Longest Lasting Light

Anyone have any idea which handheld light has the longest run time?



Not what the manufacturer *claims* - but rather what is actually the record holder - more or less?

For LED and incandescant I know of one that goes for 875 hours straight 24/7 on the medium setting (which is still a decent usable light using 4 alkaline D cells without any recharging or other external help , don't know lumens, if you were stuck in a mineshaft for weeks it would be great). It uses the walmart sold, 3 LED bulb that fits into a regular socket (you may have to file off nubs on sides of base to make it fit). I think it could run well over 1000 hours if only 1 LED were used.
For incandescant : I know of one that goes to over 100 hours on med low setting, using standard 3 volt bulb (really its a 2.4 v bulb); same 4 D alkaline batteries.
Both lights use a special circuit that gleans more energy out of the cells.
Tests have proven there are more joules of energy in the cells than most people know about, and that most devices can use, the circuit manipulates how the cells are used thus getting the longer run times.

z_lightheaded_1 said:

Anyone have any idea which handheld light has the longest run time?



Not what the manufacturer *claims* - but rather what is actually the record holder - more or less?

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I would like to see how long a 7D cell maglite would run using the same moonlight mode featured on the 4sevens quark lights, that would be crazy. Any guesstimates on how long one could run theoretically?

tritium light. 10-ish years.

Going to take a wild guess this nite-ize PR dropin in a 6D mag. I dont have any real numbers to back it up, other than that mine lasted FOREVER in a 2D mag with alkalines. Probably the most boring light I ever owned.. A real snooze-fest, so I converted it over to an ROP LOW. although one could argue that a 6D mag is not really hand held.

Mdinana said:

tritium light. 10-ish years.

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This is probably the winner, since it merely halves brightness after 12 years. A Luce De Notte or one of B@rt's knob-torches would still be useable well after that time since they use magnification and/or reflectors.

CPF user Powernoodle left his HDS on moonlight strobe for roughly four years over in the Marketplace. While that's technically not useable light, the HDS' 0.08 lumen minimum mode gives it a rather large advantage.

A NiteIze 10mm in a 6D should manage right around 200 hours in regular use. There should be some relatively simple math involved to determine what the milliamp draw would be in a regulated moon mode, but I don't have a standard Mag to interpolate the numbers.

Duracell makes a portable power pack that is essentially a large car battery with its own inverter and outlets built in - the largest model has a small LED light built into it.

kramer5150 said:

Going to take a wild guess this nite-ize PR dropin in a 6D mag. I dont have any real numbers to back it up, other than that mine lasted FOREVER in a 2D mag with alkalines.

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Let's do some simple math to try to give an estimated run time for these two combinations.

Assuming the D cells have 15,000mAh of capacity at low discharge rates and the Nite Ize half Watt drop-in draws 200mA on two cells (at least mine did), we get 75 hours of run time out of this combination. A 6 cell D-Mag would have three times more energy than a 2D so you end up with about 225 hours. You would probably get even more than that because with 6 cells the batteries are seeing about 1/3 the current draw compared to a 2D and alkalines seemingly have more capacity when you drain them slower. I'd say that you should probably get 10 days straight out of a 6D MagLite using one of those bulbs.

The old HDS EDC lights (Pre-NovaTac line). Low mode has been recorded to run for over 900 hours continuous. Upgade to an XP-G and that's still a pretty decent amount of light. I had one, for a while (a B42XR upgraded to a cold white P4 by Milkyspit) and even on lowest output it was pretty darn bright.

There is someone doing a runtime test for the new Clickies. I can't remember if it's an older gen (10 second "burst" mode) or a new gen (different threads, 40second burst, etc), but he hasn't posted if it's turned off yet, and it's been a few weeks. The Rotaries, unfortunately, have a ~6 continuous runtime, as they have very high electronics overhead current.

But still, 900 plus hours from a single CR123 aint too shabby.

Fenix TK41 has 240h/10days of runtime at lowest 10 lumen setting.

That's pretty good for 8x alkaline AA and I'm sure it'll last longer with 8x 1.5v Lithium AAs.

Look at it from the 'Longest Useful Light' as opposed to the Longest Lasting Light. If i can't maneuver around or read with a minimum amount of light, then it serves no practical purpose.

My 5th Gen Surefire L1-Red has been going for 1,226 hrs...or 51 days roughly. I can still read by it, but the navigation use of it ran out around 170'ish hours...

Check out this thread.

http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/sho...-world-testing!

Quark AA²
XP-E : 1152 hours : Energizer Ultimate Lithium : Moonlight

If I were going to have a single mode light that was just for long runtime for when the power was off or stuck in a cave or lost in the woods then about 2.5 lumens would be fine.

If it's dark and I go out in my backyard with a light and don't want to disturb the neighbors and I"m just picking up things left in the yard to be put away 2.5 lumens is the setting I usually use.

So if I've done the rough numbers in my head correctly you should be about 50 hours or roughly 2 days runtime on a single AA.

You can pick your preferred power source and figure it from there. Two AA 4 days, two C cells 12 days.