you shine a spot on a distant object you don't care how efficient it is, you only care that you can see the object. Many dim lights are very efficient, and most efficient lights are dim (by comparison). Niether impresses me. Brightness is where the power meets the pavement. I want the brightest light.
My point was that if I can get 120 lumens using half the power (a likely scenario when you're overdriving by that much), then why bother? Your eye will barely notice the difference. I'm not overly concerned about run time when using rechargebles, but 8 watts will cause a
huge heat dissipation problem in most torches whereas 3 or 4 watts won't. Sure, you'll get your 160 lumens for a minute or two until the torch warms up, but eventually you'll be well under 120 lumens you would have gotten with 3-4 watts while using twice the power. Now when LED efficiency reaches 50 or 60% then you can drive an LED to 8 watts and get the same heat as a present-day 3 watt puts out. That's when it will make sense to me. For now if I need more light than one emitter can efficiently deliver, I'll just go with multiple emitters. That's essentially what we did here when all we had was 5mm LEDs. In fact, that's why I'm still a big fan of the 5mm's. The modularity can't be beat, plus the best ones nowadays run at 75 to 80 lm/W.
I've never been one for operating past the point of diminishing returns. I've seen too many examples here of people going "watt-crazy" (for lack of better term) without taking the time to really analyze what they're doing. I've even seen some examples where people drive LEDs
past the point of diminishing returns. They're so obsessed with pumping every last ounce of power into the LED that it actually ends up being dimmer than if just run at a lower current.
Not a big fan of muscle cars, either, since the goal usually is just to get quick 1/4-mile times, something which is useless except on a drag strip, and also since an internal combustion engine is poorly suited for quick acceleration compared to an electric motor (which is why EVs are really the ultimate muscle car). I'm more a fan of ultra-efficient vehicles, especially EVs, which require little power to run at ultra-high speeds. Sure, your muscle car may beat me in the 1/4 mile, but given good enough aerodynamics I'll fly right by you a few miles later, and use 1/10 the power doing it. For a muscle analogy to flashlights, think of your 160 lumen blaster which gives 160 lumens for the first few seconds, fades to 120 or less as it overheats, and kills the battery entirely in 10 minutes. Now compare that to something designed to give 120 lumens on full if needed, continuously for 20 minutes if need be, but can also throttle down to whatever is needed to conserve batteries. Which is more useable in the real world? Like in a car, I'd rather have somewhat less but still adequate acceleration but also have twice the range on full, and the ability to not waste energy (i.e. fuel) spinning a big engine when I'll seldom need it.
