Beamshoots of Quark, LiteFlux, NiteCore, ...

[size=+3]Beamshoot comparison to 4Sevens Quark AA/123[/size]



For my danish review of Quark AA and Quark 123 I did a comparison with some common AA/CR123 lights and took beamshoots of the lights. I have collected all the beamshoots here.
The lights included are: 4Sevens Quark 123, NiteCore EX10, Fenix P2D, LiteFlux LF3XT, SUreFire Backup, 4Sevens Quark AA, NiteCore D10, Fenix LD10, NiteCore EZ AA, LiteFlux LF5XT, Proton Pro.




The graphic above shows the maximal light output for the different lighs, this is measured with a ceiling bounce.



Next I have combining all the leves in one graph with a log scale, but some lights has a low that is below the minimum scale (Quark AA/123, NiteCore D10/EX10, LiteFlux LF5XT, Proton Pro). For lights with fully adjustable output, only the min and max level is shown, this is NiteCore D10, LiteFlux LF5XT, Proton Pro, NiteCore EX10, LiteFlux LF3XT.



The above graph is a measure of lux at a fixed distance and then scaled to make Quark AA 100%


[size=+2]Max light output[/size]

Quark AA eneloop, Quark AA LiIon, NiteCore D10


Fenix LD10, NiteCore EZ AA eneloop, NiteCore EZ AA LiIon


LiteFLux LF5XT eneloop, LiteFlux LF5XT LiIon, Proton Pro


Quark 123, NiteCore EX10, Fenix P2D


LiteFlux LF3XT, SureFire Backup


OLight M30 Quad die led



[size=+2]Max light output with reduced exposure[/size]

Quark AA eneloop, Quark AA LiIon, NiteCore D10


Fenix LD10, NiteCore EZ AA eneloop, NiteCore EZ AA LiIon


LiteFLux LF5XT eneloop, LiteFlux LF5XT LiIon, Proton Pro


Quark 123, NiteCore EX10, Fenix P2D


LiteFlux LF3XT, SureFire Backup


OLight M30 Quad die led



[size=+2]Min light output[/size]
Lights with a low that does not show on the pictures are excluded from this list.

Fenix LD10, NiteCore EZ AA eneloop, NiteCore EZ AA LiIon


LiteFLux LF5XT eneloop, LiteFlux LF5XT LiIon, Fenix P2D


SureFire Backup


OLight M30 Quad die lysdiode



[size=+2]Quark AA[/size]


eneloop: moonlight, low, medium


eneloop: high, max


LiIon: max


eneloop moonlight:


eneloop low:


eneloop medium:


eneloop high:


eneloop max:


LiIon max:



[size=+2]NiteCore D10[/size]


The low setting is not shown.

Max:


Max:



[size=+2]Fenix LD10[/size]


Low, medium, high


Turbo


Low


Medium


High


Turbo



[size=+2]NiteCore EZ AA[/size]


See some more beamshoots here: NiteCore EZ AA

eneloop: low, high


LiIon: low, high


eneloop low


eneloop high


LiIon low


LiIon high



[size=+2]LiteFlux LF5XT[/size]


eneloop: low, high


LiIon: low, high



eneloop low


eneloop high


LiIon low


LiIon high



[size=+2]Proton pro[/size]


This light also has a red led.
The low setting is not shown.

High


High



[size=+2]Quark 123[/size]


Moonlight, low, medium


High, max


Moonlight:


Low:


Medium:


High:


Max:



[size=+2]NiteCore EX10[/size]


The low setting is not shown.

Max:


Max:



[size=+2]Fenix P2D[/size]


Low, medium, high


Turbo


Low


Medium


High


Turbo



[size=+2]LiteFlux LF3XT[/size]


The low setting is not shown.
High


High



[size=+2]SureFire Backup[/size]


Low, high


Low


High

thanks for those buddy I will be buying the quark AA it certainly seems like a great edc flashlight

Good job man. Appreciate it.

Waiting on the warm emitters.

HKJ, thanks for such a great comparison of these lights. This is a very useful review. Your bar-graphs are just what I was looking for. I was particularly interested in the new Quarks.

Hugh

Thanks for taking and posting such a bunch of beamshots :twothumbs

PS: i never expected the EZaa beeing such a monster with li-ion

i thought Nitecore EZAA can't take li-io.....

berry580 said:

i thought Nitecore EZAA can't take li-io.....

Click to expand...

The revised version is supposed to, but I am a bit worried about the high output and will only use NiMH in mine.

Thanks for your time, HKJ!

Awesome comparison!

Those pictures in lygte-info website are amazing too... Thanks for posting them!

I have done some updating:

A few of the pictures had white balance problems, to fix that I redid all photos with locked daylight white balance (This did not include any picture taking, just another processing of the raw files). It might be necessary to press F5 to update the pictures (Check the Quake 123 and M30 pictures, the grass must be green, not white).

I also added a graph of throw.

Thanks for the beam shots! I wasn't aware you could get more lumens out of the Quark AA with a 14500! Nice!

Why Surefire Backup has so little output? It runs with cr123a...

mefistofele86 said:

Why Surefire Backup has so little output? It runs with cr123a...

Click to expand...

The E1B is rated for 80 lumens. Some people may get lucky and have ones with 100-120 lumens. There are many other LED lights out there producing 150-200 out the front lumens.

The E1B uses an optic to focus the lumens it does have into a tight and bright hot spot, with some spill. So it looks brighter than a lot of other lights that have more lumens as their lumens are more spread out into a larger hot spot and brighter spill.

WadeF said:

The E1B is rated for 80 lumens. Some people may get lucky and have ones with 100-120 lumens. There are many other LED lights out there producing 150-200 out the front lumens.

The E1B uses an optic to focus the lumens it does have into a tight and bright hot spot, with some spill. So it looks brighter than a lot of other lights that have more lumens as their lumens are more spread out into a larger hot spot and brighter spill.

Click to expand...

mmm

Is there the possibility that i have got an E1B with 100-120 lumens???

How can i do to have it?

mefistofele86 said:

mmm

Is there the possibility that i have got an E1B with 100-120 lumens???

How can i do to have it?

Click to expand...

If you had a lightmeter you could compare bounce lux readings with your other lights and sort of figure where your E1B is at, lumen wise. I think that the E1B beam shots at the grass show the beam to be very bright in the center spot compared to most of the other lights.

Bill

HKJ, thank you for all the information. Do you know why the Quark AA is brighter on a Li-Ion battery than the Quark 123? Shouldn't the head be the same in both these lights?

wapkil said:

HKJ, thank you for all the information. Do you know why the Quark AA is brighter on a Li-Ion battery than the Quark 123? Shouldn't the head be the same in both these lights?

Click to expand...

Yes, the head is supposed to be the same, my guess is tolerances on led and driver.

if you get bored with those i will take a donation of all your quarks/fenix/nitecore , nice job

Thanks -- most interesting results.

I've been considering a SF Backup as my next EDC.
Now that I have the AA Quark and see what a quality product it is, I'm not so sure, especially after your tests.

(And looking at your photo of the Backup and the Quark side-by-side, I'm really not sure, since the two are so close in size. I know that the SF has plenty of advantages, but I'm no longer sure I need to spend that kind of money.)

As to the Quark, I didn't know if I'd like the UI. But that was before I tried it. It's as much fun as my favorite pocket carry, the D10R2.

Two wishes:

1) For a tighter clip and one that, like the D10, allows nearly the entire torch to stay hidden inside the pocket.

2) For a clicky that doesn't require quite so much pressure.

Wonder if I could replace the clicky on my standard Quark with that on the forthcoming tactical model.

Or would I have to return the whole light and get the tactical instead?

Any suggestions on either the clip or the clicky?

HKJ said:

Yes, the head is supposed to be the same, my guess is tolerances on led and driver.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the answer. I just read your detailed Danish review (translated by google) - there are really interesting measurement results there but I don't understand some of them. The current consumption for the high and low modes looks normal to me but something strange happens on medium. The light consumes 130mA - that's less than 180mW on a fresh NiMH battery. The power consumption shouldn't change during the runtime so it should also mean that even an Eneloop would be able to power the light for more than 12 hours. Yet the specification gives only 6 hours in this mode. Could you comment on this? Was there something in the translation that made me misunderstand this result?

Below the current measurements you placed the plots of the voltage as a function of time. Are those oscilloscope measurements of the voltage on a photodiode? Does it mean that the Quarks use the PWM (albeit a high frequency one)?

EIDT: I just noticed that you made also a review of the Quark 123. My questions are related to the Quark AA review.