Maglite SE Now vs. 5W DRAGON...

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See picture in last post.
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Lambda very kindly sent me a new Luxeon Side Emitter to play with, and I am now a believer. Properly set up (in this case inside a Maglite 3D on DirectDrive), it will focus to a point where it is not only brighter, but also throws farther than a brand new SureFire P6:



And just in case you're wondering which one is really brighter, output readings taken from one meter were:

SureFire P6 - 3,040 lux

Maglite 3D SE - 4,350 lux

Look out incandescents, here come the Luxeons...

Woohoo,

Nice one!

I think I better sell that GE stock!

The SE really brings new things to light.

I'm sure your neighbors are very happy you have a long throw LED flashlight now...............

So, you gona sit and watch that thing until it dims and report back on run time with 3D cells?

I should, shouldn't I? Maybe when the Arctic sets up (and I have a few spare weeks with nothing to do)...

"Brings new things to light", haw!

MrBulk, reading your posts is beginning to get expensive..... Now I'm going to have to order some of the SE's to see for myself.

Hot DARNIT! Why oh WHY did Lumileds wait so long to release these SE's? And they work so well with reflectors too, not those costly hard-to-get NX optics.

The nice thing is that you can now have both a flood or a tight spot with the same LED.

If the only diff between the HDs, LDs and SE's is merely the optics (and maybe that new phosphor process), one can only imagine how truly efficient the SEs are in their optical design.

Thanks to all who've done all this neat early work with the SEs!

Is that the 1W SE?

Originally posted by MR Bulk:
SureFire P6 - 3,040 lux

Maglite 3D SE - 4,350 lux

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Do you know what current the SE was drawing at the time of this measurement?
Thanks

Super!

Now if you could compress that thing into a Brinkman 2AA, I could start throwing away some incandescents.

It is a 1-watt. I have no idea what it is drawing. And given the lesser results obtained with the smaller AA-type reflectors, I think a 3C in 2D Mag is as small as it's going to get.

Lambda was also so very kind as to send me a LS SE. I ran it DD. Unbelievable. Unfortunately, it fried! Fresh D cells. Don't know if they are more sensitive to overdriving or not?

While it lasted, I was very impressed. I hope to use these in my Elektro-Star and StarLux flashlights, eventually. We need to redesign the reflector first.

Wayne J
www.elektrolumens.com

Originally posted by MR Bulk:
And given the lesser results obtained with the smaller AA-type reflectors, I think a 3C in 2D Mag is as small as it's going to get.

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Is the D-size Maglite reflector that much more effective in focusing the side emitter beam than the AA-size reflector? I'm amazed that there seems to be an order of magnitude difference between the relative outputs. Or does the difference have more to do with the power source (3D vs 2AA)?

John

...wait a minute, wayne, what were you running it at? charles got it to work on a dd 3d. i planning on putting them in 3d dd maglites also, i don't want to blow them...

how long before it died?

Kubolaw,

Both a better reflector and power source. In the comparisons I did with the SE Pill, it was running about 400ma. In the 3CN2D I measured the current right after making the light measurement. It read exactly 1.0 Amps; so pretty good reference.

We'll need to get Mr. Bulk to pop his tail cap and take a current reading for us on those three big D cells.

I wonder why Lumileds doesn't coat the top of SEs with reflective material. This would make it unnecessary to use a deep reflector to capture the maximum amount of light.

Any of you guys have any vapor deposition equipment?

Originally posted by Rothrandir:
...wait a minute, wayne, what were you running it at? charles got it to work on a dd 3d. i planning on putting them in 3d dd maglites also, i don't want to blow them...

how long before it died?

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've done a great many mods, using 3 D cells, direct drive. It was a surprise to me it fried. Might have been poor heat sinking? Might have let it get too hot while soldering the wires. Might have been a very sensitive emitter? I don't really know why, but it fried, and I cried!

I ordered more, though, so I can continue to experiment with them.

Wayne J
www.elekrolumens.com

The Surefire 6P is using the LOLA or the HOLA? I assume it's the LOLA? ?? lumens?

YOWCH! Imagine a 5-watt Side Emitter!!!

LOLA. Hope mine doesn't fry. Will measure amperage soon, maybe when I stop home during work for my "lunch break", should be around 3 a.m. or so...

I just fired up a 5W Cyan SE emitter bought from McGizmo and arctic-epoxied it onto the end of a solid Al shaft (6mm diameter x 8.3mm length) for some heatsinking (and boy did it get HOT *fast*). Power was supplied using a 8.4V nimh, direct drive.

FOA, WHoooo.... gotta go borrow my Dad's welding mask! Being in the habit of looking at HD/LD luxeons off-axis to avoid direct light, it was a rude shock to fire up the 5WSE because this time looking at it anywhere >30 degrees off-axis actually puts your eyes in the direct line of fire!

Anyway, I fitted to the shaft a minimag AA reflector (enlarged to accommodate the LED+shaft assembly) such that you could move the reflector for focus. With this rig, I found that optimum focus for a spot came with the top of the SE lens still reasonably deep within the minimag AA reflector and moving it closer to the business-end would cause the hole-in-the-middle and all those nasty rings, just as you'd see in a regular mag.

Similar results were obtained with a Mag3D reflector. I shoved the LED+shaft assy into the reflector opening and moved it about til I got optimum spot focus. The spot *was* tighter, maybe 30% or so, with this larger reflector and there was a lot more secondary sidespill - very useful!

So, I guess if you really wanna squeeze the most out of your 5W SE, I too agree you'd really need a larger reflector. A minimag sized one would still yield very good results by most standards, but efficiency-nuts would be disturbed to no end knowing that light was going wasted somewhere.

The one nice thing about the non-white SE's is that the primary optics partially eliminates those nasty BBQ grill bars which are projected in the HDs' beams. What you get is very "filament-like" - coily patterns, or sometimes a cloverleaf-like pattern, in the beam, which, IMHO, is less distracting than parallel bars and should be easier to defocus or diffuse with WriteRight or similar. Of course, if you are using white SEs, the phosphor would take care of that already.

Sidenote: anyone wanting to make a full-power direct drive 5W Arc-AAA-sized flashlight will find that such a small amount of metal mass will heat up to the point of ouch-can't-hold-it-any-more-plonk in about 10-15secs, assuming you could power it. Asbestos gloves would be a necessary accessory (in addition to the welder's mask)!

Hmmm, maybe it's the power of the 5-watt or something. I tried this very same 1-watt SE in both the AA Legend and Minimag reflectors, and both produced highly unacceptable beam patterns.