XP-G Linger Special with Mag Reflector

Hi Everyone! I'm curious to find out if anyone has tried the Linger Special (2 XP-G emitters running parallel on a single pcb) in a Mag with stock reflector. I currently have a mag modded with a single XP-G running at 1A. I'm thinking about adding another XP-G so that the two run at 500mA each. I'm debating on whether the added cost is worth the benefit.

Any thoughts or experience with a setup similiar to this? How's the beam affected? How much lumen increase? Any beamshots of a single XP-G versus a dual XP-G setup? TIA!

Yes, I made one and sold one and I do have beamshots.

I drove it with a 2.5A driver from shining beam. The beam was decent with the stock reflector, but would look better with an OP or a stock reflector with some sputtering.

I'll try to dig up pictures of my build... Here we go...









If your going to run a Dual XP-G setup, I'd drive them hard at 1A+ each, or its not going to be worth it. When driven to ~2.5A for the pair, the output is very comparable to P7's and MC-E lights, not bad considering there are only two LED dies.

Hi Jason!

Thank you very much for your pictures and thoughts. I'm happy with the runtime I get with 1A level, so I may not end up changing it to the 2 XP-Gs. I noticed you also built single XP-G mags at 1.4A. How did they compare to the Linger Special at 2.5A?

It's about twice the light. Single can throw a bit further (b/c it's centered in the reflector) and will give you a hotspot a good distance out, but single doesn't have near the volume of the double. Running two emitters really puts out a lot more light for near distance (like yard work if your yard is +60feet like mine is) and very helpful in bathing an area with light.

Linger, for 1A builds, would you recommend 1 XP-G at 1A or 2 XP-G @ 500mA?

Maxspeeds, it all depends on what you want it for.
If you're white walling, no choice go with single. Single can throw farther with the right reflector. But if you're just going to use a flood reflector (most xpe/xre are floody with xpg) then could get the added efficiency of using 2xpg? Its a difficult question because at 1A i don't know if you could see the increase in a ceiling bounce (geeze, this would be a good one to try tonight if I remember, see if i have modes close enough to 1a on the single and the double drop-ins)
With-out any tests, I'm going to say at only 1A maybe better off with just a standard single emitter.
If you want to push 1.5A through your emitters though...:devil:
(remember I've put the first one together with a 8x7135 driver)

I've decided that the uses for this light will be an all around general purpose camping light. I'm on the fence right now as to what to do. Last night while playing with a GDuP XR-E in an McR17xr reflector, I hardly noticed a difference between the 180mA and 700mA drive levels. This got me to thinking that maybe running two XP-Gs at maybe even 500mA total (250mA each) would give more light per current draw than one running at 1A.

I found this interesting thread regarding MC-E vs. XR-E at same drive levels: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/218190

I've done more searching and have found a definitive answer regarding current vs. lumens for these XP-G emitters. jtr1962 has done extensive testing and his information is invaluable! See here: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/3115908&postcount=354

at 500mA, XP-G R5 will emit 200.03 lumens. at 1000mA, the same emitter let out 351.09 lumens. Therefore, for my scenario, it would not be worth the extra emitter to get 50 more lumens (400.06 verse 351.09) as this will be very negligible and hard to see with our eyes. It will also reduce the hotspot and throw. However, if you want to and have the capability to run at over 2A, by all means, go with more emitters. You will definitely see the difference! Hopefully this will be of help to some others who were in the same situation. Cheers!

... sounds familiar...has someone posted anything like that before?

Linger said:

... sounds familiar...has someone posted anything like that before?

Click to expand...

You did , but I need definitive numbers. Here's the tables:

jtr1962 said:

Click to expand...

The XP-G is a phenomenal emitter! Even at 2A (528 lumens), it is close in flux to 2 XP-Gs running at 1A (700 lumens). Close enough where it may be worthwhile for some applications to stick with one emitter.

maxspeeds said:

Hi Jason!

Thank you very much for your pictures and thoughts. I'm happy with the runtime I get with 1A level, so I may not end up changing it to the 2 XP-Gs. I noticed you also built single XP-G mags at 1.4A. How did they compare to the Linger Special at 2.5A?

Click to expand...

Quite a bit brighter and more floody.

With the Dual XPG Mag mod I did with the 2.5A driver, it really only did 2.2A off fresh Ni-mh cells, and quickly dropped to 1.7A. So it was not that much brighter than a single XP-G at 1.4A.

Those drivers from shining beam really do a lot better when run off 4x Ni-mh cells, they drive nicely to there rated 2.5A... maybe even a little higher. I was getting 2.8A off 4 fresh enenloops, and the output of the 2 XP-G's on one board was about like what a P7 would be. Pretty impressive little suckers.