Questions on Carley Lamps for Rechargables

I was on the Carley Lamps website looking at their chart of Star Lamps:

Carley Star Lamps

I was thinking about getting the Krypton Star Lamps for Rechargables listed at the bottom of the page to use in my Princeton Tec Tec40 with NiMH AAs. According to the chart, if I used the 4-cell #607, 608, or 609 lamps, it would be a lot brighter than what I currently have, which is overdriving a 3-cell Mag-Lite Krypton Star bulb. Has anyone done this or see a problem with it? What would be the best lamp to get? I am concerned that the higher wattage lamps might melt the lens or reflector. If anyone can lend some advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Alan

Alan,
Try giving Carley a call, they sound real friendly on the phone, they may be able to have some information regarding that application.

Joel

You should not have a problem running those bulbs in your light. The higher current will of course result in shorter runtime but at 10 watts, your reflector should be ok. Stick with the 607 or 608 for extended running. If you only use it intermittently, the 609 would be ok as well. But really, you should stil be fine with the 609 for a few minutes at a time.

Wilkey

Talk to Patty at Carley. She's pretty helpful.

Alan:

The highest wattage bulb I've used in a PT40 with NiMHs for an extended period without damaging the reflector or lens is a standard KPR139 3.85V 1.2 or 1.3 A bulb. (Different catalogues show different amperages.)

The Carley 605 3 cell KPR at 1.5 A is clearly too hot for extended run times. It has caused the inside of my reflector to deform and the silver surface to peel off.

BrightGuy sells replacement reflectors for about $2.50, so a destroyed reflector isn't the end of the world.

I've melted 2 reflectors using Carley lamps: one in my TEC40 and one in an Energizer 'waterproof' AA light. These suckers get HOT! Be Careful!

So if I used the Carley 607 4 cell KPR at 5.0V and 1.2A it should be ok? I wouldn't be overdriving the bulb but looking at the rated candlepower of 8.4, it should be a big improvement of the 2.7 candlepower of the 597 3 cell KPR bulb Carley has listed.

I know I should just go for it and try one of these lamps out since even if I completely destroyed my PT40 it wouldn't be a big monetary loss. But I want to avoid the hassle of special ordering the wrong lamp and I know others here on the forum have a lot more knowledge and experience than I do.

Alan

Alan:

The 5.0 V 1.2 A KPR bulb would only draw about 4.4 V on AA NiMH's at most. Not an attractive choice. KPR's seem very tolerant of overdriving and very yellow underdriven. XPRs and HPR's are generally much less tolerant to overdriving.

A DB6AA 4.2 V 0.70 A 02186 bipin bulb in a Carley 912 PR adapter is a reasonable run time, reasonably bright alternative for the PT40 with NiMHs. At 4.6 V it is rerated at 73 Lumen and 6 hours bulb life.

I need to run lithium AA's to make an XPR rated at 4.8 V and 0.85 A reasonably bright in a PT40.

(The 5.0 V 1.7 A KPR bulb is nice in a Mag 3D with 5 @ 1/2 D Powersteam cells.)

Thanks lemlux, I knew someone here would keep me from making a bad decision. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I mainly wanted to order a Carley lamp for my PT40 to add to the lamps I am buying from Darkcobra to use in my 3XCR123 Mag 2C. For that reason the lamps had to be readily available (not a special order that would take time to pull together). I will try the 604 lamp rated at 3.7V and 1.2A and see if it is noticably brighter without melting anything.

Have fun with that bulb, but be careful.

Alan in Hong Kong runs his PT40s for extended periods in a very warm climate. He doesn't seem to have had good longevity with any bulb > 1.0 Amps.

Ooh,

I withdraw my comments above. Clearly I'm out of my element. Drawing parallels from a Mag application to PT40 application is clearly a bad idea. Nevermind /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Wilkey

Update: As I posted in the 285 Lumen Mag 2C thread, I got my lamps this weekend. The Carley 604 lamp in my PT40 looks great! Compared to a Mag 3 cell krypton bulb, the hotspot is bigger and much brighter with a very white color. There is a faint projection of the filament in the beam. But it does get very hot! I left my PT40 on for periods of 5 minutes and 10 minutes with cooling off time in between to see if it would melt the reflector. After 5 minutes, the lens is too hot to touch. After 10 minutes, there appears to be a few small hairline cracks in the reflective coating at the base of the reflector. It is still very useable though. The whole head gets pretty hot at this point, I am afraid to try 15 minutes of constant on. But for short term use I love this setup...I am going to leave the 604 in my PT40 and maybe order a spare reflector as insurance. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Alan_L

I've had similar good luck for those time periods with the 604 in the PT40.

Next time it gets hot take the bezel off and smell. The smell of denatured plastic will suggest you've gone to far.

(fade to picture of Robert Duvall in "Apocolypse Now" stretching and saying: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!")