Is the Sunwayman V11R REALLY 500 lumuns with an RCR123?

I'm doing some comparisons of my V11R with a 4Sevens Quark X123 x2 I have. Equipped with rechargeable 123's the V11R will supposedly do 500 max output. The Quark will do 360 lumens. Comparing them both on high, I see a big difference in color, but not a visually perceptible difference in output. The Quark does seem to be a bit "floodier" than the V11R, so perhaps that might account for the differences I'm seeing comparing the beams from about 3-30 feet distance from a wall. Or perhaps visually there's not a huge difference between 360 lumens and 500 lumens?

Thoughts?

First off, you might want to want to read Selfbuilt's reviews of these two lights... he says the Quark steps down after 3mins (from ~500 to ~400 lms), and FourSevens is quoting lower number. In practice, I have several of the Quark XML lights, but I cannot observe the step down at the 3min mark with the naked eye.

The difference from 360 lms to 500 lms should only appear as a 18% perceived increase to our eyes due to the square root thing... (500/360)^0.5.... and that is barely perceptible. Said another way, you need 4x the lumens to appear 2x as bright.

Also, to correct for beam differences (floody vs throwy) you should bounce the light off the ceiling in a small room and observe the ambient reflected light. You can also use a camera light meter, metering off the floor, if you have decent manual camera like a DSLR.

FourSevens also tends to be pretty conservative... my Quark AAX on 107 lms high mode measures brighter than my ZL H51w on 172 lms max via the ceiling bounce/DSLR method above.

Light output is measured in two ways: "lux", which is how far the light throws (how bright the hotspot is), and "lumens" which measures how much total light is coming out of the light as a whole.

Here's a simple way to do a ceiling bounce test to compare total output in lumens:

Stand in a dark room and extend your arm straight in front of you with your flashlight in it pointing up towards the ceiling. Look down at something on the floor near your feet below the light (so the flashlight isn't in your field of view at all). You can compare 2 lights by holding one in each hand and then alternately turning one off and the other on while watching the object on the floor. The one that looks brighter probably has higher lumens.

This "eyeball" test is not very precise. Output has to be around 20% different in order to be able to perceive the difference with the eye.

Rolex John said:

I'm doing some comparisons of my V11R with a 4Sevens Quark X123 x2 I have. Equipped with rechargeable 123's the V11R will supposedly do 500 max output. The Quark will do 360 lumens. Comparing them both on high, I see a big difference in color, but not a visually perceptible difference in output. The Quark does seem to be a bit "floodier" than the V11R, so perhaps that might account for the differences I'm seeing comparing the beams from about 3-30 feet distance from a wall. Or perhaps visually there's not a huge difference between 360 lumens and 500 lumens?

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Quarks are usually under rated, but the output of the V11R's about 400+ tops, so the difference between that and the quark may not be that significant. Normally a 2-cell light will beat the output of a 1-cell light. But there are cases when a single cell will beat a 2-cell, esp if the driver is pulling out high amps to the LED. (SC600 ring a bell?) hehe...

My V11R, running a 14500 appears every bit as bright as my SC600 on the 500 lumen high mode.

reppans said:

First off, you might want to want to read Selfbuilt's reviews of these two lights... he says the Quark steps down after 3mins (from ~500 to ~400 lms),

Click to expand...

Up All Night said:

My V11R, running a 14500 appears every bit as bright as my SC600 on the 500 lumen high mode.

Click to expand...

The reason these light all look the same is because they are producing the same amount of light.

In my testing, there is no difference in the initial output of the "500" lumen V11R, the "500 lumen" Zebralight SC600 Hi-2 mode, or "360" lumen 4Sevens Q123-2-X. By ceiling bounce-light meter and by my lightbox, they are all producing the same amount of light.

Using the standard lumen calibration I developed for my lightbox, I estimate this level to be ... wait for it ... ~500 lumens. So it looks like the 4Sevens rated is under-rated in its specs.

Note that I make no guarantee as to the absolute value of the calibration method (since it is only as good as the comparator data). But the relative comparisons hold consistently (i.e. a 500 lumen light is 25% brighter than a 400 lumen light - whatever the actual lumen number is).

Selfbuilt, do you have any data on the different emitters in the Sunwayman v10& v11 series? I valve the high cri and would like to know how much of an actual cut in lumens I got versus the other XML bins. Guess all I need to know is the current draw...lol


-Alex

Mistaken.

climberkid said:

Selfbuilt, do you have any data on the different emitters in the Sunwayman v10& v11 series? I valve the high cri and would like to know how much of an actual cut in lumens I got versus the other XML bins. Guess all I need to know is the current draw...lol

Click to expand...

Sorry, never tested the other tints in V10/V11 series (only stock cool white). However, this post details my experience with the cool white, neutral white, and "Hi CRI" (aka warm white) 4Sevens Preon 2.

It really comes to tint bin - but in general, the warmer the tint, the more phosphorous is used, reducing efficiency.