Quark MiNi AA vs El Capitan

I'm trying to decide which light to get. Both are XP-G R5, run about the same price.

The annoying thing is that El Capitan measure their brightness with Candlepower while everyone else measure their brightness with Lumen.

Anyone know their brightness running off Ni-Mh as well as 14500?

As Rolls Royce would say... "Adequate"

Can't remember who, someone here once said to get lumens from candlepower, just divide the CP by half.

Anyway... I can't find any El Capitan images.... Anyone?

Zeruel said:

Anyway... I can't find any El Capitan images.... Anyone?

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I got this link from the above CPF avertisement banner.

http://www.em-mgt.com/LED/Peak.html

It's under Mountain Series.

Edit: if having a link here is bad, I can remove it.

Zeruel said:

Can't remember who, someone here once said to get lumens from candlepower, just divide the CP by half.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately that is completely incorrect. There is no conversion possible from lumens to candlepower. They're measuring two completely different things.

Pretty much all you need to know is the drive current and from there you can get a rough estimate range of how many lumens the light is putting out at the emitter. However I wouldn't buy either light based upon the lumen value. They are two pretty different beasts. The Mini is a multimode light with a reflector, the El Cap is a single mode (with an optic I think).

I regret that finding a lot of information as well as pictures of Peak lights is very difficult. I haven't seen a picture of an El Cap yet. Hence the main reason Peak lights aren't as popular as they could/should be.

Peak LED list the El Capitan being 1850 CP. If you dive this by half, that's 900 Lumen off a 14500. That can't be right.

If I remember correctly, candlepower measure the brightness at one spot (ie white wall) while the beam shine on it. Lumen measure how much light passes through (ie the glass in front of the light).

CalgaryGuy said:

I got this link from the above CPF avertisement banner.

http://www.em-mgt.com/LED/Peak.html

It's under Mountain Series.

Edit: if having a link here is bad, I can remove it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I missed it because it looks like Eiger.

PhantomPhoton said:

Unfortunately that is completely incorrect. There is no conversion possible from lumens to candlepower. They're measuring two completely different things.

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You're probably right. I found this advice when I was researching for a possible conversion method to decide which Eiger to get.

I'm not sure now, if Peak claims "The candlepower is about four times the output of our AAA Eiger #8", maybe El Capitan is about 350 lumens? Where's Curt and Robyn when you need them... :candle:

But I've found this post by Curt which might be helpful for an estimate.

PhantomPhoton said:

Pretty much all you need to know is the drive current and from there you can get a rough estimate range of how many lumens the light is putting out at the emitter. However I wouldn't buy either light based upon the lumen value. They are two pretty different beasts. The Mini is a multimode light with a reflector, the El Cap is a single mode (with an optic I think).

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The only reason that I'm comparing them is because that both lights run off AA and I'm looking for a good XP-G R5 AA light.

Edit: I see what you mean now with the single mode. I wasn't sure of what the Output # mean at first.

I have an El Cap and love it. I should receive the mini AA this week. Sorry, I'm not in to the lumens etc. but I will post a subjective comparison if you like.

id bet the cap is less bright but will last forever.

swannyj said:

I have an El Cap and love it. I should receive the mini AA this week. Sorry, I'm not in to the lumens etc. but I will post a subjective comparison if you like.

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That would be great! Please also include the power level of your El Capitan in the comparison.

Zeruel said:

I'm not sure now, if Peak claims "The candlepower is about four times the output of our AAA Eiger #8", maybe El Capitan is about 350 lumens? Where's Curt and Robyn when you need them... :candle:

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At the moment it isn't practical to get 350 lumens out of an XP-G. In the XP-G thread in the LED section, someone said that with the higher bin S2 (not yet released) it might be possible to create a light which has 300 OTF lumens

Received the mini last night but I only had time for a quick comparison. I'd say (strictly subjective) the El C (level 8) is slightly brighter and offers a little more spill. I'm taking both to work with me tonight (outdoor school) so hopefully I'll be able to use them more side by side. BTW, since the Peak already had 14500 bat that is what I am using in the mini.

On a side note I can vouch for the durability of the peak. I have dropped it on concrete twice and it remained unscathed. I think I am biased, I really love the Peak.

PhantomPhoton said:

Pretty much all you need to know is the drive current and from there you can get a rough estimate range of how many lumens the light is putting out at the emitter.
I regret that finding a lot of information as well as pictures of Peak lights is very difficult. I haven't seen a picture of an El Cap yet. Hence the main reason Peak lights aren't as popular as they could/should be.

Click to expand...

+1

When looking at lights, I just want to know what the LED current is so I can calculate lumens. Moving from a L2D Q5 driven at 700mA through a Q5 or 180 LED lumens to a Turbo AA2 which is also driven at 700mA, I calculate 270 lumens at the LED.

I know Peak is working on a multi-mode tail switch and I look forward to 2 or 3 levels. If the El Capitan can be switched, then all I need to know is the drive level to the LED. Since I want a single AA light driven from a single 2000mAH Eneloop battery to have 90 minutes of runtime, I can spec a El Capitan to meet that requirement. Another interesting thing is the optic, once a narrow optic is available...the XP-G can have decent throw with a small head. The Turbo AA2 has great throw but the head is rather large and heavy so...

Maybe Curt and put up a chart with each drive level current to the LED? Then throw how much current it pulls from a NiMH and 14500 li-ion cell? It would be simple to match the drive level to lumens at the LED and calculate run times from the battery.

Once the multi-level switch becomes available, different optics to change the beam shape and those charts are in effect, I can custom build the El Capitan to what I want.

I am aware that LED lumens are not equal to out the front lumens but at least I have a solid number to calculate from. Optics are nice since they give a percentage (78 to 87%) of lumen loss and you can calculate the lumen loss through the lens (or window) For now, I would say a XP-G driven at 300mA is 126.4 LED lumens then calculate 83% for the optic (105 lumens) and take off 2% for the window for around 100 lumens OTF. Choose the optic to give the beam width/spill and order that puppy!

For now, I would say 300mA to the emitter, 126 LED lumens and a narrow optic with 90 minutes of run time and 120/25/3 lumen output levels would work for me. I'll take 2 or 3 of those in HA-III aluminum please!