Whats the progression?

I have 2 p7 lights, they used to amaze me, now neither do.

from what ive read an sst-50 is only marginally brighter then a p7.

so im guessing i have to now buy a 3 x p7 light?

whats next after that ?

anyone want to map out my next $1000?

What do you have now so we have a measuring stick to use? Also, what do you want, throw, flood, what batteries, what size?

You could just get an SST-90 and call it a day.

p7 mag, and a p7 spear clone.

i had a mag 64? a while ago, it was 1600 lumens.

i have a feeling im going to need HID soon?

i prefer a strong hotspot over flood.

actually im sure id be happier if i could find a light that condenses all the lumens into hotspot, but flood seems to be unavoidable.

and the spear clone in its original r2? form threw well but id like 3-6 times the lumens.


if lumens are non linear, im guessing ill need 2000-3000 otf soon to be impressed.

Or you can do what I did. I realized that I never really used my super bright lights for anything other than trying to impress non-flashaholics. The lights I use now are low-powered but high runtime because those are the ones I actually use on a daily basis. I don't need a 1,000 lumen flashlight that only lasts 3 minutes during a power outage, to work on a computer or look behind my desk for fallen items.

I am facing exactly the same dilemma.....

My first Cree R2 tactical 18650 flashlight - awesome

...now it looks pretty dim.

Since then I've worked my way up to an SST-50 which is awesome, but now seems normal really, however it is too bright for anything closer than 10m away so no good for most everyday things which is where my Quark AA and Fenix LD10 get most use.

The Olight SR90 looks fantastic, but it is only the Lumen junkie in my that wants one, I really have no practical need for what is a search and rescue light, but I still want one.

In many ways the progression is just like everything else in life:

you start small, looking at the bigger and better ones with jealous eyes
you get there yourself and enjoy it for a while, but...
...now it just seems normal
then you calm down a bit and just go for what you need.

So go for an SST-90 light if you want to get to the summit (and part of me will be jealous), but after that, eventually you will come back down to just what you really need even if it doesn't seem quite a bright as it used to.

Oh, and bye the way, my latest light is the PAK-Lite, with run times of months on end, this is the one you want with you when you really need light.

i live in deep dark woods, when i hear a bump i wana see everything.

i have multiple lower lumen long runtime lights. :thumbsup:

ill have to go look at the hid forum i guess?

im not seeing too much love for sst-90s?

i broke down and bought a nailbender triple sst 90 3000+ lumens and it wows me everytime i bust it out. i have a couple other sst 50 modded m@gs and thet just dont get the attention they used to.

waddup said:

i live in deep dark woods, when i hear a bump i wana see everything.

i have multiple lower lumen long runtime lights. :thumbsup:

ill have to go look at the hid forum i guess?

im not seeing too much love for sst-90s?

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Based on what you say, although I don't have one myself if I were you I would go for the Olight SR90.

Instant full brightness rather than the warm up of an HID, got to be just what you are after. You don't want the source of the noise to have got away before the light is at full output.

Wish I had such a good excuse to buy one

sr90 is leik 250 quid for 2200 lumens !:huh:

i bet i can get an hid that does 3x as many 6000 lumens for that money

and lets not get started on moofas

http://www.decware.com/newsite/hwk15.htm

waddup said:

sr90 is leik 250 quid for 2200 lumens !:huh:

i bet i can get an hid that does 3x as many 6000 lumens for that money

and lets not get started on moofas

http://www.decware.com/newsite/hwk15.htm

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£250 is a good price, I thought it comes to around the £315 mark in the UK. (I am assuming that 'quid' refers to pounds and that you are UK based) Where did you see it for that price?

When I looked into HID they seemed to be even more expensive, physically bigger and I believe that the warm up time can be 60s to full brightness.... this will seem like an age compared to an instant 2000Lm!

Oh and if we are talking about bass, you don't have enough if you can still see straight

The progression is.. dangerous. I made a line diagram of my flashlight purchases and the chart quickly ended up looking like the one of Zimbabwe's national debt.:shrug:

I went from crabby DD incandescent 'gas station specials', to the Malkoff MD2, onto the Malkoff Wildcat and I am now in the possession of a Polarion PH-40. I'm not buying anything brighter.lovecpf

subwoofer said:

£250 is a good price, I thought it comes to around the £315 mark in the UK. (I am assuming that 'quid' refers to pounds and that you are UK based) Where did you see it for that price?

When I looked into HID they seemed to be even more expensive, physically bigger and I believe that the warm up time can be 60s to full brightness.... this will seem like an age compared to an instant 2000Lm!

Oh and if we are talking about bass, you don't have enough if you can still see straight

Click to expand...

Most HID's apparently have a warm-up period and cannot be turned on and off quickly without risking damage to the bulb. My Polarion behaves like my LED lights, aside from a slight period of a few seconds where the beam color changes from snow white to sunlight white while the gasses stabilize in the bulb. You get what you pay for with HIDs, I have surmised.

waddup said:

i live in deep dark woods, when i hear a bump i wana see everything.

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The title and the 1st pharse in the OP message tend to let us think that you need a more powerfull flashlight to break the "lumens routine". :devil:

Anyway, you are free to buy whatever you want.

We're all waiting on the Cree XM-L and for more Luxim Plasma lights

I've recently been bitten hard by the Big Lumens Bug. I built a 3D DD SSR-90 MagLite for bigchelis which pushed over 1500 lumens on 3D cells when I had it. After breaking the LED in it pushes close to 2000 lumens now. Now all of the lights in my possession seem so dim by comparison. Even the Elektrolumens Blaster mod that I built for him (MC-E direct-driven by 3 sub-C cells pushing around 700 OTF lumens through a Ledil Iris optic) is impressive compared to the 500 floody OTF lumens from my P7 MagMod. Sheesh!

I'd really recommend a big SSR-90 driven to 1500+ lumens behind a deep Rebel MagLED reflector. That light is impressive! The hotspot is huge because of the large die but it still throws quite nicely.

waddup said:

I have 2 p7 lights, they used to amaze me, now neither do.

from what ive read an sst-50 is only marginally brighter then a p7.

so im guessing i have to now buy a 3 x p7 light?

whats next after that ?

anyone want to map out my next $1000?

Click to expand...

I have tested several 3 P7 Mag builds by some of the best on this forum and they range from just 700~1150ish OTF, yes thats it. Not 2000 OTF like we expected at full power.

The only thing tripple Quad die light that made the power was the LED ZEp Tripple P7 M6 drop-in at 1700ish OTF. It was 1500ish at 3m and had a 5min high max.


Honestly; a Tripple XP-G R5 would be the same brightness or brighter then the tripple P7 because it will generate less heat. I bet youre heatsink will not be as impressive as what PCC has made, so stick with the lower current. Even the big Howitzer tripple MC-E light on full power is just 1200~1400 OTF.


The one thing I would consider is a VARA2000 copper SSR-90 65k tint. These put out a guaranteed 2000 plus OTF on high and 1800/1900 after 4minutes.

good luck,
bigC

Mag Solitaire - 1.4 lumens.
Radio Shack branded Turtlelite/Dorcy Cool Blue - 3 lumens.
Fenix L1P - 30 lumens.
Fenix L1T v2.0 RB80 - 60 lumens.
MTE P7 - 400 lumens.
3C P7 - 500 lumens.
Nitecore EZAA - 130 lumens.
4sevens Quark Mini AA WARMS - 65 lumens.
4sevens Preon 2 WARMS with 1AA body in the mail - 50 lumens.

I seem to be regressing in my old age.

-

EDIT
P7/MCE lights seem to be the biggest lights for comfortable carrying around. I would not want to carry that big monster on the chair around with me all day. (I could not lift it up!) That is probably why my progression stopped going up at the 3C P7 point.

Don't think just raw output. A less-floody light might surprise you in "wow factor".

In particular, you might want to try a triple XP-G light before moving brighter. It should easily top a typical P7 light.

Point-of-reference: I have a 550 emitter lumen D-Mini VX Ultra with SST-50, and a 400 emitter lumen P20C2-II XP-G. The latter consistently puts a bigger smile on my face both indoors, and especially out.

Lumenz said:

Or you can do what I did. I realized that I never really used my super bright lights for anything other than trying to impress non-flashaholics. The lights I use now are low-powered but high runtime because those are the ones I actually use on a daily basis. I don't need a 1,000 lumen flashlight that only lasts 3 minutes during a power outage, to work on a computer or look behind my desk for fallen items.

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This.

The brightest light I ever use is a ~400 lumen Arc6 MC-E, which is useful for lighting up my backyard to find my cat or lighting up my car and the area around it.

If it's far-away enough that you need a throwy 1600-lumen light to see it, slow enough that it hasn't reached you by the time you get the light trained on it, and small enough that you couldn't hear it coming, it doesn't really matter anyway.

waddup said:

i live in deep dark woods, when i hear a bump i wana see everything.

i have multiple lower lumen long runtime lights. :thumbsup:

ill have to go look at the hid forum i guess?

im not seeing too much love for sst-90s?

Click to expand...

I feel safer in the woods than I do walking down the sidewalk. The lions and tigers and bears are all dead now, we killed them all a long time ago. Nothing to worry about.

Besides, the moment you flick on that crazy-bright light, you become dependent on it to see, because you've just demolished your night vision. That will only make the deep dark woods deeper and darker and scarier when you shut it off again.

I think you should get a Hi-CRI light, if you don't have one yet. Use that for a few days until you get used to the lower output, and see what you think of having higher-quality light instead of higher-quantity light.

SST-90s are still pretty rare at this point. If there's not much love for them it's probably because there aren't that many flashlights that can really take advantage of a 9-amp monster emitter right now.

Lumenz said:

Or you can do what I did. I realized that I never really used my super bright lights for anything other than trying to impress non-flashaholics. The lights I use now are low-powered but high runtime because those are the ones I actually use on a daily basis. I don't need a 1,000 lumen flashlight that only lasts 3 minutes during a power outage, to work on a computer or look behind my desk for fallen items.

Click to expand...

+1
Somehow I missed this post. This is pretty much where I am currently. I'm still dreaming of building that monster light, though, because it's fun to dream these little dreams. I just need to put some money down and actually build one or two just to get it out of my system. Then I'll probably sell it and live with my sub-300 lumen lights happily ever after.

I just realized that I haven't used my 500 lumen P7 MagLite since the last CPF GTG some 6 months or so ago. Time to take it apart and rebuild it into something more useful?