New AAAs a lot brighter than old ones?

I've been a happy AAA LE owner for the past 2 years. Every chance I get, I turn someone on to these great little lights. The latest person to "see the light" is a guy I work with. After recently ordering a AA and loving it, he ordered several lights (AA and AAA) as Christmas presents. They arrived today and we did some very informal beam comparisons.

I was surprised that the 2003 CPF Edition AAA looks about as bright as the AA (I thought the AA's bigger reflector would make it look a lot brighter). But I was stunned at how much brighter the CPF AAA was than my 2 year old AAA LE! My reflector was pretty dirty, so I cleaned it with an alcohol swab. That helped a little, but my light just isn't in the same league as the new one.

So what's the deal? Are the new 5mm Nichias that much brighter than the ones from 2 years ago? Did Peter change the electronics to boost output? Is my slightly dingy reflector party to blame? Is there something wrong with my light? TIA.

The Light Gods see to it that all newbies get a spectacularly bright example for their first serious purchase. This plants the seed that grew into CPF.

.....or maybe somebody who knows will come along and "enlighten" us so's I don't look like such a doofus!

I don't have any LE or premium versions but between the one's with the engraving around the tube vs. the newer versions, I would say my new one's are brighter and whiter.
but that's what Peter says in his faq's. yes, they have the blue, purplish hot spot but no yellow around it.

The AAA overdrives its LED pretty severely. It's possible that your old one is getting dimmer with age, because of the overdrive. It might be interesting to buy a new one and measure its brightness when new, then make more measurements over some long period of use to see if the LED is getting dimmer.

Make sure you swap in a new battery for your LE!

Penguin:
Changing the battery had no noticable effect. Good idea, though.

Paulr:
Is it true that the AAA's LED is overdriven? For some reason I thought I remembered reading that it's underdriven.

I'd be interested in Peter's thoughts on my brightness question.

If the AAA LED is that overdriven then surely they are more likely to burn out/fadeaway prior to the expiry of the Arc warranty?
As a proud AAA Arc owner and someone who is just about to buy an AA I would like some assurance that the LED is going to last at least 5 years!

Doug

PS! I know there is no such thing as 100% reliability but some things are close!!

The AAA's are overdriven, like in almost any other LED flashlight, but my guess is that the LEDs themselves are improving all the time. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
I highly doubt it is because of deteriation. JMHO.

The AAA's led is definitely overdriven, but whether that's making it go dim is sheer speculation on my part. It seems to me that if it was healthy to run an led at 70 mA, the manufacturer wouldn't specify a maximum of 30 mA. It's sort of like overclocking your cpu, maybe you can get away with it, but there's no guarantee.

If you look at the most recent Nichia presumption of life charts, you can see that even when driven at 20 mA, The LED's will not last the "100,000 hours" still touted by many. If you use your Arc a lot, it is conceivable that the LED's half life could come and go during its useful life. LED's will degrade and dim over time. Driven harder, this will come about sooner. The real question is, are you still getting useful light from your two year old light? Had you not made the comparison, would you have felt that your light was growing dim?

You might likely be comparing a B1S rank LED with a B2S rank LED and this alone can have some apparent differences. There is enough range in luminous output within the same rank that differences could be noted. This is true of two brand new LED's.

I think the best answer to your question is: "Uhhhhh....."

I had no idea that LEDs would dim over time. That's disappointing. Maybe that's what is happening to mine.

It still puts out decent light, but I've been noticing lately that I want more light. If the output is decreasing, it's been so gradual over the 2 years that I didn't notice it until I compared it with a new one.

Thanks for the info.

What about changes in the beam? Mine is a moderately used one year old AAA. I'd swear the beam is bluer than it was when new. Even my 13 year old son remarked the other night that it's getting "bluer".