How efficent do you think the L0P is?

Someone said to me they think the stock L0P only puts out half the amount of light it should compared to if the driver was well designed. For now I want to reserve my opinion on this matter, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about it.

Well, here's my basic take on it... I had an LED_ASAP Lux I modded ARC AAA that ran for about one hour and 40 minutes on an 850mAh cell... The L0P is closer to an hour and 10 minutes though since it's not current regulated, it's hard to tell without a light meter... just going by my eyes. I'd rather have one hour and 40 minutes than one hour and 10 minutes.

Honestly though... the L0P is impressive as is. If you (or someone) comes up with a more effecient circuit, so much the better.

cratz2 said:

Well, here's my basic take on it... I had an LED_ASAP Lux I modded ARC AAA that ran for about one hour and 40 minutes on an 850mAh cell... The L0P is closer to an hour and 10 minutes though since it's not current regulated, it's hard to tell without a light meter... just going by my eyes. I'd rather have one hour and 40 minutes than one hour and 10 minutes.

Honestly though... the L0P is impressive as is. If you (or someone) comes up with a more effecient circuit, so much the better.

Click to expand...

What current is your ARC AAA mod running the Lux at and which of the 2, the L0P or ARC mod is brighter? Also what does the runtime chart look like for the ARC AAA mod compared to the Fenix?

I guess what I would like to see, is for someone to show me a AAA flashlight that puts out the same lumens or drive current to the LED, not in LUX, as the Fenix accompanied by a runtime VS. output chart.

Oh, I've sold the both the modded ARC and the L0P and I have no way of doing

If I recall, LED_ASAP had a version that pulled about 300ma, 400ma or 700ma from the battery. I think that he said the one that pulled 700ma from the battery was slightly overdriving the Lux. The one I had pulled 400ma, but to compare brightness would be a dis-service to LED_ASAP as those were likely N or P-binned Luxes compared to the R-bins in the L0P.

If you haven't already, you ought to look through some of the threads he started... very informative, esp for a guy like you. He did work on the ARCs, Solitaires and X1s.

A starting point.

I won't get into the technical aspects, since that is not my area of expertise. Quick frankly, the amount of light coming out the front of an LOP vs. runtime, when compared to other 1xAAA lights I have/had falls far short of expectations.

For example, the LOP is not producing 5-times the amount of light an Arc-AAA will produce, however is has less than 5-times the runtime of a stock Arc-AAA. I have a Lux-III modded Arc-AAA that produces much more light than any of the (4) LOP's that I've owned and it runs for over 3-hours regulated. That's 3-times longer than the LOP.

Wow! Who did the mod that gets 3 hours of regulated rutime? LED_ASAP?

That almost doesn't seem possible... If that's true, then the circuit in the L0P is less than 33% effecient.

cratz2 said:

Wow! Who did the mod that gets 3 hours of regulated rutime? LED_ASAP?

That almost doesn't seem possible... If that's true, then the circuit in the L0P is less than 33% effecient.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's who did it. He did this one for me a couple years ago. It the best $80 or so bucks I ever spent.

this_is_nascar said:

I won't get into the technical aspects, since that is not my area of expertise. Quick frankly, the amount of light coming out the front of an LOP vs. runtime, when compared to other 1xAAA lights I have/had falls far short of expectations.

For example, the LOP is not producing 5-times the amount of light an Arc-AAA will produce, however is has less than 5-times the runtime of a stock Arc-AAA. I have a Lux-III modded Arc-AAA that produces much more light than any of the (4) LOP's that I've owned and it runs for over 3-hours regulated. That's 3-times longer than the LOP.

Click to expand...

Lumens is a tough thing to call. The reflector on the L0P is close to as good as a refector it's size can be for a Luxeon (my opinion of course), but a AAA form factor just doesn't have the diameter needed to get most of the light focused into a beam. So most of the light being produced from the L0P is a floody corona, not a beam like the L1P.
Hey this_is_nascar, you have one of my L0P mods which has the loctite removed from the bezel so you can expose the Lux. If you have a bigger luxeon reflector, you may want to try holding one up to the Lux of the L0P to see what I mean. I did this with the L0P and I was amazed. My modified L0P produced a brighter hotspot than a stock L1P, when I used an L1P reflector on the L0P!
My point here is that if you understand the meaning of lux and lumens, then it's easy to understand how difficult it is to figure out something like efficency of a switcher based soley on lux. Lux is only brightness at one point, it doesn't indicate the lumens being produced.

Just so we're clear on things, all my comments are based on the stock LOP. I've only received my MillerMods light today and haven't had time to do much more than cycle them thru a few times.

this_is_nascar said:

Just so we're clear on things, all my comments are based on the stock LOP. I've only received my MillerMods light today and haven't had time to do much more than cycle them thru a few times.

Click to expand...

No problem, I understood that.