P1D CE needs revision

I got my P1D CE about a month ago, and am very impressed. No thread slop issues, and I don't mind the strobe and SOS. I can think of one or two scenarios where those might come in handy. The thing is so freakishly bright that it made a lot of the lights/mods I was formerly lusting after irrelevant. To my naked eye, it seems to outthrow my Brinkman Maxfire on fresh cells.

Even so, I would prefer different brightness settings: Low about 3-4 lumens, second about 12-15 lumens (where the current CE low setting is; I've found that to be bright enough for almost everything I use a light for), third about 40 lumens (Original P1 on primaries), and high right where it's at. I do like that freakish 110 lumen high setting. After seeing numbers like that only from multiple CR123 incans for the past year, I'm still amazed every time I turn it on. I would keep the strobe and SOS, probably on the third setting. Those lumen numbers are based on FR.com, using Doug's lightbox to lumens estimates.

Does anyone else like those numbers?

Also, the L0D CE would appeal to me except for one thing: PWM. I've never had a light with PWM, but I'm fairly sure I'd get annoyed by even a slight strobing effect.

re: P1D CE - I think that those settings would be nice.

re: L0D CE 0 - I don't think that the PWM on the L0DCE is bad. If you're thinking it looks like a computer monitor set to 60Hz, or a fluorescent light that's going bad, it's not like that. I don't notice it unless there a fan or something moving really fast in the beam.

Bullseye00 said:

re: P1D CE - I think that those settings would be nice.

re: L0D CE 0 - I don't think that the PWM on the L0DCE is bad. If you're thinking it looks like a computer monitor set to 60Hz, or a fluorescent light that's going bad, it's not like that. I don't notice it unless there a fan or something moving really fast in the beam.

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Ditto. It's a non-issue with me too. I'll briefly notice it on rare occasions during some situations where there's movement but it hasn't bothered me.

The only ways that Fenix could implement a 3-4 lumen low level on the P1D CE would be a buck-boost regulator or PWM. Buck-boost regulators tend to be less efficient and are still very rare (HDS). Many folks complain about PWM and it's less efficient.

I'd love to see an efficient buck-boost regulator as it would make multiple levels available even when running off 3.7 V LiOn RCR123. Maybe someday soon...

Given that they've only shipped lights with boost regulators to date, they set the low level about as low as they could and still maintain a regulated output. If they had tried to set it lower, the Cree would have drawn more current on a fresh CR123 and it would have started in direct drive on low at close to the same level as the current low level.

Mike

Not everyone's eyes react to PWM the same way. For example, a computer monitor set to 60 Hz refresh is very noticable to me, but other people can sit in front of it all day long and never see it. It just depends on your eyes.

cbdudley said:

Not everyone's eyes react to PWM the same way. For example, a computer monitor set to 60 Hz refresh is very noticable to me, but other people can sit in front of it all day long and never see it. It just depends on your eyes.

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If this is partly in response to my quote above, yes, I too can not tolerate a CRT monitor at less than at least 72 Hz refresh rate, but the Fenix PWM lights don't bother me. But lets not get OT here. I just wanted to add that.

Thanks for the responses. I appreciated the understandable explanation of why a lower low is hard to achieve.

yes, I too found the explanations helpful.

if you really want a much lower low, just use a second flashlight. The original version SF L1 is perfect - I have it in red so it is excellent also for preserving night vision.

otherwise, I am exceedingly happy with the P1D CE. My main worry is that I find I tend not to use it when others are around, because I worry that they'll want to use it for themselves!