Quark MiNi AA Neutral-white vs Fenix LD01
- Thread starter ELDRAW
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burntoshine
Enlightened
i actually have a similar issue. can't decide whether i should keep my Fenix LOD on my keychain, or kick it off and make room for a NW mini.
to the best of my knowledge, no one has a Quark mini AA neutral-white as of yet, so i don't think anyone can truly compare them. you could compare the LD01 to the regular (cool white) mini AA though. the LEDs in the neutral whites will be different and it will probably change the beam a bit
the neutral-white Quark minis are supposed to ship on tuesday.
i can't wait to get mine!
to the best of my knowledge, no one has a Quark mini AA neutral-white as of yet, so i don't think anyone can truly compare them. you could compare the LD01 to the regular (cool white) mini AA though. the LEDs in the neutral whites will be different and it will probably change the beam a bit
the neutral-white Quark minis are supposed to ship on tuesday.
i can't wait to get mine!
OK thanks for the info! I have looked for the regular cool white mini AA but cant seem to find it anywhere, could someone post a link to a place selling it?
And any ideas which would throw the farthest??
cheers
ZaVoo
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Look at burntoshine's sig
thanks but isn't that the neutral white version not the regular cool white??
ELDRAW...to answer your question, neither one of them are really "throwers". If I had to venture a guess, I'd hafta say that the LD01 would probably throw farthest out of the two due to the type of LED it uses. The LD01 uses an XRE, while the Quark Mini AA uses an XPG. As a rule of thumb, the XRE's are known for their throw more than the XPG's which are more known for their VERY nice flood characteristics. OTOH, the Quark has a larger reflector, so all things considered it may throw farther than the LD01! You'll probably hafta wait for somebody who has both to chime in on this one. But like I said, neither one of them would be considered a "thrower"...that's not what they're really designed for, and their LED's and reflectors don't really support "throw" all that well. Hope that helped...
PJD
PJD
YellowLemon
Newly Enlightened
..........
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YellowLemon
Newly Enlightened
Hello!
I just signed up to this forum after reading for a few weeks.. such great info!
I'm looking to get a good keychain light and initially decided on the Fenix LD01 , but then everyone is raving about these Quark Minis......
Does anyone have a picture of the Mini's (123 and AA) along with the LD01?
Thanks in advance!
I just signed up to this forum after reading for a few weeks.. such great info!
I'm looking to get a good keychain light and initially decided on the Fenix LD01 , but then everyone is raving about these Quark Minis......
Does anyone have a picture of the Mini's (123 and AA) along with the LD01?
Thanks in advance!
The Quark Mini 123 and AA both use XPG's, not XPE's. The XPG has a larger emitting surface than the XPE, and doesn't support throw as well.
PJD
olrac
Flashlight Enthusiast
Sgt. LED
Flashaholic
Yes the neutral will have more throw. 
Q3 5A3 actually.
YellowLemon
Newly Enlightened
Serious? Even though it has less 'lumens'?Yes the neutral will have more throw.
burntoshine
Enlightened
...here's how to buy the minis, if you still need the info:
cool white minis
links to buy neutral white minis
applevision
Flashlight Enthusiast
Hey YellowLemon :welcome:!
There are lots of threads on this and sites about this and wikis about this and probably even a good sticky about this concept, but it is important and I want to boil it down for you here.
Lumens vs. Lux: What's the difference?
Picture a laser beam shining many many feet away with a crisp, clear, tiny dot. Well, that dot of light isn't going to light up a room, but man does it travel far in that concentrated package! If you used a lux meter and shined the laser on there, it might read a pretty high number--in other words, it's a lot of light in that small point. That would be a lux reading which is closely related to how well a light "throws".
But you couldn't really light up your room with the laser, you know? That means that the overall amount of light put out (the lumens) is actually pretty low. You can measure lumens (the overall light put out) with a thing called an integrating sphere. This is literally a ball in which you stick the light source and then it sort of diffuses it around the sphere and you measure the total ambient light of the sphere rather than a "point" reading like with lux. A cheap/less-scientific way to do this is called the "ceiling bounce test" where you shine a light up at the ceiling and then look around the room to get a sense of how bright it is. Now you can imagine shining the laser at the ceiling and seeing only a tiny bit of light in the room overall.
Now picture a streetlight. If you put that in your room (aka, ceiling bounce test) it would make it light up like daytime! In the integrating sphere the lumens would be incredible--in looking around the net, some are as high as 30,000 lumens or more! But imagine if you hung a tiny lux meter 500 feet away at the end a long hall... not a whole lot of light (being all floody as it were) would reach that lux meter and so the number would be lower than the laser!
So these are the extremes: a streetlight almost pure flood = high lumens (total light output) and low (relatively speaking) lux
A laser (or laser-like light) with concentrated throw = low lumens (relatively speaking) and high lux.
Of course, the more the overal light output (lumens) the more potential for lux. So if you take a powerful LED putting out lots of lumens and then get a good reflector that concentrates it well, you will get more lux than if you do the same setup with a less powerful LED, of course.
But, what's interesting is that for LED technology at least, in order to get more lumens the die itself is often larger or multiple so it is harder to focus. That is exactly what is going on here: the XP-G emitter in the regular (non-neutral) Quark MiNi is incredible and puts out more lumens than the XR-E in the LD01 (both overall and per unit of power)...but does so at the cost of being a bit larger and thus more floody/harder to focus. So that explains the situation for the regular Quark MiNis vs. the LD01...
But wait--you are asking about the neutral white which uses the XP-E emitter... hmmm... that is probably a LOT closer in size and efficiency to the XR-E used in the LD01... so now it comes down to a few other things:
1. How it is being driven (i.e., how "hard" the light is being pushed)
2. How well the reflector (and these both are teeny tiny!) does its job
3. Variation on bin and between units
My guess is that they will be comparable though "warmer" lights tend to be less powerful (less lumens) so it is feasible that the LD01 will remain the champ here for this "micro" throwing contest... hee hee!
Fellas, does that sound about right?
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amigafan2003
Enlightened
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- 248
No, because the NW Mini AA has a larger reflector.
No.
