1 x AAA Lights and Regulation

Recently returning from being away from this hobby for sometime, I'm finding that either the AAA cell chemistry has not kept up with the advances made in the LED and/or circuitry industry or the advances and capabilities of the LED has surpassed the capabilities of a single-AAA host.

Case in point. A couple of my recent purchases (accidentally) were of the single level ThruNite T01 in cool-white and neutral-white. Not even wanting to waste the time using an alkaline Duracell, I went right to the Energizer E2 Lithium cell. It's performance in high-output devices has proven itself to me time and time again.

Imagine my surprise after seeing these results.

I really enjoy your threads, they give a lot of food for thought

I suspect there is a difference in the driver on the CW and NW Thrunites, I dont think the LED alone accounts for the difference in runtime curves

what are the lumen levels on your chart?
what surprises you about 100+ lumen levels not being sustainable on AAA?

Many newbies, myself included, think mfg lumens specs and runtime are constant brightness for the entire runtime, the fine print about the ANSII spec including runtime to 10% dispels that misconception. Runtime charts are even better for that

thanks for posting pics!

I thought at first your graph was mysterious, but reviews of the T01 don't show it having more than about 20 mins of usable runtime on a AAA alkaline, or about 40 mins on AAA Eneloop. But the reason I post is that I haven't seen an Energizer E2 cell for maybe 9 or 10 years, as they rebranded in US as Energizer Ultimate Lithium. But I don't get out much. Is it possible your Energizer E2 cells could be that old, or did Energizer retain the E2 branding for international customers? If not, 2008 called, and they want their cells back.

I used branded E2's which were still within their quoted dates.

this_is_nascar said:

I used branded E2's which were still within their quoted dates.

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My posts are never definitive, but just did a search. The branded Energizer Ultimate Lithium advertise 20 year shelf life. But the e2, which is purportedly the exact same cell, advertised 10 year shelf life. The discrepancy may simply be due to not enough time available to test the shelf life, and the e2 actually had a 20 year shelf life. If not, and there was some advance in cell tech, and that was the reason for the rebranding, it might suggest that your e2 cells were nearing the end of their usable shelf life, and perhaps that is what your results reflect. I'm not certain what percentage of full capacity is expected as a cell nears the end of its shelf life. \0/

They measured 1.7 volts prior to the testing.

Just put one of the lights on the meter, using an Energizer Ultimate Lithium. Starting voltage was 1.8 volts.

this_is_nascar said:

They measured 1.7 volts prior to the testing.

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That may be more deeply discharged than you realize.
See this recent thread with members discussing and trying to determine when an Energizer Lithium is empty.

My own experience is a fresh L91/L92 is 1.85V, and has no appreciable usable capacity left for flashlights below about 1.65V.

Smearing numbers a little, 1.7V is half-empty, and if a new full-capacity L92 will provide 2x up to 2.5x the capacity of alkaline in flashlights, and alkaline in T01 is expected to give about 20 minutes of usable light running a T01, then the mystery of your low T01 runtime with those e2 is solved.

Well, from what I can tell, the single-mode ThruNite T01 has zero regulation. You get ~60-minutes of usable, consistently dimming output on a new Energizer Ultimate Lithium. Probably OK for someone who wants a cheap light for their keychain that will be used occasionally to find the keyhole for a brief period of time, but not something you'd use to fix the car on the side of the road at night, etc.

this_is_nascar said:

Well, from what I can tell, the single-mode ThruNite T01 has zero regulation.

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thanks for paying for batteries, to educate me. Makes total sense, that a light designed to capture a High Brightness market, cannot maintain max brightness. True for many many lights these days. To wit Zebra and Olight both have "turbo" modes, that exceed the battery capacity to run in regulation. The specs say their max brightness, and the fine print tells you that it only lasts a minute or so.

since you are interested in regulation, and I am too now that you have made me aware of it more, I think you will find that there is a sort of rule of thumb, that an AAA light cannot run regulated at more than 80 lumens w a Nichia. The battery is just too small.

Fixing a car on the side of the road is not the realm of AAA imo.. larger capacity cells, and higher voltage cells, are better suited for that task.

What I use my AAA lights for, is indoor use on medium. Almost never on high (and all my lights are 3 mode).

I look forward to learning more with you, about what is and is not realistically possible, given a single AAA battery.

I hope you will update your impressions of the regulation of your Ti3 and possibly a subsequent i3s.. Im curious to hear your reactions to the lowest modes on those lights, and which you find practical for your application. Im rooting for the i3s (except it lacks a Nichia). While Im pitching my personal preferences, atm, I dont think you can go wrong with the Nichia Maratac AAA.. it tics all the boxes, for me.

I'm running the Ti3's now, as they are my favorite to date, regardless of how regulation goes.

I absolutely love the Firefly mode and adore the fact that it's the 1st level to come on.

The reason I am so critical to regulated AAA lights is because 1xAAA lights are the only lights I'll carry. They must have some level of regulation. I'm hoping that worse case, I find these Ti3's fully regulated on L and M, with some level of regulation on H, even if for only several minutes.

I see no reason to keep these T01's, as they​ have absolutely no regulation nor multiple levels.

this_is_nascar said:

I'm running the Ti3's now

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so glad youre happy with the mode levels and sequence

here is a 2014 test of the Ti3

selfbuilt said:

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you can see the high mode is not regulated, and lasts 29 min to 50% on eneloop, and 12 min to 50% on Alkaline.. so, Not regulated on High. You can also see Medium on Alkaline IS regulated, and runs almost 9 hours until dropping to 50%

jon_slider said:

You can also see Medium on Alkaline IS regulated, and runs almost 9 hours until dropping to 50%

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If I get similar results on these 2 units that I have, I'll be happy. My 2nd unit is finishing the high-mode test as we speak.

When complete, I plan on doing tests on Medium.

this_is_nascar said:

If I get similar results on these 2 units that I have, I'll be happy.

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glad to hear
fwiw, here is the Primary Lithium curve.. double the runtime of the eneloop

Voltage boosted lights seem to naturally give you a result that acts semi-regulated if the battery voltage is reasonably stable.

Multi-cell lights with no regulation (like the cheap 3xAAA lights) quickly fall noticeably below peak brightness even with Eneloops. At one point I did tailcap measurements on a Defiant 3-cell light, at 1.31 V / cell average, I got 500 mA draw. At 1.28 V / cell average, I got 180 mA.

Power, and brightness, were dropping by 2/3 for very small changes in voltages (voltage measured at no load), apparently due to the slim margin between the LED Vf and battery pack voltage, which meant a big difference in the voltage across the current limiting resistor.

Compared to that experience, I'm actually thrilled with performance of lights like the Ti3.

This may warrant a re-testing, but once again, it's proven that no (2) LEDs are the same. Case in point, not only is this particular neutral emitter brighter, but it has a steadier output than the other lights, including those with the cool-white emitter, which is supposed to be brighter, according to what I've read. I've consistently heard that you should expect to have the cool-white light brighter than the natural-white light, although I can't prove that with my limited testing.

I'm really curious now to see how these do on medium. I ran the tests, it's just a matter of plotting the data.

Wow. I was not expecting this instability over the 10-hour test time on medium.

this_is_nascar said:

Wow. I was not expecting this instability over the 10-hour test time on medium.

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If I had seen a test like that on a Lumintop AAA, I would have speculated that the drivers were not the same. But looking more closely at the percent change, the CW is only dropping 5%.. or 1 lumen on a 12 lumen spec.. so not really a significant brightness difference.. And the spec is 6.5 hours on med, so your Ultimate Lithium is beating that by over 50%.. congrats

I agree that CW is normally brighter than NW.. Thanks for posting your puzzling results

I'm going to retest at some point.

I've somewhat changed the scope of my testing on these newish lights I've acquired over the last several months (Lumintop Tool, ThruNite Ti3 and Manker E01).

My holy grail of 1xAAA lights has always been the Fenix E01, due to its runtime and ability to fire on an almost completely depleted cell. This and its rock solid build has kept this an EDC for me, since it was 1st released.

My new series of tests are aimed at proving or disproving whether or not these new lights can compete, in medium mode, with the Fenix E01. We already know they each have the huge advantage of having a Firefly mode.

This should prove interesting.