Unexpected dissapointment

I have been a proud owner of an Arc LE for the last 8 months. Love it to bits but tonight got a rude shock. I had bought one for my friend and gave it to him and when he turned it on it absolutely killed mine in comparative light output. I thought mine was bright but his was really bright. It made me quite angry that I would have an inferior light. (you know- flashlight envy!)
I had heard about this difference in intensity between LED's but it is really dissapointing to find out you own a weaker light. Especially when you have held the product in such high esteem. I suppose you other flashaholics will understand. It is a big let down. (Please join me in a minutes silence...)

I did the same thing when i bought two LE's,
one for me, and one for my Dad. When i opened
the package i saw two almost identical lights, but on closer inspection i saw that
one was brighter, and the other had an off
center LED. I am very glad i looked at them
before i gave one away! I now have an *almost* perfect arc LE around my neck.

This is exactly why I asked questions about the LS "seconds." ( http://www.candlepowerforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=31&t=000122 )I think everyone on CPF would agree, this is of concern. I too am waiting for my Arc LS "second" rather than waiting until November for more "firsts" While I intend to purchase a "first," my hopes are that the light I will be receiving is brighter than anything else I have. Once I have the "first" the other will be a backup. I'm not particularly concerned about cosmetic blemishes because I intend to use my Arc-LS for every-day-carry and I'm sure it will receive some punishment, but I AM concerned about beam quality, color and brightness, particularly in a $70 flashlight.

Does anyone else have "issues" with their "seconds?"

this happened to my cpf aaa.
just going to wait till peter gets the new crimp in production to get it fixed.
as for the ls second no problem.very nice.
looks like arc has a picky qc team.
only reason i see that mine is a second is a light fingerprint in the lense.gotta look hard to see it.

Gentlemen,

I truely hope that this is not a pandora's box I am opening here. None the less I hope that the "truth shall set you free" holds here. Suspecting that there is nothing wrong with the lights mentioned above I offer the following possible explaination. Nichia currently makes the NSPW500BS and sorts these LED's into three brigtness ranks; Q,R & S. Their current policy is to provide their customers these LED's with no provision for requesting specific ranks. It is my understanding that there are few if any Q LED's in the pipeline now.

According to Nichia Specs, the min luminous intensity on the R rank can range from 4800 mcd to 6800 mcd whereas the S rank can range from 6800 to 9500 mcd. Typical values are 5600 and 8000 respectively.

I venture to say that the above quoted ranges may explain the variations you have noted above, ceterus paribus.

I hope this information will be accepted by members of the CPF for what it is. For what ever reason, Nichia has chosen not to post this information on their web site and the lack of this information has caused errant speculation. I am not a flashlight manufacturer but I can't sit idly by and read about concerns of the quality of a great flashlight when the likely fault lies elsewhere. As I understand Nichia's current position, a flashlight manufacturer could place an order for 20,000 LED's and find that the shipment consists of equal parts of Q,R & S intensity ranks. Would you have the flashlight manufacturer absorb 50% of the shipment as a loss? Until Nichia has real competition in the white LED arena, they have the luxury of conducting business as they see fit. Nichia could destroy many of the LED's that fall below what we would like to see but that would probably mean that every LED would just cost that much more. I'm frankly grateful that the white LED's are even available and as technology improves and prices go down more and more LED's will be efficiently lighting our world.

Since Nichia does test and rank their their LED's it would be nice if they offered them for sale by rank.In the case where a single LED is used in a high quality flashlight a premium could be paid by the manufacturer and then the consumer.

I think it is important to understand that Peter Gransee and others are pushing the technology the best they can with the materials available to them.

Most important:
"I have been a proud owner of an Arc LE for the last 8 months."
Has anything changed with this light? Life is relative.

Should I have kept my keyboard still and not written this?

No, thanks notimpotant. Too true. I know I should be happy with what I have- It's just that I now have the knowledge that what I have could or should be better...but it's ok. I now have a Surefire E2e to play with. Very insightful though. I may just have to do the typical Flashaholic thing and just bye another Arc!
(P.S. Yes, I missed the r in your login name)

yours may have the contact problem coming on.
mine either flickers or runs at half brightness when it acts up.

8 months huh? Maybe you should try a new battery?

Clean the contacts with a pencil eraser too while your at it.

Have you noticed flickering too, I had a half brightness problem with occasional flickering to higher brightness. Just today I had a second arc do this to me. I sent back the first one and it looks like I'll have to send back another.

In the Arc LE specificaly the LED's are the higher (brightest) rank. The LE and the CPF have/had the selling point of having the better LED's. Entropy exists and disorder occurs with everything. If it is an original problem or a degredation over time I'm just glad that Peter stands behind his product so it doesn't make a long term difference to the end user.