cmg reactor ...

Hello, all:

Does anyone out there own one? Any thoughts? I am looking into buying my first Luxeon LED light, and based on features and price, I am thinking about getting one. I own a number of LED lights of different shapes, sizes, and configurations. Does the Luxeon really provide 10x the output of 'conventional' LED's as advertised?

Thanks for any input!

Careful with the CMG Reactor. You'll need to feed it Lithium AAs. Otherwise, it would probably be as dim as a Photon with alkalines or any other rechargeable...

But with Lithiums, it's quite bright, and lasts about 10 hours on it... And it is as bright as 15-20 nichias. Just about all Luxeons are at least 15X brighter than "conventional" LED emitters.

Well, In My Humble Opinion
If you buy a Reactor you won't see the 10X performance. But it is the cheapest Luxeon you can get. You can search the past post, lots of information.
FYI

Any other Luxeon lights out there in that price range? The Arc $100+ price tag seems a bit steep. I will be ordering the Inretech Luxeon drop-in for the Mini-M*g as soon as the holiday bills are taken care of.

FalconFX:

You mentioned that the Reactor will need lithium cells to function at full brightness, with alkalines and rechargeables only providing the output of a Photon ... is this a problem limited to the Reactor, or does this happen with all Luxeon lights? I haven't heard of this before on previous posts about Luxeons.

Oops.
Doubled up on posting the above.
Please delete at your convenience.
Sorry.

This is a "feature" limited to the Reactor and the InReTech 2AA (it's not really a defect; as I believe both lights are not regulated, meaning the higher the voltage and current, the much brighter the output)... I have both lights, and both respond like night and day with Lithium AAs installed in them instead of alkalines or rechargeables... So far, the Reactor and the InReTech 2AA are the only 2 LS based lights I know of that suffer from anorexia if not fed lithiums...

If you want a really bright light, and want to spend much less than $100, then I'd suggest checking out Dat2Zip's dropin modules and order a Bad Boy 500, and putting it into a m$n$m$g of your color choice... It would cost you, in all, no more than $70 (including accessories) for one of the brightest, if not THE BRIGHEST, 2AA based single LED flashlights available...

http://home.attbi.com/~theledguy/cpf_store/sandwiches.htm

...Moved to LED...

--dan