Interesting - Surefire Lumens per pound

Based on the 'Is the M6 worth it?' thread, where I reminded the poster of the M6's amazing ratio of Lumens per pound, I took a few minutes to whip up a quick chart of where other Surefire lights land on this spectrum, using Surefire's quoted weights for the light with batteries. A few surprises for me, at least. Clearly, this doesn't address, form factor, beam shape, quality, throw, runtime, or a variety of other critical factors, but it provided me with a nice basis of objective comparison. Scroll down to the bottom for a Maglite shocker.

M6 - 15.6oz
HOLA - 500 Lumens = 510 lumens/lb
LOLA - 250 Lumens = 255 lumens/lb

M4 - 11.4oz
HOLA - 350 Lumens = 491 lumens/lb
LOLA - 250 Lumens = 290 lumens/lb

M3T - 9.6oz
HOLA - 225 Lumens = 374 lumens/lb
LOLA - 125 Lumens = 208 lumens/lb

M3 - 7.0oz
HOLA - 225 Lumens = 514 lumens/lb
LOLA - 125 Lumens = 285 lumens/lb

C3 - 6.6oz
HOLA - 200 Lumens = 484 lumens/lb
LOLA - 120 Lumens = 290 lumens/lb

M2 - 6.3oz
HOLA - 120 Lumens = 303 lumens/lb
LOLA - 65 Lumens = 165 lumens/lb

G2 - 4.1oz
HOLA - 120 Lumens = 468 lumens/lb
LOLA - 65 Lumens = 253 lumens/lb

Z2 - 5.1oz
HOLA - 120 Lumens = 376 lumens/lb
LOLA - 65 Lumens = 203 lumens/lb

E2e - 3.2oz
60 Lumens = 300 lumens/lb

L4 - 3.5 oz
65 Lumens = 297 lumens/lb

And for comparison...

Arc LSH-P w/clickie - 2.2oz
22 Lumens = 159 lumens/lb

Maglite 2D 23.8oz
18 lumens - 12 lumens/lb

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Now add in volume (Lummens/weight/volume) and you are getting back to Gransee's "Light Density" discussions! I would like to see where a Larry light would fit in here!

There should be a chart

Would be cool if a larger chart were made. Like what is the brightest LED for volume? You can even sort by brightest 1xCR123, 2x123, etc

Re: There should be a chart

Ther's that slippery word again........"Brightest" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif

Re: There should be a chart

Alright then. How about we choose a measure and stick with it. Like Lumens.

Another thing we can do is other ratios. Like Lumens/battery life.

Re: There should be a chart

Or lumens per dollar.

Thanks, Deanster. This is interesting /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

Wow, great post! You could do a lumen/vol by placing each light in a measuring container filled with water and seeing how much water is displaced. 12 lumens/lb for the Mag is pretty bad...

The volume discussion is interesting... however, the materials for all the lights are similar, and just eyeballing it, volume seems to vary pretty closely with weight - I bet we wouldn't find a big delta between the weight ratios and volume ones. If someone's eager to spend some time dunking lights in beakers, more power to them. I'll pass, though.

The other interesting aspect of this list, for me at least, is that since Surefire pretty consistently quotes runtimes of one hour for LOLA's, and 20min for HOLA's, it's pretty easy to infer the runtime aspect into the lumens/lb comparison.

Couple more...

Maglite 2C - 15.7oz
18 lumens = 18 lumens/lb

MiniMag 2AA - 3.8oz
5.3 lumens = 22 lumens/lb

What do LOLA and HOLA stand for?

Low Output Lamp Assembly

and....drum roll.....

High Output Lamp Assembly

Many surefire products have two available lamp assembly that can be used,
HOLA High Output Lamp Assembly
LOLA Low Output Lamp Assembly

or at least that is whaty I have taken the abbreviation to mean. 250 lumens is not what most would consider low output!

OK guys, in addition to the volume that you all want to calculate, lets get the efficacy (sp?) in here so:

lumens/watt/lb/volume

Now cost is *no* object so we can leave it out of the equation! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

BTW, volume is just pi R squared X length for each "section" of the light added together! Don't need calculations of mass or displacement here since we already have weight in the picture.

As long as we're talking esoteric measurements, I've always been a bit surprised that nobody seems to care about "lumen-hours", which would be the area under the line of a runtime/brightness graph.

A fully regulated light that gave 100 lumens for one hour would have the same lumen-hour rating as one that gave one lumen for 100 hours, and most lights would have a more complex measurment as output declines over time, perhaps with measurement halting at 50% of original brightness. Combined with the peak lumens measurement it's a pretty interesting approach to measuring how much 'useful light' you get.

None of which is important to people who just like their lights to look really cool.

[ QUOTE ]
McGizmo said:
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Now add in volume (Lummens/weight/volume) and you are getting back to Gransee's "Light Density" discussions! I would like to see where a Larry light would fit in here!

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Don, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Obviously you don't mean the bronze or tungsten ones. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Larry

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif