Quark AA 14500 vs Rayovac 4.0 Beam Shot Time Lapse

Quark AA 14500 vs NiMH beam shot time lapse video Please watch in HD and pause to see details.

I babysat a Quark AA Regular XPG R5 for a few days and as usual, put it through it's paces.

There will be more videos in a few days (vs Quark AA2, D10, EagleTac P20A2, etc, etc, etc) but for now, I figured I could address a pretty critical question...

How does the Quark AA do when fed 14500 Li-ion cells?

The answer? Friggin awesome. The light really comes alive. I tested both TrustFire (red and black) and UltraFire (grey) 900 mAh batteries and was beyond pleased with it's performance. Enough so that I may be buying one soon.

Observations
1) 14500 on max brightness is stunningly bright for a single AA light. I think it's even a little brighter than the Quark AA2 on Max. My "gut" lumen sphere would guess the light is in the neighborhood of 210-230 lumens. I will post another video soon with a direct comparison to the Quark AA2, EagleTac P20A2 MKII, and my NiteCore D10 Tribute so we can confirm or deny this. No question that it is MUCH brighter than my D10.

2) Quark appears to be DRASTICALLY understating their run times for the XPG R5 AA regular. Rayovac 4.0 LSD NiMH cells ran for 1.8 hours on max (manufacturer quotes 1.2 hours). I repeated this twice and got the exact same duration both times. I did a med mode (22 lmns) test and quit at 7.3 hours cause my camera battery had died 5 hours in (and it was past sunrise), but the light was still cruising along fine (4Sevens quotes 6 hrs)

3) 14500 gives between 2.7 and 3.2 hours on high (85 lumens). Brightness is indistinguishable from the NiMH.

4) 14500 heat buildup is completely acceptable. The light gets toasty, but by no means alarmingly hot, even after 50 minutes continuous. Not really that much different than my D10.

Click here for more beam shot time lapse vids and commentary
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Wow, entopics. Nice videos! Thanks.

I use Eneloops with my Quark and was interested in whether an upgrade to 14500 li-ions would make sense. With the cost for 14500 batteries and an investment in a charger, I'm not sure if the increased runtime is worth it. Still, that brightness on a single cell is pretty sweet.

Entoptics,

your "gut" sphere is pretty darn accurate . I hope you don't mind me posting this here. If you do, let me know and I'll edit to remove.

OTF Lumens, Mode - Max:

Took over a month to get a reply...:shrug:

The sphere numbers are an excellent contribution to the thread. Don't suppose you have an eneloop test anywhere?

Personally, I think the 14500 is ideal for the Quark. Since the high mode is so close to the max mode on AA (in terms of perceived brightness), a person can get all the versatility of an Eneloop, but with the option of a "crazy bright" for brief periods, and considerably longer runtimes on all other levels.

Other than a 30% shorter runtime, it's like having a 2xAA light in a 1xAA package.

entoptics said:

Took over a month to get a reply...:shrug:

Click to expand...

If it makes you feel any better, you were right near the top of my Google search.

Edit: And your Youtube video was listed in the search results, too.

entoptics said:

Took over a month to get a reply...:shrug:

Click to expand...

Sometimes great things go unnoticed :shrug:......But eventually those things are found and appreciated :thumbsup:

entoptics said:

The sphere numbers are an excellent contribution to the thread. Don't suppose you have an eneloop test anywhere?

Personally, I think the 14500 is ideal for the Quark. Since the high mode is so close to the max mode on AA (in terms of perceived brightness), a person can get all the versatility of an Eneloop, but with the option of a "crazy bright" for brief periods, and considerably longer runtimes on all other levels.

Other than a 30% shorter runtime, it's like having a 2xAA light in a 1xAA package.

Click to expand...

Sorry, no NiMH measurements. I've always preferred to use Lithium batteries because of their benefits, and I don't even own any NiMH batteries or chargers....well, I take that back, I bought some Duracell AA NiMH's with a charger once for a digital camera that I only used once every 3 months or so (this was pre-CPF), and when I bought them I thought, "man, this will be just the ticket. All I have to do is charge these batteries, store them in my camera bag and I'm good to go the next time I need to use my camera". Needless to say, the next time I needed the camera, it powered up and then immediately shut back down due to the fact that the batteries had self discharged while sitting in my camera bag.

That really left a sour taste in my mouth, especially since I was at an event that my niece was attending and I planned to take pictures of her and didn't get to. I know Eneloops are a great improvement, but I still prefer Lithium's.

Anyway, enough rambling about that. You're right about a 14500 in a low voltage head being about the same brightness as a low voltage head using 2-AA's. The low voltage head with 2- Alkaline AA's is roughly 30 OTF lumens less than the the same head on a 14500, and the same head with 2- Energizer Lithium's (L91's or 8x) is roughly 15 OTF lumens less than than with a 14500.

I edc my quark AA-tactical warm with a 14500. I mainly use the "high" mode, but I love that I can also use the "max" mode that would otherwise require the AA^2.