LED/INCAN Q?

Hey why do incandescent lights throw heat. even if youre 5 feet away with a high powered surefire you can feel heat on your face, while when you use an LED (l4) you dont?? And why can't an led throw the same as incandescent if you put them in the same reflector? inquiring minds want to know.

90 - 95% of the electricity flowing into an incan is turned into heat - much of it in the infrared range felt by your face.

A reflector will only work with a side emitting LED unless it's like the Pelican M6 which fires the LED back into the reflector. Light from regular LED's hardly hits the reflector like it does from an incan.

glock_nor_cal,

what jayflash said.

Imagine a laser. Now imagine it in a reflector. What's the reflector doing? You guessed it. Nothing. LED's can benefit from a reflector, especially DEEP reflectors and LARGE reflectors, but if size is an issue, an optic is a much better choice.

Incan filaments radiate in all directions at once, and thus are more suited to reflectors.

As for throw, LED's can throw a long way given the right setup. There's no reason they couldn't throw every bit as far as an incan.

In my opinion, it's the full-spectrum light of an incan which makes it throw farther, but I haven't really thought this one out, so take that with a grain of salt. Check out the thread "Why I still cary incans" or something like that in the Incandescent forum.

Do you consider a gas filled bulb an incandescent bulb? I have always thought a gas filled was...well...a "gas filled" bulb and if it had a filament it was an incandescent.

Probably totally wrong on my part - just curious.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

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js said:
glock_nor_cal,

LED's can benefit from a reflector, especially DEEP reflectors and LARGE reflectors, but if size is an issue, an optic is a much better choice.


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Why Surefire isn't mounting optics in their LED products like L4, but only reflectors ? I think, that optics will be better in such products, allowing smaller more efficient heads to be used.

If you look at the gas filled bulb in a SF (or any other non LED) light, you will see it has a filament. The idea of gas fill, allows the filament to burn much hotter/brighter without consuming itself. (the short answer) There's some intersting stuff going on with the gasses in a bulb. You might try a web search on "halogen cycle" or try to find a bulb tutorial if you're into the technical stuff.

There is no heat in the light emitted from an LED, nearly all the heat generated goes back into the LED package itself which is why heatsinking is so important.

The various gasses used within incandescent lamps are there to increase both brightness and life of the filament. The gas allows the filament to run hotter and helps to redeposit the tungsten molecules back onto the fliament rather than the glass envelope.

Don't confuse gas filled incans with gas arc discharge type lamps which have no filament.

Thanks for the definition. I appreciate the feedback!!

yeah thank for the clarification