KL5A runtime test?

About three weeks ago, I bought a Surefire L5 with the KL5A head. I have read in the paper work of the light that is suppsoed to run 4 hours. I put 2 protected rcr123's in it and it only ran for 45 min, which does not seem right to me. The batteries were fresh off the charger, and were AW brand cells so I know the batteries are not to blame. Has anyone done a runtime test with it, if so what were your results? Primary or rcr123's?

Perhaps you should run it with SureFire SF123A batteries rather than some unsupported aftermarket batteries and see whether you notice any difference?

Size15's said:

Perhaps you should run it with SureFire SF123A batteries rather than some unsupported aftermarket batteries and see whether you notice any difference?

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Ditto...while I may play w/ rc's around the house, I always get more accurate/longer runtimes w/ SF primaries. The KL5 is designed for 1.5 hours at high, and about 3 hours of diminishing light. RC's tend to get sucked dry alot faster.

Lurchensteen said:

About three weeks ago, I bought a Surefire L5 with the KL5A head. I have read in the paper work of the light that is suppsoed to run 4 hours. I put 2 protected rcr123's in it and it only ran for 45 min, which does not seem right to me. The batteries were fresh off the charger, and were AW brand cells so I know the batteries are not to blame. Has anyone done a runtime test with it, if so what were your results? Primary or rcr123's?

Click to expand...

45 minutes seems reasonable from a pair of RCR123 cells, depending on the current draw. RCR123s are only ~500 mah, regardless of brand. Most well regulated P60 drop ins in hte over 120+ Lumen range will run 40-60 minutes off a pair of RCR123s.

Size15's said:

Perhaps you should run it with SureFire SF123A batteries rather than some unsupported aftermarket batteries and see whether you notice any difference?

Click to expand...

It's well known that RCR's have less capacity than primaries. I am sure running his L5 on RCR's is fine for the light, since the KL5A head can support up to 3 primary cells, or in other words up to 9 volts.

I was curious about the runtime quotes by Surefire as well. I thought the new version was supposed to run longer than the original LuxV version, but my luxV head ran around 45min as well with protected RCR123's. I would like to think an SSCP4 emitter producing the same lumens as a luxV would be more efficeint From what I gather, the two different versions seem to have similar runtimes as well as output.

All that aside, I can tell you that I like the beam much better on the KL5A. It has more "punch" than the luxV version, and is still nice and smooth.....a very nice light overall

Running your KL5 (Lux V) with two RCR123's will have produced a very bright light, much brighter than running 2CR123's and it should be brighter than the KL5A with two RCR123's. Sort of ran in overdrive for awhile and probably about 50% brighter, if not more.

Bill