Fenix E1, Vs. Dorcy 1AAA, Vs. Solitaire w/ MJLED upgrade...

I finally recieved my Lighthound order (placed late Friday evening, recieved on Monday, from Texas to NH, all on USPS Priority Mail shipping, nice, quick service )with my MJLED Solitaire upgrade and my Fenix E1....

I'm not going to waste any space raving about the Fenix E1, there's enough of those posts already, sufice it to say that the E1 is a solidly built little light, with a high level of craftsmanship, the "ringy" beam is only noticable when "white wall hunting"

anyway, i figured i'd grab my other single AAA lights and do a comparison shoot....

first off, the contenders, with a Minimag for scale;
from left to right; Minimag, Solitaire w/ MJLED, Dorcy 1AAA, Fenix E1


Now, the hallway shots, the target was the lightswitch on the angled wall
the Dorcy 1AAA;

the MJLED upgraded Soliaire;

and the Fenix E1;


all photos are unretouched/photoshopped in any way (except for the cropped scale pic)

WOW!

Solitaire becomes usefull...

But E1 ROCKS!

Makes me badly want a Civictor V1 to go with my Fenix P1 on order!!!

Maybe i had my standards set too high, but i'm dissapointed in the Solitaire, even *with* the LED upgrade, i know, i know, it doesn't have much to work with, and given it's inherent limitations it's doing pretty well, but lets be honest, it gets stomped on by even the lowly Dorcy, in terms of usable hotspot, yes the color balance is better on the Soli LED upgrade, but it's just too much of a spotlight to be useful, it's all hotspot, mediocre sidespill

the Solitaire and the Dorcy go back into the Box O' Unused Flashlights, knocked off by the new reigning champion, the Fenix E1....

Thanks for the Beam shots was informative, I was wondering can you not "cut the tip of the LED (grind down a little), like they do with the "cut version of the smjled? I read on a post that they did this to make it more floody, which it sounds like thats what you wanted....

el_vato

My E1 is rather blue tint. I would like to replace with warmer white but I don't know where to find warmer led type for E1.

I was just playing around with my E1 and a few other lights when i noticed something...

that Nichia Rigel LED in the E1 is a hardworking little emitter, it actually held up against my Inova X5 with partially depleted batteries (2.8V/cell, 2 cells), so i decided to perform a *real* competition between the X5 with a fresh set of SF 123's, and the E1 with it's fresh Energizer Lithium AAA (1.7V)

I used the E1 as the baseline for metering the hallway pic, set the self timer, locking the exposure settings for the E1 on both pics

first pic, metered for the E1;


next pic, set up and metered with the E1, but switched to the X5 while the self-timer counted down, exposing the X5's beamshot at E1 settings;


Now, remember, the E1 is a single 5MM emitter being driven by a single 1.7V Lithium battery, the X5 has 5 5MM emitters being driven by 2 3V SureFire Lithiums...

ignoring the hotspot and concentrating on the spill, we can see they're pretty close, imagine what an X5 modded with 5 Rigels being driven at 6V could do...

sure the X5 is brighter in the hotspot, that's to be expected on a light with four times the emitters and running on almost 5 times the power, but not by all that much, the Rigel LED looks like it has some serious mod potential.....

one more, just for fun....

Fenix E1;

Fenix L1P;

White wall tests are OK, but how do they perform outside where the light isn't the same color as the surface, and the light can't bounce around in a confined space?

Thanks alot for the pics, they are very useful and I prefer them over the usual white wall pics. You are really making me want to get an E1 now. Do you have a AAAP to compare it to?

amanichen said:

White wall tests are OK, but how do they perform outside where the light isn't the same color as the surface, and the light can't bounce around in a confined space?

Click to expand...

I'll try some outside shots tomorrow evening, the E1 will have a harder time with those as it performs far better for house navigation or finding keyholes and such

the wallpaper in the hall isn't white, more a sort of beige, but you have a good point, there's a lot of light colored surfaces for the light to bounce off, making it look like it's brighter than it really is.....

el_vato said:

Thanks for the Beam shots was informative, I was wondering can you not "cut the tip of the LED (grind down a little), like they do with the "cut version of the smjled? I read on a post that they did this to make it more floody, which it sounds like thats what you wanted....

el_vato

Click to expand...

The Soli LED is a 3mm version of the SMJLED. It is already already 'cut'. To get a more foody beam cover the lens with satin Scotch tape or Press n Seal.

I like the colour balance but $13 for the LED +$8.60 (CAD$10) for the Soli makes it almost as expensive as the E1.

Just updating the post with some battery usage data....

put a "dead" battery (1.3V) in the Solitaire W/MJLED, got 2 hours of use before the MJLED went out, battery charge level 1.07 volts, performed multiple tests on the cut-off voltage, appears to range from 1.0-1.07V

removed the battery from the MJSoli, reading .65V, put *that* battery into the Fenix L1, and it lit up with a dim but usable light, enough to navigate inside a house with dark adapted eyes with, or to read a book with, this test started at 10:55 PM, now to see how long the Fenix E1 can run on this *dead* battery....

8/16/06 update; i fell asleep waiting for the E1 to extinguish, after 2 hours of runtime on a .65V battery, the light was starting to get too dim to read with, the MJSoli got about 4.5 hours of runtime off a fresh alkie, in actual usage, the MJSoli isn't too bad, it's actually usable, the E1 easily outclasses it in every way, but the MJSoli is actually a usable light, the fact that it apears to have some form of regulation (probably a boost circuit) and can get around 4 hours of flat output off a plain old alkie is rather impressive