Help, I need some updates.

Help, I need some updates.

I joined cpf in Jan '03 and used to read about every post, but I haven't visited cpf in long time.

When I stopped reading cpf, I had sorta reached an EDC plateau, with my cpf member repaired ARC-LS (real nice high dome 1 watt@333 mA w/reflector thx robb) and a Dorcy gen3 1aaa with a pocket clip (from a mini-mag 2aaa) covering most of my needs. If wanted anything brighter I'd pull out a Pelican M6 LED, XM-2, or a Brinkmann LX.




My use has been about 70% Dorcy / 30% Arc.


It's been about two years (10-12-2006) since my last visit.


So, what have I missed? :thanks:

I did the same thing. LEDs are brighter and more efficient. You can almost get a lot of light and a decent run time on AA alkalines. You can get them on NiMh. There are a lot of lights that have continuosly variable brightness. Look at the Nitecore D10.

There are several TINY lights that are much brighter than the old Arc. Look at the Orb Raw Ns, Orb Wee, Drake, Draco or Aeon for examples.

Alan

We now have multi-modes and 75 lumens (or 9 hours) from a single AAA battery (for < $50): https://www.fenix-store.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_69_49&products_id=191

We also have infinite brightness control with user-set multi-modes and 225 lumens (or 70 hours) from a single 123 cell (for < $70): http://www.bugoutgearusa.com/jetiiibs.html

It's an interesting time to be a flashaholic :huh:

Well first of all in the LED front:
Cree XR-Es and Seoul P4s came out. You might have heard about them a bit before you left. They are twice the efficiency or more then the Luxeon I, III, V, and K2s. Which means for the same power you can get twice or more output. The current best single die LED(Cree XR-E R2 flux bin) can hit 270 lumen at 1 amp.

Then Luxeon came with their Luxeon Rebel 80 and 100, smaller footprint, about 4 can fit in a single Cree XR-E pad. They usually have a warmer color then the XR-Es. The Luxeon made the TFFC K2s(flip chips) which were also more efficient. But both had problems and were recalled.

Then Seoul made the P7, essentually 4 Seoul P4s in one 3.4-3.7v package(all dies wired in parallel) and they can hit up to 900 lumen when driven at mex recommended.

Creee came out with the MC-E and XP-E. The MC-E is essentually 4 XR-Es in a single packae and they can be wires in whatever way you want to. The XP-Es are smaller versions of the XR-Es. The die sits on a small square pad without the metal ring around the XR-E LEDs.

Then higher CRI LEDs and lower color tempreature LEDs also came into more use.

Nichia also made the DS and GS LEDs, both more efficient then their CS ones.

So if you swapped the LED in your Arc to a Seoul P4 U or U2 bin, you should see at least twice the output for the same runtime. The Seoul P4 seems to be the best LED to upgrade older Luxeon lights.

Many Light companies also came to be or became more popular, Fenix, Olight, Nitecore, Dereelight, Lumapower, Jetbeam, Novatac(think HDS), RA (HDS head after they spilt away fron Novatac), Eagletac, and a few others.

There is also an bunch of lower priced current gen LED light companes like Ultrafire, Romisen, and Trustfire.

Also the Polairon PH50 came out, now to be the PH45.

And more but I don't remember right now.

Welcome back!