Is there still a market for clustered LED flashlights? or is their heyday past.

Do you think that clustered LED flashlights still have a market today? Do you think their heyday has past? It's amazing that only a few years ago, LED clusters were a wonderful new technology. How the technology has changed since then. I must admit that I am still very fond of my Inova X5 and lightwave 4000 lights, despite the fact that I have all types of Lux's now. I still have a use for their long runtimes and good overall flood. Do others still value their cluster lights? Will they still be offered in the future?

I value well performing ones. They make great area/flood lights. I particularly like the SL 4AA PP 7LEDs, probably because I lack the technical expertise to poo-poo it for it's shortcomings . They just work well for me.

fieldops said:

Do you think that clustered LED flashlights still have a market today? Do you think their heyday has past? It's amazing that only a few years ago, LED clusters were a wonderful new technology. How the technology has changed since then. I must admit that I am still very fond of my Inova X5 and lightwave 4000 lights, despite the fact that I have all types of Lux's now. I still have a use for their long runtimes and good overall flood. Do others still value their cluster lights? Will they still be offered in the future?

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I love the cheap Xnovas. The biggest multi-LED I own is the 11LED model. I like it alot. I have a 9LED a 5 and a 3LED multi. I saw the huge LED arrays as kind of pointless unless there was some specailty reason for having a 455 LED flashlight lol.

The light I seem to always go back to as my edc is my brass Peak McKinley high power with 7 - 5mm leds. I find it has the perfect amount of throw, flood, brightness, and runtime for the times I need a light the most.

You can't beat a 49'er

Multi LED lights are still the best for floods. My chinese 12 LED/1AA light running on 3v (about 1.5 watts) is a much better floodlight than any of my 3 watt lights.

The new Nichia LED's still lead the pack in Lumens/Watt, they also provide a nice floody beam. Now if only they could fix the tint. And they probably will fix the tint with a few years more development.

I've seen a few cavers with headlamps that have about 40 white LEDs (and a few green LEDs). They say that a flood is much better lighting in a cave because your eyes are naturally & automatically programmed to follow any hot spot that a lighting source has. That is one of the reasons some cavers still prefer a carbide lamp. By lighting the surroundings evenly you are more likely to see details you might miss when your eyes are following the narrower hot spot of a single-source light. The need for a real throw-monster in a lot of caves doesn't present itself that often.

My favorite light for reading is still my Nichia CS modded PT Aurora. The three high output 5mm LEDs produce a perfect nice even flood for reading up close. Until a Luxeon headlamp is made that has the same even flood, I'll keep using the little 3 LED Aurora.

Ken

I still like my 20 led and 32 led retrofit bulbs for my 4D mags. They run for weeks before the batteries die.

I just bought a Princeton Tec Apex headlamp which will either light one Luxeon or 4 small (5mm?) leds. It makes a nice combination light so you can have flood or throw. I could see this becoming the new "twin-task" type of light as LED's continue to push into hotwire territory.

As has been said, great for smooth even floods. . .

WOW! Frankly I'm surprised that so far it's 100% "yes".

I was just in a local club store called "Bi Mart". They have quite a number of flashlights. Most are MagLites, but I would say that 25% were multi-LED lights. I really think that from a mass-consumer standpoint, multiple LEDs have not even yet hit their peak.

magic79 said:

I really think that from a mass-consumer standpoint, multiple LEDs have not even yet hit their peak.

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If you look at it that way, I have to agree. I must admit I do like the even flood of these lights. I guess sometimes you just don't need the super bright flood like a SF. Don't get me wrong, I love my SF lights, but some routime applications require long runtime and a medium level smooth flood. Thanks for the excellent responses. I am a bit surprised. I kind of figured many would be ready to bury LED clusters. I'm glad people see the wisdom of keeping a tried and true device, even if it is not the brightest anymore.

I still use my 28 LED ebay light

I think there's still use for them. Not for me, but other people. However, I'll expect that we'll be seing less cluster floods and more single Luxeon/Cree optic floods.

I would hope they remain an option. I picked up a couple of Target's brand; Dura.... something. They're 28 LED, aluminum bodied. While a 28 LED should approach the amount of light produced by a 3 watt LED, it produces a wall of light instead of a bright beam. Actually, I was surprised by the difference in quality compared to Target's other store branded lights. They're imported, but I don't know of a similar domestic made one. They're only about $16 or $17.

While a 28 LED should approach the amount of light produced by a 3 watt LED

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depends on the 3W you compare to, and which LEDs are in the cluster of cource- but in my experience, our little 28LEDlight from AXshop does a fair bit better in a ceiling bounce test than the LEDBEAM 3W, and uses about 30% less power to accomplish it.

fieldops wrote: "It's amazing that only a few years ago, LED clusters were a wonderful new technology."

That's funny - I've always regarded multi-LEDs as a "low-tech" way of achieving more light - ie: "want more light? - add more 'bulbs'"......

I only buy the cheapo multi-LED lights like the various "Xnovas" - I have the original 5LED Xnova AA from a group buy by TrueBlue.

More recently the 8LED 1AA "Xnova" New version when I saw a post that said the reverse polarity ones were much brighter.

I really like the Xnova 8 - as it gives a large floody spot of light that seems a nice and useful level of brightness.

However the current draw on the Xnova 8 "new" was about 500mA -
this is about the same as the Fenix L1 v2.5.

Note: these Xnova 8 were what Dae used to call his "best version" - apparently these are no longer available - the ones sold by him now are what he called the "second best version" - but by the unavailability and default - of course the ones he has now are "best"

Dae also sells this 8 LED Flashlight 1xAA with tail-clicky switch - anyone have or used one - how does it compare to the Xnova 8 version with reverse polarity battery orientation?

There's a certain critical mass around 5 mm leds that the high powered (Cree, Luxeon, etc) LED's doesn't have. That suggests that they will continue to lead in performance (lumens per watt) and cost ($/Lumen) for the near future. The downside of course is if you want 10 watts worth of output, instead of 3 luxeons, you're looking at a showerhead.