Great Big LED?

Pardon my ignorance, but I know next to nothing about electronics and LEDs. I just bought an ARC AAA a couple of weeks ago and thought "Why doesn't somebody make an LED the size of a 3 cell incandescent flashlight bulb?" Is this beyond the current status of LED technology? Could LEDs be made much larger?

By the way, I'm lucky enough to live about 6 miles from the ARC shop in Tempe, AZ and bought mine from Peter himself. He gave me a tour of the shop and introduced me to Merri and his cute little dog Cotton. Mr. Gransee could not have been more polite and accomodating.

Thanks for any and all responses to the above questions.

Huh? You visited the ARC shop and only bought the ARC AAA. I would have been like a kid in a candy store. I'll take one of these, and one of those, ha ha. As far as your question, I don't know, sorry. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

LEDs put out less light per square inch of emitter. To put out a lot of light you need either a huge emitter or lots of smaller ones. Such a spread out light source is difficult to focus. The Surefire L5 and L6 are good examples. They use massive reflectors to get good throw out of their emitters. IMO the whole thing unravels above a 1 watt emitter at this point. That's OK with me since a good 1 watt, such as Arc's LS, is all I need.

Actually, getting back to your question, an Arc LS puts out as much light as many 3 cell incandescent flashlights.

The coming year will solve your "problem",
The Luxeon III's will be out (generally running 3 to 4 watts) The Arc LS4 should be running that LED and is adjustable so it will kick up to the 2.5-3.0 watt arena. The LS4 should be out by Marc.

Actually Peter said the LS4 will only have the 1 watt. As has been said before the 3 watt only is really efficient at the higher wattages and not very good at the lower wattages that Peter is planning on running the LS4 at. Also the 3 watt really just is a better thermally protected 1 watt, so he's just sticking with the 1 watt.