What's the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

What\'s the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

I have found that there is a kind of consensus that 700mA is best with a 1W luxeon, but I haven't been able to find out what amperage the modders prefer with a 5W luxeon.

Re: What\'s the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

I'd imagine that you're referring to that middle ground where brightness, heat and runtime are all acceptable.

CM has made quite a few comments on this subject and he usually knows what he's talking about. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/poke2.gif What he came up with was 666mA. It seems that he's not the only one who came up with this, since that is what the stock KL4 runs at.

I've put together a McLux PR head using a V2T and a BadBoy 700, which is pretty close to CM's 666mA and I've got to say, I'm getting respectable runtimes, LOTS of light and the heat is very manageble. It never gets what I would call hot, but I have thick skin.

For less heat and almost as much light, you could probably run a high flux 5W at 500 or 600mA and have a great long use light.

Re: What\'s the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

Thanks Chop. I agree with your assessment.

My 3D M@g 5W mod is running really nice with 6 AA NiMh at about 900mA with fresh, but settled batteries. It puts out a huge amount of light with long throw and very nice spill. I ran it for over half an hour outside and didn't notice any heat. The brightness droppped considerably, but my rechargeables (2000 mAh) are still new.

It's much more effective, and impressive, than a SL 3AA 1W.

When I run this light with 4 C cells, it puts out about the same amount of light as the SL 3AA 1W at about 200mA.

I just love this 5 watter.

Re: What\'s the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

I suppose I should qualify my post above. The numbers that I quoted apply mostly to small lights. When you get to bigger lights with more heatsinking and larger capacity batteries, like the M@g, you can pretty much go with what you like as long as heat is managed.

Re: What\'s the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

How high is too high?
I don't want to break any new ground.

Re: What\'s the sweet-spot in mA for a 5W luxeon?

[ QUOTE ]
LightScene said:
How high is too high?
I don't want to break any new ground.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think you can break any new ground. The dirty little secret around here is that the serious players all have a collection of LEDs that they have killed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif