rlhess
Enlightened
I received a promotional flier from a commercial/industrial light fixture company that stated that while LEDs are at 20 lm/W today, they are expected to increase in efficiency to 150-200 lm/W in ten years.
WOW!
Ok, with that in mind, what features would be most useful to add to a light like the L4.
(1) I know that many CPF people like a 1-L light. I've grown used to a 2-L light and think that should probably be the base, although designing the head to work on 1-3 lithiums would be useful as it seems that adding the third cell provides more tha a 50% increase in runtime.
(2) If the above growth in output is even partially realized, and the efficiency improves to 100 lm/W we'd have an L4 that could put out ~300 lumens! Wow.
(3) In the base light, I like the wide throw. It lights up a 400 sq ft room nicely. I think keeping the throw pattern like the L4 would be good.
(4) The L4 puts out about 600cd. If we keep the same coverage angle, the 5x impoved light would put out 3000 cd. Even 2000 cd is pretty nice. Imagine the coverage of the L4 with the throw of a 6P!
(5) Level adjustment. Assuming that we have a 2000 cd light, then it certainly would be useful to throttle it back to 200cd (the KL1 level) and then to 20 cd (the Arc AAA level). This should be easily done, but should not interfere with normal usage and grabbing the light and getting full output.
While different levels between these might be useful, it might complicate switching. If additional levels were provided, I think they should be 60 and 600 cd--following the squares.
(6) Battery life. I would expect that battery life might be 1 hour at full output, 10 hours at 1/10 output and 100 hours at 1/100 output (Arc AAA mode) for two 123 cells. (give or take, of course).
(7) End of battery life. A very useful device would be to incorporate a RED LED on the bezel (see below) that would turn on as soon as the head fell out of requlation. It's actually very hard to tell with the L4 when it's starting to fade at the end of battery life--but all of a sudden you say, "Oh, it's dimmer than it was."
(8) If the RED LED were a flood of a couple of candelas, would that make a useful thing to preserve night vision? Switching would be the issue here.
(9) In the true spirit of a "Swiss Army Flashlight" I am wondering if a beam modifier could be an accessory. Keep the emitter and all of the other stuff and add a beam modifier so that you gain a 10x increase in candela output (increasing throw 3+ times). In that way, if the base light were 2000 cd, the narrowed beam would peak at 20,000 cd, which is right up there with the SRTH and the Ultra Stinger.
We've seen Mr. Bulk's Space Needle go above 10,000 cd from an LED. Why not?
Anyway, just some thoughts for the future.
Cheers,
Richard
WOW!
Ok, with that in mind, what features would be most useful to add to a light like the L4.
(1) I know that many CPF people like a 1-L light. I've grown used to a 2-L light and think that should probably be the base, although designing the head to work on 1-3 lithiums would be useful as it seems that adding the third cell provides more tha a 50% increase in runtime.
(2) If the above growth in output is even partially realized, and the efficiency improves to 100 lm/W we'd have an L4 that could put out ~300 lumens! Wow.
(3) In the base light, I like the wide throw. It lights up a 400 sq ft room nicely. I think keeping the throw pattern like the L4 would be good.
(4) The L4 puts out about 600cd. If we keep the same coverage angle, the 5x impoved light would put out 3000 cd. Even 2000 cd is pretty nice. Imagine the coverage of the L4 with the throw of a 6P!
(5) Level adjustment. Assuming that we have a 2000 cd light, then it certainly would be useful to throttle it back to 200cd (the KL1 level) and then to 20 cd (the Arc AAA level). This should be easily done, but should not interfere with normal usage and grabbing the light and getting full output.
While different levels between these might be useful, it might complicate switching. If additional levels were provided, I think they should be 60 and 600 cd--following the squares.
(6) Battery life. I would expect that battery life might be 1 hour at full output, 10 hours at 1/10 output and 100 hours at 1/100 output (Arc AAA mode) for two 123 cells. (give or take, of course).
(7) End of battery life. A very useful device would be to incorporate a RED LED on the bezel (see below) that would turn on as soon as the head fell out of requlation. It's actually very hard to tell with the L4 when it's starting to fade at the end of battery life--but all of a sudden you say, "Oh, it's dimmer than it was."
(8) If the RED LED were a flood of a couple of candelas, would that make a useful thing to preserve night vision? Switching would be the issue here.
(9) In the true spirit of a "Swiss Army Flashlight" I am wondering if a beam modifier could be an accessory. Keep the emitter and all of the other stuff and add a beam modifier so that you gain a 10x increase in candela output (increasing throw 3+ times). In that way, if the base light were 2000 cd, the narrowed beam would peak at 20,000 cd, which is right up there with the SRTH and the Ultra Stinger.
We've seen Mr. Bulk's Space Needle go above 10,000 cd from an LED. Why not?
Anyway, just some thoughts for the future.
Cheers,
Richard
