This is my first post on CPF.

Joe Random

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Sep 9, 2013
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This is my first post on CPF.
I used to own a Ledlenser V². As a matter a fact I owned 2. I lost one a few years ago, and I bought another one after. I got the supertorch virus reading this forum and I own a few lasers as well. People here seem to talk bad about Ledlenser so I decided to investigate and read this forum for a while. 3 weeks ago I lost my Ledlenser V². Since I decided to go with the advice here and not buy another one, I actually ordered the Sunwayman D40A. After receiving it and having high expectations, I was really convinced the torch would blow my Ledlenser out of the water.
It didn't. I mean the built quality is better and it uses newer technologies. It has modes and strobes and other features my simple Ledlenser didn't have, but with with 980 lumens (940 as per your review in Turbo) I thought it would throw much much further. Again it didn't. I've been using my old flashlight daily for a few years and it never let me down. It didn't have button issues as reviewed here, I dropped it several times from heights higher than 10 feet and it had it's share of water, while it wasn't advertised as being waterproof.
I went along with this review and got eager to buy the Sunwayman. However I got very disappointed with the results. It's strange. When I point the Sunwayman torch on my skin about a foot away, I can clearly feel the heat caused by the immense beam of photons. It brightens dark areas like no other torch I even owned, but then again it has 940 lumens output. The stats of my small Ledlenser that runs on 3 AAA's didn't heat my skin, even at contact, yet it threw much further. Ok, it didn't have the flood/spill the sunwayman has, but it lasted at least 4 hours throwing farther. The beam as much more focused and it had little flood, yet comfortable to go and take a walk in the forest. and it only had 110 lm specified.
My point is, I listened a lot to opinions here and read a lot of reviews before buying another torch. People here seem to diss the Ledlenser brand, and I can't seem to figure out why. Yeah the lens is plastic, but it does its job. Maybe hence the name lenser. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my Sunwayman D40A, but I'm going to buy the V² again. It's smaller, throws about the same distance and battery life is longer.
Why do you people hate so much Ledlensers?
 
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Norm

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:welcome:

I've given your post it's own thread as it was totally of topic where it was posted. - Norm
 

scout24

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Dec 23, 2008
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There are different sub-forums here... Budget lights, incandescent, etc. Find what works for you, hang out and post there, and don't wander elsewhere and try to convince others your way is best. If you like Led Lensers and they work for you, more power to you. Enjoy! Best example is LED fans posting in the incan section trying to make waves... :) Just some friendly advice from someone who has been here a little while. Welcome to cpf, by the way. I hope you enjoy it here.
 

880arm

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Aug 29, 2011
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Wildlands of Western Kentucky
:welcome:

You just had an introduction to how output alone isn't the only measure of a light's performance. For what it's worth, lumens measures the total quantity of light emitted without much regard to where it's going. As you noted, the D40 puts out a ton of light, so much in fact, that you can feel the heat on your skin. However, it is much more diffuse than the output of the LED Lenser you are comparing it to.

When it comes to throw you would also want to consider the lux measurement which gives an indication of the beam intensity (how much it is focused) and thus its ability to reach longer distances.

Aside from the measured values, another consideration is the size of the "hotspot" or the bright portion at the center of the beam. For example, two lights may have the same beam intensity but one may generate a hotspot the diameter of a basketball at 50 yards while the other might be considerably larger. Although this can be calculated or measured, it is most often illustrated with beamshot photos.
 

AVService

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
2,163
I have not ever seen a Lensor so I have no feeling about them either way?

I do know though that after reading here a while you can sort of determine what type of light you should end up with or not and not be too surprised when you pick one about the characteristics of its output.

I also know that the way we read these reviews can be somewhat subjective no matter how the details are given.

I have a lot of lights and was still shocked when getting the little Surefire Outdoorsman rated at 45 lumens at how well it throws and how far it can deliver intense light,luckily I was shocked in a good way! I had sure read that this was the case but I just discounted it as being an overpriced Surefire instead of the OverAchieving tiny light that it turns out to be.

I love that little light!

There is a lot of good technical knowledge and firsthand experience here and I doubt you were really steered wrong by any reviews.
I imagine from here on you will be a lot more careful to find lights that are said the match your needs better and also grow to count on the one you already found here.

Welcome and read on!

Ed
 

froggyted

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Jan 7, 2014
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Bristol, UK
Imo Lenser lights are overhyped and overpriced. I have had three. They give minimal technical information on their site so that you can't accurately assess throw, intensity and run times to compare with competitors' products (this is probably delberate, because in many cases they don't compare favourably), their head office doesn't answer email queries, and the crappy plastic lenses, devoid of IPX8 waterproofing, soon pick up lots of scratches and debris inside the lens that, in addition to affecting beam quality, eventually make the lights look like the mid-budget offerings that they really are. The only thing Lensers really have going for them, imo, are the nice adjustable flood-spot beams, and this has been traded off against dust and water proofing, which imo is too high a sacrifice to make.
 

TCY

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Oct 15, 2013
Messages
801
:welcome:
I bought a LL P7.2 last year, my first LL light and I happen to like it. They get the job done, period. However, I do believe that right now LL lights are "old fashioned", technological wise, and they are a bit overpriced for what they are, compared to other big flashlight brands out there.
For example, my P7.2 is on sale for 48 euro on a big UK flashlight online retail store, but a few extra bucks(~59) will get you a Fenix PD35 or Nitecore P12, they are smaller, brighter, lighter, more versatile, and in general, better. Even for the same price range you can get a Fenix PD32.
And I agree what froggyted says, LL's website gives minimal info on their products. Take P7.2 as an example again:
Technical data​
LED High End Power LED
Length 130 mm
Weight 175 g
Luminous flux 320 lm* (Boost)
Batteries 4 x AAA 1.5V
Energy tank 7.2 Wh***
Burning time 50 h** (Low Power)
Beam range 260 m* (Boost)
For LED they tell you "High End Power LED", but sorry this is not good enough for a technologically detailed product info. They give you the shortest length this light can achieve, but they hide the fact that the longest length achieved by the focus system is about 141mm. For runtime they give you a decent number but at the bottom of the page they tell you in extremely small font, and I quote: "Average hours of burning life as measured in the least energy-consuming mode and until residual luminous flux amounts to 1 lumen.", which is unacceptable to me and many other CPFers. If LL switches the number from 1 lumen to 0.1, are they going to advertise "100 hour runtime"? At some point these kind of data becomes even misleading. To elaborate on, they don't put out the details of their anodizing level and IP level(ironically I found these info on other retail websites), which IMO is pretty much the standard basic data for portable illumination tools nowadays.
To sum up, yes I do believe LL offers decent lights, but for the same price there are just way too many better options out there.

And may I add, geez the LL anodizing coating is eazy to wear off.
 

mvyrmnd

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Joined
Sep 4, 2009
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3,391
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Australia
The reasons why people here dislike LEDLensers has been covered here.

I want to second 880arm's post.

It's not all about lumens. Lumens are only part of the equation. Think of lumens as the volume of water coming from a hose. Lux is the pressure of that water. Low pressure, it only squirts a short distance. High pressure, long distance. You can have a pressure hose that only uses a tiny amount of water but can squirt a long way (low lumen output but high Lux, like an aspheric torch) or a huge high volume hose that runs as lower pressure (like the triple XM-l lights that there are many of these days).

Once you factor in output, battery life, output regulation, beam quality, you quickly realise you can do much better than LEDLenser.
 

kpangy

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Jan 13, 2014
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London, UK
:welcome:
I have 2 lensers and am happy enough with them as they were cheap and do the job I ask of them, but I do agree at full retail they are overpriced and you can do better for the same money.
I really like their adjustable beams which don't really seem to be offered by other manufacturers but as has been said the anodising wears off far too easily making them look tatty / cheap. I only had them a few weeks so have not encountered the dust issue yet but thanks to froggyted for pointing that out. I'll have to be more careul about the situations I use them in as it does seem too high a price to pay to have an adjustable beam.
 

froggyted

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Jan 7, 2014
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Bristol, UK
For runtime they give you a decent number but at the bottom of the page they tell you in extremely small font, and I quote: "Average hours of burning life as measured in the least energy-consuming mode and until residual luminous flux amounts to 1 lumen.", which is unacceptable to me and many other CPFers. If LL switches the number from 1 lumen to 0.1, are they going to advertise "100 hour runtime"? At some point these kind of data becomes even misleading.

Exactly. I hesitated from using that word, but really that's the nub of it. Why would i want to buy a high-power light and know how many hours it takes to reach 1 lumen, especially when this is the only runtime figure provided? I'd rather know how long it continued to produce the high power i'd bought it for. In the case of my MT7 (which i actually liked at the time, and only when i lost it explored other options and discovered far better lights for the price), the stated run time is 11 hours. From memory the stated lumens is 230. But you don't get 230 lumens for anything like 11 hours. Their so-called regulated circuitry drops the level down within minutes, and in effect i would then get about 2-4 hours of sub-230lm use before the low-battery warning (an irritating flashing every single minute) came on, and eventually the light didn't reach 1 lumen anyway: long before that it would power off, after which you could revive it again and again for a minute or two by switching back on. This isn't practical in an outdoor environment where you need the light to get on with whatever you're out in the dark in the first place for, so as far as i am concerned the usable runtime of the MT7 is about 2-4 hours and the quoted 11 hours is meaningless and yes (the small print notwithstanding), misleading.
 

froggyted

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:welcome:
I have 2 lensers and am happy enough with them as they were cheap and do the job I ask of them, but I do agree at full retail they are overpriced and you can do better for the same money.
I really like their adjustable beams which don't really seem to be offered by other manufacturers but as has been said the anodising wears off far too easily making them look tatty / cheap. I only had them a few weeks so have not encountered the dust issue yet but thanks to froggyted for pointing that out. I'll have to be more careul about the situations I use them in as it does seem too high a price to pay to have an adjustable beam.

The main issue you will probably have is outdoors in sustained rain. I never had issues with the lights ceasing to work but all my lensers eventually picked up a lot of marking on the inside of the lens. This is the price you pay, it would seem, for having an adjustable beam, and probably the reason why most other manufacturers haven't gone down that route. To be more accurate, most of the marking was probably moisture staining rather than dust, but without access to the inside of the lens it's difficult to work out whether the myriad additional flecks were dust inside or just light scratching on the outside of the cheap plastic lenses. I'm not sure whether my MT7 had a plastic lens but certainly the other two lensers (which i still have) do - something else they don't tell you on their so-called spec sheets.
 
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