My, how far LED flashlights have come in just ~10 years

bluemax_1

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
591
I had to Google it because I couldn't remember the specs on my old EDC, a Surefire E1E with 1st gen KL1 head (Luxeon emitter with a collimator lens on the head). I remember thinking when I got it about 10 years ago (~'03), that it put out quite a lot of light in the 1xCR123 E1E body configuration for a really small flashlight.

I had to look up the LEDmusuem site to find anything on the light. Their tests with the E2E body (2xCR123) produced a hotspot of a whopping 351cd! LOL! Just for kicks, I popped a CR123 in and fired it up. Wow... just for comparisons sake, I lit up a Streamlight Nano. The KL1 head on E1E 1xCR123 body had a slightly brighter hotspot, but I'd guess they were putting out close to the same total lumens. The Streamlight Nano had more spill than the Surefire. The 1xAAA Klarus MI10 was somewhat comparable on Med, once again, with the SF having a slightly brighter hotspot but the Klarus having more spill. The Klarus in High mode? No contest, it beats the SF handily.

So I pulled out my current compact EDC, the Foursevens Quark QPA-G2 with a 14500 (that replaced the Fenix L1D with R100 Luxeon Rebel head, which replaced the SF), and compared to Firefly, Low, Med, High and Turbo, the SF is somewhere between the low and medium modes. The SF is brighter than the low mode, but the 4/7's is quite a bit brighter on med. By the time I turn it on High, there's absolutely no contest. I might not even notice the SF being On. Turbo on the QPA-G2 with a 14500? Yep, where'd the SF go?

I then Googled some of the 'great' lights around that time. The Night-Ops Gladius advertised a 'very bright' 80-90 lumen maximum output on 2xCR123's back in '04-'05? (120 lumens for later models). The QPA-G2 puts out more than that on 1xAA Eneloop. Then there's the ZL SC52 that puts out 280 lumens on 1xAA Eneloop (and 500 on 1x14500?).

In ~10 years, the top 2xCR123 flashlights have gone from the sub 100 lumen category (did anyone quote OTF lumens back then? Or did they mostly quote emitter lumens? ANSI FL-1 standards only came about in '09) to the 1000 lumen category. That's 10X or more (if they WERE quoting emitter lumens back then, it's more than 10x). Hotspots of 2,000 cd were considered incredibly bright for LED lights this size, and now we're looking at 20,000-30,000cd.

And for all the folks whining about more runtime being of greater use than brighter lights, and complaining that max runtimes are still stuck on about 60 minutes whilst the lumen count keeps going up, I just don't get it. Or maybe it's those folks that don't get it. Unless you're going super old school with a one mode Max output light (or super extreme with some one-off crazy modded light drawing 6A that the user is supposed to know can only be turned on for 15 seconds at a time or whatever), all these new brighter lights ALSO have MUCH longer runtimes on lower lumen modes. So you think ~100 lumens is all that is needed? Fine, the G25C2-mkII XM-L2 1000 lumen light can run for about 11 hours on the 100 lumen mode, the Nitecore P25 XM-L U2 can run 7 hours at 180 lumens, Olight's M22 XM-L2 supposedly runs for about 3 hours at 250 lumens etc. So there you go, longer runtimes at the same lumens as what you were used to from a few years ago.

As for the rest of us, brighter is better. If the light can run for ~60 minutes on Turbo, make it as bright as it can go. 60 minutes on Max brightness is enough to sweep a building, or chase some dumbass through several unlit backyards, or search a dark alley. Maybe if this one guy in the local department had a brighter flashlight, he would have seen the hole in the yard he was chasing a perp through and wouldn't have stepped in it at full speed blowing his knee out.

That old SF KL1 head was subject to the same deficiencies and compromises as all those dimmer lights were back then; the manufacturer had to decide where those lumens would be more effective because there weren't enough lumens. The KL1 head used a collimator to produce a more intense hotspot, but the light had very little spill due to this. Much less than even the Klarus 1xAAA MI10 with a reflector that's literally less than half the diameter of the KL1 (WAYYYYY dimmer and with MUCH less spill than the Olight M22). SF then came out with a KL1 v2 head that focused the beam even more (and increased the power from 380mA to 632mA), producing a brighter hotspot (a whopping 1140cd), with even less spill. These days, the lights are getting bright enough that they can have much brighter hotspots, AND still produce a nice spill that's bright enough to allow the user to illuminate and see a very wide area.

As emitters get more efficient, the lights will get brighter, and when driven at lower than maximum levels, will produce greater runtimes. I initially thought that the lumen increase would taper off at a certain point due to smaller lights not being able to dissipate enough heat, but as the emitter efficiency increases, the emitters put out more light at similar current draw and heat output.

Makes me wonder if this rate of increase can continue? In another 10 years, will we see 1x18650 sized lights that can do ~10,000 lumens on Turbo?


Max

P.S. It made me laugh that they were using 2012 technology flashlights in the movie Prometheus (TK45's?) set in 2089-2093. Really? 80 year old flashlight technology on a no-expense-spared top-of-the-line scientific expedition? That would be equivalent to a scientific expedition right now being equipped with one of these
http://www.flashlightmuseum.com/Eve...s-Light-with-Small-Safety-Lock-Switch-3D-1933

80 years from now, I'd hazard a guess that someone would have discovered something newer than LED tech (provided the world doesn't end or anything like that). I would assume that lights the size of my Streamlight Nano will be capable of putting out several thousand lumens.
 

Denix

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Oct 9, 2001
Messages
61
Location
Ottawa
I agree it's been a wild ride and the technology now is amazing. 10 years ago we were starting to get high powered LEDs. However, just go back a few years prior to that... When I joined CPF some of the optimists were telling us that some day LEDs might compete with the incans of the days. I remember buying my Streamlight Scorpion incan in 2001. 60 lumens out of a bulb that lasted something like 6 hours. In those days the high powered LED was the ARC AAA with a bright 3 lumens. When the first Luxeon came out with something like 30 lumens we were totally amazed :D.

80 years from now? Forget flashlights, think light amplification bionic eyes with a 1000X zoom :D

Guy
 

Jdunn709

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Apr 6, 2013
Messages
10
P.S. It made me laugh that they were using 2012 technology flashlights in the movie Prometheus (TK45's?).

I believe it is a 'Moddoolar' flashlight, not a TK45 as can be seen in the add on the Overready home page :)
 
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