Arc LS regulation question

I noticed last night that my LSHF was a little dimmer than usual so out of curiosity I put in a new battery. It proved that I was right and the battery was getting weaker.

The thing that I'm curious about is if this is moon mode already, it is still pretty bright. I was expecting very dim light when it goes into moon mode. I'm reluctant to change the battery because it still provides a lot of light.

Is this normal behavior for moon mode?

Thanks.

Yes, it is absolutely normal, I have a LSHF too and it did the same like a week ago and worked for a few more hours giving a usefull light, also is normal the flickering for few minutes until gets the "moon mode" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/huh.gif

The brightness and duration of moon mode will depend upon your flashlight usage pattern. Long runs of sun mode will give you about 2 hours of runtime and a gentle slide into moon mode. It sounds like this is what you are experiencing. Intermittent sun mode use will give you up to 3 hours of runtime and a precipitous fall into extremely dim moon mode.

My understanding is that when the light is out of regulation, it is in direct drive but if it's still bright, then isn't the battery far from being dead?

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Billson said:

The thing that I'm curious about is if this is moon mode already, it is still pretty bright. I was expecting very dim light when it goes into moon mode. I'm reluctant to change the battery because it still provides a lot of light.


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My feelings exactly. It isn't as WOW bright when in moon mode, but still useful for many situations. So what do I do now? Where am I supposed to send these moon mode CR123s?

Maybe I need to get another LS, so I can keep one sun and one moon. I can choose the one I need depending on the situation. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Ty_Bower said:Maybe I need to get another LS, so I can keep one sun and one moon. I can choose the one I need depending on the situation.

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You know, Peter has a solution for people who want to spend about twice the LS money and wanting more brightness levels...

The regulation on the LS isn't perfectly flat - it does fall off and dim. You'll know when you're in moon mode - it's about the brightness of an AAA.

The idea behind moon mode is that you're not left in the dark when your cells die like with traditional flashlights.

When you hit moon mode, change your cell. It's like life insurance - it's good to have it, but you hope you don't need to use it.

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kitelights said:
The regulation on the LS isn't perfectly flat - it does fall off and dim.


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Some LS are fully current regulated, some are not.

The current regulated ones can be modded for up to twice the current by simply changing the sense resistor. A lot of people have done this. It proves that these lights are 'perfectly flat' regulated, till they drop out of regulation ('moon mode').

The non-regulated / partial regulated ones are brighter with a fresh CR123 cell and dimmer with for example 2xNiMH. My LSL Rev2 is not fully regulated. I tried to change the sense resistor, and i even shorted it completely - still the same current, still the same brightness. I even tried different emitters with different Vf. It seems as if the circuit is already max'd out and doesn't pay attention to what the current sense resistor says. The light is still somewhat regulated, maybe because of some protection element in the switching mode IC.

I found that my not fully regulated Arc LS is as useful as a flat regulated would be.

Stef(an).

How would I know if my light is the fully regulated version?

Look at the positive battery contact in the head to tell the versions apart. If it is flush with the surface of the board and surrounded with a thin dark ring and then a wide gold ring, that is the voltage regulated version.

If the positive contact is above the surface of the board about 1mm or so and surrounded with colored plastic (usually green)that is the current regulated version.

The voltage regulated versions will dim somewhat more as battery voltage decreases than the current regulated versions will. This is not as noticable if you use lithium batteries instead of alkalines.

The current regulated version drops very quickly to "moon mode". The voltage regulated version descends to moon mode more gradually and can get quite a few more minutes of fairly bright light out of a battery that will only light up the current regulated version in "moon mode". With alkalines I actually prefer the voltage regulated version.

Mine is supposed to be current regulated (it's the newest version and it has a current sense resistor). But the current regulation doesn't work fully.

Stef(an).