Quark 123: What's With the Green?

I just bought my second Quark 123 flashlight and love it. It's the right size and the reason I bought it is because of its "Moonlight Mode." It provides fairly decent light for reading or poking around looking for something around the house or tent. The only thing I don't like is the green tint that is found on the lower light settings. It uses the XP-G R5 LED. The box says that the entire Quark line uses this LED.

My Olight M20 also uses this LED, but I don't get the same green tint. Okay, there's a little green, but it's not nearly as noticeable as it is on the Quark.

Again, I like the Quark; I just don't really like the green. I've read some complaints on this forum, but by now I had hoped the Quark would be more white.

Confederate said:

I just bought my second Quark 123 flashlight and love it. It's the right size and the reason I bought it is because of its "Moonlight Mode." It provides fairly decent light for reading or poking around looking for something around the house or tent. The only thing I don't like is the green tint that is found on the lower light settings. It uses the XP-G R5 LED. The box says that the entire Quark line uses this LED.

My Olight M20 also uses this LED, but I don't get the same green tint. Okay, there's a little green, but it's not nearly as noticeable as it is on the Quark.

Again, I like the Quark; I just don't really like the green. I've read some complaints on this forum, but by now I had hoped the Quark would be more white.

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http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?320811-Changing-LED-Tint-With-Filters

this fixed my green tint problem....

quark x on the lower modes is greenish too. i can live with it because i paid less thru the black friday blitz weekend sale. a perfect tint with any flashlight is desirable. luckily the quark series offers xml neutralwhite, and xpg high cri, and also warmwhite.

why havent you bought the high cri or neutralwhite quark?

I think the problem is that the tint appears as the voltage decreases. Even on old Xenon bulbs, when batteries began wearing out the tint would change. I'm not willing to go to filters to fix the problem because they cut the output of the light. The green tint is only mildly irritating, but more so because some people say they got white lights when they got the same lights! My Olight M20 doesn't have a tint anywhere near as green as the Quark 123. But all I want to do is see, so I'm not going to complain too much. Runtime means more to me than anything, so I don't want to sacrifice that for a tint improvement.

I picked up a distinct distaste for green when I was a photographer. Fluorescent lights drove me nuts until digital photography came to my rescue (and by that I include Photoshop, which predated digital cameras). Yes, I had and used a fluorescent filter, but getting the color balance right was still a pain. Movie directors for some reason didn't care, either. Watch The Matrix sometime. The green tint in the office shots was irritating but may have been intentional.

The green tint in my Quark 123 seems worse in the lower modes. I wish 4Sevens would work on it, though.

Tho a lot of good that will do me!

Confederate said:

I just bought my second Quark 123 flashlight and love it. It's the right size and the reason I bought it is because of its "Moonlight Mode." It provides fairly decent light for reading or poking around looking for something around the house or tent. The only thing I don't like is the green tint that is found on the lower light settings. It uses the XP-G R5 LED. The box says that the entire Quark line uses this LED.

My Olight M20 also uses this LED, but I don't get the same green tint. Okay, there's a little green, but it's not nearly as noticeable as it is on the Quark.

Again, I like the Quark; I just don't really like the green. I've read some complaints on this forum, but by now I had hoped the Quark would be more white.

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How does the 123 and the M20 tint compare on higher settings?

The problem with the lights shifting green isn't any issue with the lights themselves but with the way they dim and how dim they go. Quarks use current based regulation and dimming. This means that the current level is lowered and the voltage decreases some as well in order to dim the light. With l.e.d.s, if you decrease the voltage to a certain extent, the l.e.d.s shift to a greener tint. With lights that dim down to maybe 5 or 10% of full brightness, this color shift usually isn't an issue. However, lights that dim down to almost nothing will see much worse color shifting towards green. This effect is worsened when you take the most efficient l.e.d.s made that can put out 400 to 1,000+ lumens and dim them down to nearly nothing. For example, 5% brightness for a Cree XM-L would be around 50 lumens. I would expect under this level you will start noticing a color shift towards green. If you want a light that dims a lot without shifting green, go with a light with high frequency pulse width modulation dimming. Personally, I would like to see a company that uses a hybrid system for dimming: current based dimming for about 5%-100% to avoid any flickering effect of the light and PWM dimming for anything lower than 5% to avoid green color shifting. As l.e.d.s become brighter and more efficient, I think a hybrid dimming system will become more essential.

Hooked on Fenix said:

Personally, I would like to see a company that uses a hybrid system for dimming: current based dimming for about 5%-100% to avoid any flickering effect of the light and PWM dimming for anything lower than 5% to avoid green color shifting. As l.e.d.s become brighter and more efficient, I think a hybrid dimming system will become more essential.

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notsofast said:

How does the 123 and the M20 tint compare on higher settings?

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I think "Hooked on Fenix" called it correctly. The light is fairly white at full blast, but as voltage decreases it goes a bit green. He stated "lights that dim down to almost nothing will see much worse color shifting towards green. This effect is worsened when you take the most efficient l.e.d.s made that can put out 400 to 1,000+ lumens and dim them down to nearly nothing." By maintaining a white balance, I think you would give up some runtime (tho I don't think it's ever been shown). I would like to see some runtime comparisons on the lower settings because I don't think voltage regulation towards the white can be maintained while maintaining the long runtimes.

The lowest M20 setting is a bit green as well. The "X" version has substantially less runtime on the lowest setting while its marketing claims it to have "superior" circuitry. I'd rather have a green-but-longer-runtime than a white beam that has a lower runtime.

Confederate said:

I think "Hooked on Fenix" called it correctly. The light is fairly white at full blast, but as voltage decreases it goes a bit green. He stated "lights that dim down to almost nothing will see much worse color shifting towards green. This effect is worsened when you take the most efficient l.e.d.s made that can put out 400 to 1,000+ lumens and dim them down to nearly nothing." By maintaining a white balance, I think you would give up some runtime (tho I don't think it's ever been shown). I would like to see some runtime comparisons on the lower settings because I don't think voltage regulation towards the white can be maintained while maintaining the long runtimes.

The lowest M20 setting is a bit green as well. The "X" version has substantially less runtime on the lowest setting while its marketing claims it to have "superior" circuitry. I'd rather have a green-but-longer-runtime than a white beam that has a lower runtime.

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So in other words the M20 would be equally green if it went as low as the 123, correct?