How long before a small carry light is pushing 400 lumens?

From my understanding since I am already at 200 lumens the next big jump my eyes would see is about 2x the amount?

I'm wondering about a light the side of the P2D or P3D?

Noob perspective...

I think it could be a while. Unless LED manufacturers/designers are urgently working to improve the thermal efficiencies of their emitters. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. Brighter bins are becoming more and more available, but that doesn't appear to be the big jump in output you are discussing. The next BIG step at least for Cree and Seoul appears to be multi-die emitters. IMHO that steers us away from the small/compact EDC direction, because these emitters will generate 4x the heat as their single-die counterparts.

On the one hand, its comforting to know the small Q2/5, P4, R2 EDC lights will hold their own for quite some time, since there is nothing earth-shattering right around the corner... thats thermally stable. That $60 Malkoff you just bought won't really be out-dated any time soon:thumbsup:. On the other hand its a little discouraging that emitter designers are taking a "bigger/more is better" kind of approach, rather than refining the current single die designs for thermal efficiency.

My Jet-Beam Jet-II Pro at 225 bulb lumens is almost too bright for a small EDC light, and gets hot fast. I am not sure 400 lumens would be practical.

To look twice as bright don't you need 4x the lumens? So if you have a 200 lumen flashlight, you would need a 800 lumen flashlight to look twice as bright? I think that is how it works.

The new X-MC from Cree can do around 700 emitter lumens and it has the same footprint as the X-RE, unlike the SSC P7 which is larger. To get 400 out the front lumens it would have to be producing around 500 lumens. So to acheive that in a small package would require enough heat sinking and battery power. A P2D sized light at this time would be out. Maybe something like a P3D made with much thicker aluminum for heat sinking and the ability to take a 18650 would do the job.

There is some new stuff our friends at SF are working on but heat dissipation is still a concern. With the U2B putting out 400 lumens it's only a matter of time until the size shrinks. I gots money bunin a hoe in my pocket for some new lights.

Brigadier said:

My Jet-Beam Jet-II Pro at 225 bulb lumens is almost too bright for a small EDC light, and gets hot fast. I am not sure 400 lumens would be practical.

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Heat ... ok that`s a problem. But too bright ? LOL Are you for real???:nana:

2 years from now 400 lumens will be commonplace.

400 lumens is available now for less than $50.
See
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2449743&postcount=4
The problem is the brighter ones get TOO HOT TO HOLD. If you shrink the size of the light to a P2D it will be worse. Not to mention the little CR123A battery will probably explode on you.

I'm not to concerned about heat as the light I want idealy would have an adjustment.

I also want it for tactical use to use alongside with firearms.


Ok and a small part of me just wants the new coolest brightest thing I can hold in the palm of my hand.

The P7 lights from Dx are cheap and very bright.

I have the 5-mode MTE SSC-P7 and its quite compact, hardly bigger than
a 27-LT if you're familiar with that McGizmo light.

The output of that light is easily 400 lumens.

It won't be long before more and more Manufacturers will be bringing
out P7 lights (Wolf Eyes already have and Lumapower are about to)

Do you have a link at all for the size reference?

I would like something I could have in my pocket or on my belt.

You can have it right now, it's just not very practical due to heat dissapation. If you could convice a custom builder you can shoehorn a P7 into a surefire 2 cell light. It will be 100% spill and no throw but 400 lumens for a couple minutes at a time is doable.

Yoda4561 said:

You can have it right now, it's just not very practical due to heat dissapation. If you could convice a custom builder you can shoehorn a P7 into a surefire 2 cell light. It will be 100% spill and no throw but 400 lumens for a couple minutes at a time is doable.

Click to expand...

Yeah. Kinda like cramning a 8.0L V-10 in a Prius.

passive101 said:

Do you have a link at all for the size reference?

I would like something I could have in my pocket or on my belt.

Click to expand...

Here you go:-

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12060

Its 14.39cm or 5.67 inches long

Head diameter is 3.706cm or 1.46 inches

Dereelight already has a P60 P7 in R&D.

I am not sure if I am the only one that thinks this but with the P7 now, I think the LED flashlights have gotten to a point where it is "bright enough" but almost 99% of the time a regular joe like me and you will use a flashlight for. The focus of the LED manufacturers now should be on improving efficiency of the LEDs so that they'll create less heat and turn more of the juice into lumens. This should improve run times. The EYJ Q5 I have is way too bright for anything other than playing with it at night outside......or if I am trying to momentarily blind someone.

It's possible now thanks to the P7 and the MC-E. The question is how long do want to be able to pump out those 400lumens and what kind of beam do you want?

Someone shoe horned a P7 in to a ArcLS with a TriFluPic I believe. The burst should be close to 2.8A but getting it from one RCR123 is gonna be hell on the battery. I still think it's over 250lumens. Switch it up with a 18650 and you'd be in the realm of 700lumens, but it'd be too hot to hold.

I'm sure one of these days it will be possible. Although, if I have a choice, I'll prefer higher efficiency, LED with warm tint like incan, and such. I have a few lights that push 200+ lumens, most of them are about 100 lumens, but I rarely even use 100 lumens. Well, that's for me at least ... I'm sure those who have acres of backyard space would disagree.

Well you can Direct Drive a Seoul P7 with 1 RCR123 and probably get close to 400 lumen.

But it won't be practical.

For something more practical, I'd say 2-3 years.

I'm happy with the 200+ output, i'd rather companies work on increasing run time than output!