Opalec Newbeam Regulation

Phaserburn

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Mar 30, 2003
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The Newbeam is a great product; slick, easy, innovative, etc.

Having acknowledged that, the Newbeam also seems to have the most rock steady regulation curve of any light anywhere - in other words, none. It's output remains plateau-flat for all 9-10 hours before declining.

So, my question is: How does it accomplish this to this extreme? No one elses regulation performs to this level of regulated output perfection. Why? Is it the low demands of the 3 leds? If so, why hasn't anyone else duplicated it in any other light?

And another one: Where IS Opalec these days? The Newbeam is very well engineered, ala Everled, maybe even better for a self contained drop in. Why haven't they ever released another product? I emailed this question to them awhile back and they said they were working on a blue version for theatre purposes, etc. Um, how hard is it to use blue leds in your existing product? We always ask, "Where's Mag?", etc. But where is Opalec?
 

Al

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Sep 27, 2001
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I had e-mailed them also some months ago with questions about their future possible use of Luxeons. Their reply was, in effect, that they were VERY careful with their R&D and market analysis before releasing products.
 

RussH

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Jun 13, 2003
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MS
I've got two of these, and their output seems identical. I don't have a light meter, and I estimated the current draw based on how long my 1800mah NiMH batteries ran the light. Both lights seemed to be drawing close to 50ma per LED. I intend to get my DMM hooked up and do some better measurements. For one thing, both lights lit the low bat led after getting into the 13th hour of operation and I don't know the exact capacity of the batteries at that level.

But to answer your question, this is slightly overdriving these LEDs and I believe they are operating in a range where the light output doesn't vary much with the current. The white LEDs I have used - different brands, lots, etc. over the last several years - all seem to produce maximum light output between 25-50ma current, usually very close to 30ma. To the eye, the light doesn't vary much in that range, especially when comparing LEDs from the same lot. I usually try a few from each batch to determine what I want to run them at and then size a resistor accordingly. I have been using 270 or 330 ohm resistors for 12v applications. I can't tell the difference - I just use higher values when I know the light will run from a charger of some kind rather than off the battery. The actual voltage range is more like 11-16 volts. I use anything around 500 ohms when I want longer run times.
 

Bill.H

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Maine USA
[ QUOTE ]
Al said:
I had e-mailed them also some months ago with questions about their future possible use of Luxeons. Their reply was, in effect, that they were VERY careful with their R&D and market analysis before releasing products.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would not be at all surprised if Opalec came out with something in the near future that just knocked our collective socks off.

And one of our sponsors just dropped the price on the NewBeam quite a bit this week... could that mean something new soon?
 

RewopEldnac

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Feb 27, 2003
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LA, CA
Yup, I got email from pocketlights it is $21 now.

I wonder if we can put a Luxeon connected paralel to the three pins instead of those three 5mm leds?
 

shankus

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Feb 16, 2003
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I'm thinking they could fit 6-7 LEDs in an Opalec. It would be a bit more usefull with more LEDs, and runtime would still be very acceptable.
 

paulr

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Mar 29, 2003
Messages
10,832
[ QUOTE ]
So, my question is: How does it accomplish this to this extreme? No one elses regulation performs to this level of regulated output perfection. Why? Is it the low demands of the 3 leds? If so, why hasn't anyone else duplicated it in any other light?

[/ QUOTE ]

Keeping the light output flat is straightforward voltage regulation. It's also done by the Surefire A2 for the A2's incandescent lamp. The reason other LED lights don't do it is because not everybody wants that flat curve. It's been a topic of discussion in the Arc forum. Peter said something like, "some people look at a flat brightness graph and see perfection, others see it as the light holding something back at the beginning of the battery runtime". A normal LED light gets dimmer as the battery discharges and when the dimness gets noticable, it's time to replace the battery. The Opalec actually has a red LED just to tell you the battery is getting low, because otherwise there'd be no way to tell until the module actually goes out of regulation.

All in all, while the Opalec may make a nice improvement on the stock Minimag, the Minimag itself is so outdated that it's not really worth trying to improve on.
 

tiktok 22

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Sep 8, 2002
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Illinois
Like the Opalec module(I have two of them). Hate minimags. The contacts on the battery tube are IMHO a bad design and cause flickering. The Opalec deserves a better host.
 

paulr

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Mar 29, 2003
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Some people have modded the Opalec into the PT Blast, a very nice combination, but it seems to give less battery runtime than one would expect. I don't know why that would be.
 

PJD

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Mar 20, 2002
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I modded an Opalec to fit in an HF 1X123 cell light, because I'm also not crazy about the MM's switch. I haven't done any type of run-time test to see how long the Opalec would run on a 123 cell, but I'm still on my first 123 cell, and it gets used quite extensively. The Opalec's output, IMHO, is perfect in a light like the HF 1X123 cell light. It's become one of my EDC's and one of my favorite lights!

PJD
 

milkyspit

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Sep 21, 2002
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PJD, I'm not crazy about the MM's switch either. It's not terribly reliable, and seems to have too much resistance. I put my Opalec module into a Brinkmann Legend 2AA, and it's very nice! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I've been saving a brief writeup of that "mod" (if it's even complex enough to call it that) with some photos for a rainy day.
 
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