Regulated vs Non-Regulated...

I know the benefits of a regulated light. Getting the most out of the battery in the first hour or so driving it to a consistent level of brightness. After the torch goes out of regulation would it still be brighter than a non-regulated light with equal runtime?

Thanks in advance

Dave

The amount of useful light available after you come out of regulation will depend on the design of the curcuit. Here is a curcuit that sucks all(95%) of the power out of a set of batteries.

Roy - Thanks for the response and your example illustrates such a dramatic drop coming off of regulation. Do you know off hand what torches can perform such a feat? That is reasonably priced /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Thanks,
Dave

Browse through the runtime plots in the Runtime thread in the Reviews forum.

[ QUOTE ]
Roy said:
Browse through the runtime plots in the Runtime thread in the Reviews forum.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you sir...

[ QUOTE ]
Dukester said:
I know the benefits of a regulated light. Getting the most out of the battery in the first hour or so driving it to a consistent level of brightness. After the torch goes out of regulation would it still be brighter than a non-regulated light with equal runtime?

Thanks in advance

Dave

[/ QUOTE ]

This depends on your definition of runtime. A regulated and non-regulated light of the same runtime might imply different powersources.

A better comparison is between the same light with and without a regulator. Battery, LED(assuming led) ect the same. Take a look at the plots shown on the web page for the eternalight elitemax. This light features regulation that can be turned on or off easily.

http://www.techass.com/el/elm4z/

The total area under a run time plot is a measure of the total number of photons hitting the detector. If beam shape and relative spacial intensity do not change during the dimming process, this area is also a measure of total light output.

For the same light, the total area under the unregulated curve will always be larger. The differences caused by losses in the regulator circuit, the efficiency increase of the led when underdriven, and the additional capacity of the cell at lower current draws. For the same light the non-regulated case will usually be brighter than the regulated light with fresh batteries. The output will soon fall below the regulated light and stay lower until the regulated light falls out of regulation. At that time the non-regulated light will be much brighter and run for much longer.

Hope this helps. Todd

in addition to this great post I'd like to point out that you'd have to define your "minimal usable light" from the light, and measure the area under the curve (AUC) according to this criterium, the longer glimmer of the unregulated light should not count here, it will be useless for you.
another point to consider is that regulated lights don't give you a warning that the batteries are about to fail (unless they have a battery indicator as the ElteMax does), whereas the unregulated torch is steadily dimming.

bernhard

EDIT: just to add my personal view ... I am all regulated !!!
I like a tool that always performs in the same manner no matter how drained the batts are. with the very reliable regulators we have now I do not see a problem on the technical side. the only thing I really miss are battery status indicators, IMHO this is a must-have feature in the future of regulation. that's why I really like my MR-X ...
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif