PeakLed / ARC / Dorcy comparison beamshot

Mark2, the Peak looks more blue, but that could be because it's 3 leds. It also looks like a larger, brighter hotspot. Is that the case?

This is not looking good for PeakLed. Proof once again that 3 LEDs don't always outperform 1. Brightness comparable but way blue.

This quote from PeakLed: "No on Nichia our purchasing agents purchase from all over the world from different companies. I do know Nicha is not in the batch. "

I thought they were a little startup near Arc. Looks now like they are an international company with odd Stateside representation getting ready to flood the market with cheap LED lights. How one would individually machine LEDs to fit in a AAA format and sell for $20 without foreign labor is beyond me.

Thanks for the pics! Got more company info?

I have one of the 3leds heading my way.Portotype from ebay.
I hope it is not that blue.

I also have a 3-LED prototype unit from Ebay on the way.
Red LEDs in it though; which I may not be able to compare with other flashlights, except possibly for the Inova 24/7.

I personally built a 3x5mm Arc AAA mod with about the same results show in the beamshots. There isn't much room in the head for additional circuitry so I suspect what you see is what you get. To me, it's just further confirmation that Arc's design is just about perfect to begin with.

d'mo,you are right,ARC'S design is just about perfect.I am glad that I still have my ARC AAA's

On the picture the PeakLed looks bluer than in real life, it's not really a big issue.

Yes, the hotspot is larger, but there is much less sidespill. The PeakLed doesn't put out more light than the ARC or the Dorcy, which is kind of disappointing. I expected much more given the fact that it uses 3 LEDs. Why use 3 if there isn't more light? I doubt that the 3 (underdriven?) LEDs use less power than the single LED in the ARC and the Dorcy.

BTW: The body is similar to the ARC body, they are interchangeable (tested). But I understand that the production lights will use different bodies.

The light produces a rather bright narrow ring that is emitted at an angle of almost 90° from the main beam which will often unintentionally hit your eyes, quite annoying in darkness. This could be fixed by recessing the LEDs.

When turned off, there is battery rattle. This could be fixed by a rubber foam ring as found in the ARC AAA.

Body to head contact is faulty, mainly due to excessive use of lube. Cleaning of the threads helps.

They're looking pretty good for their first light. I've got a prototype on the way also so it'll be interesting to see how it compares. My first few Arc AAA's had a bluish tone to them too. It'll be interesting to see how these progress during the next couple of years.

Thanks for the beamshots.

Eric

[ QUOTE ]
Mark2 said:
<beamshot photo - snipped>

[/ QUOTE ]

The beamshot photo looks kind of out of focus - the Dorcy 1AAA would have more obvious/defined artifacts - eg: as in -



That's the reason for the + mark in the photo - something for the camera's autofocus to focus on.

[ QUOTE ]
UnknownVT said:
The beamshot photo looks kind of out of focus

[/ QUOTE ]
No, please note the surface of the wall.

[ QUOTE ]

That's the reason for the + mark in the photo - something for the camera's autofocus to focus on.

[/ QUOTE ]
The autofocus doesn't look at what's on the picture, it measures the distance between the camera and the object.

According to DallasA, the LED's are driven at around 20 mA which is likely spec on the LED's. Most of the single LED flash lights are overdriving the LED's with considerably more curent. If the driver is efficient, the run time on the PeakLED should be good and the LEDs will likely last a very long time, especially in a flashlight! My main concern is the quality of the LED. I spoke with a major LED distributor sometime last year and asked if he had any white LED's. The answer was yes but don't buy them. "Why"? A: "Because they are only good for about 50 hours!" He did say he was expecting some better LED's soon. From what I can loosely gather, beyond Nichia, there are likely equivalent to significantly inferior LED's available. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Time will tell but Arc has always geared itself to a very demanding and descriminating audience (can you guess who that might be? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) Some of the other and newer manufacturers are more interested in the larger and much less informed audience where price and perceived value is more important than the reality "under the hood".

I am not making any criticisim or statements regarding the PeakLED other than the fact that the unknown is unknown until information is provided. Duh! I was a bit concerned that Dallas stated that Peak's PA's have been in touch with suppliers around the world but she made no comment on their criteria for selection of supply; I.E. best quality? best price? quickest delivery?

[ QUOTE ]
Mark2 said:
The autofocus doesn't look at what's on the picture, it measures the distance between the camera and the object.

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on the camera. Cheaper cameras use the range approach, others actually look at the image on the sensor and maximize contrast to focus. It's easy to tell which you have, the latter have problems on blank walls.

[ QUOTE ]
Mark2 said:
[ QUOTE ]
UnknownVT said:
The beamshot photo looks kind of out of focus

[/ QUOTE ]
No, please note the surface of the wall.

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry, I do see that now -
but why does your shot still look "blurry", please - almost like the beams are "frosted"?

[ QUOTE ]
Mark2 said:
[ QUOTE ]
UnknownVT said:
That's the reason for the + mark in the photo - something for the camera's autofocus to focus on.

[/ QUOTE ]
The autofocus doesn't look at what's on the picture, it measures the distance between the camera and the object.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess it depends on the camera used - most digital cameras use contrast comparison for their autofocus which means they look for contrast differences in the target/image.

A normal beamshot (like a blank wall or blank sheet of paper) will not have any nice defined contrast for the camera to focus on - that is exactly why I have to use that + mark.

Older p&s film cameras did use infrared "active" focussing which did measure the distance bounced by a near infrared beam - but those are now much fewer -
I assumed you used a digital camera - my apologies for my mistake.

I've used a bunch of the Countycomm $1.00 lights which I doubt are using Nichia leds. Most of the ones in the slide-switch version of the light are whiter (though maybe less efficient) than the Nichias I've used in Arc and CMG lights. No idea about longevity. Besthongkong.com is selling white leds for around 0.10 each and those seem to work fine too. Is anyone really going to use a flashlight for 1000+ hours? Some cheap led driven at 25 mA (i.e. within the manufacturer's spec) is likely to outlast a Nichia driven at 70 mA (more than 200% of spec) anyway. I'm sure Don knows more about this subject than I do, but I've had the impression that if you're willing to accept a bit less than the absolute maximum possible output (e.g. you'll take 10000 mcd instead of 12000 mcd), white leds aren't anything magic any more. And really, a 20% brightness difference in a flashlight is quite hard to notice.

As for machining the leds, why is that such a big deal? We're talking about flicking away a half-millimeter ridge of plastic, not cutting through a foot of tungsten carbide. I did it by hand with a fingernail file on a led for a mod a couple nights ago and it only took a minute. With a belt sander or in a lathe, it should be doable in about as long as it takes to get the led in and out of the chuck. 20 seconds per led or 1 minute for all 3 leds should be more than plenty. Even if the labor with overhead is costing $30 an hour, that's just 50 cents going into a 20 dollar flashlight.

Try taking a Mag Solitaire apart sometime. It has quite a few more machining and assembly operations than a LED light (e.g. Arc AAA) needs, and yet Mag manages to make them in California and sell them for around $7 in retail stores including a layer of distributor profits. I have no idea where the Peak Led lights are made but I don't see anything economically unfeasible about doing it in Arizona, especially if Peak can reach some level of production economy that Arc has not yet managed to achieve.

I am glad someone got one delivered. I don't care how blue it is. When I get mine, I will send it to McGizmo and he'll figure out a way to cram 3 Luxeon IV's in there and run it off on N cells. (I can dream-right?).

lol ... I love my small N cell flashlights... the turbo nano mate along with my new Arc N both on my keychain, both about the same size... now I just need a regulated luxeon 3 running at 500 ma giving me a 5 minute runtime.

As far as the beamshots here go, if you got one of them really old prototypes that is essentially just an Arc AAA with a different head, like this one ....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=16037&item=4129231440&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I wouldn't put too much into these beam shots yet because that's one of their earliest prototypes. I'd wait for some newer brass ones or for the actual releases on middle may. I myself am hoping these are everything Dallas says they will be, but time will tell. In theory you should be able to get at least double the brightness with of course half the runtime... in theory.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

The light used for the above beamshots was received from the manufacturer a few days ago for testing purposes.