Sold/Expired Anyone w light meter want to review arc AAA mod?

Hi everybody!

LED_ASAP just made a Lux III mod for my ARC AAA.
It's really really bright for the size and I would like to know
how much light it's putting out.

Does anyone with a light meter and some free time and interest like
to review it for me? I can send it to you only if you promise to
send it back! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif

Here are the specs:
Lux III TWOJ (i chose the lux 3 for their reliable tint and lower vf)
About 1A across the battery
Rayvac 15 minute 800mah
Runs for 50 minutes before flickering to moon mode
Must be held to cool the light.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

David
- later I'll be writing a detailed review for LED ASAP's mod /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
- by the way, this thing is a work of art. so much
detail has gone into this mod. cheers to LED ASAP!

PM sent. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

light sent to milky spit! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowlaugh.gif

Here is the results of milky's light meter readings:

Arc AAA Luxeon: 42.5 lux
Arc AAA stock: 19.6 lux

He also tested my 3AAA:

ALX-1113A 3AAA TW0L direct drive: 3760 lux (goldengadgets.com)
PR-T T-binned 2x123 direct drive: 3730 lux
PR-T TV0K DB917: 3210 lux
PR-T SY0H DB500: 2100 lux

The AAA Luxeon is only twice as bright as the stock Arc ?
I can´t believe it .
I´ve got a LED_ASAP mod with TWOJ-emitter set to 600 mA
battery-draw and I´m sure it is at least 5 times as bright as my Arc AAA-P !!!

Mine is set at 800ma at the battery which comes to about 250ma to the emitter (assuming 80% efficiency). Mine is also a TWOJ. I seriously doubt you driving the luxeon at 600ma which means you are drawing about 2 amps from you battery. If you're using a nimh AAA with 800mah, then it should last you a good 18 minutes at best (ideal conditions). I think what you mean is 600ma from the battery because I asked LED_asap to tune mine to as high as posstible.

about the brightness, this is with a light meter as one meter.
I think the original light is more focused.

As I posted , my light is set to 600 mA BATTERY DRAW !!!

Has your mod the acrylic half ball lens in it ?

no it doesn't. this is led_asap's third generation mod.
he bored out the head so that the luxeon could stick all the way
into the reflector thus making a very nice beam with a lot of flood.

I will need to clear up a little here /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

The "new drilling technique" is aimed to produce more flood beam and a balance between throw and side spill. The other option with a half acrylic ball is more aimed to generate a bright hotspot and you have far less side spill. The overall light output is higher in the new mod because you can better utilize the sidespill from the emitter.

The reading from a lightmeter is the intensity, not the total amount of light; it also doesn't say how the brightness is distributed among the beam. The same amount of light output can give dramatically different intensity with different optic---it can be fairly dim in a flood, or blindingly bright if it's all focused to a small area---like with Fraen.

Maybe I can be of some assistance here. I still have 4sevens' LED_ASAP Arc AAA Luxeon, and am the one who did the testing using my LM631 light meter. LED_ASAP is right; lux measures intensity at the hotspot of a light source. For flashlights, a lux reading can be a good indicator of how well one light will throw relative to another. But it's not the whole picture! Lumens measure the TOTAL light output of a light source... unfortunately, the equipment for doing accurate lumens measurements costs thousands of dollars. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

The SureFire L4 is one example of a flashlight that has notoriously poor lux readings, and yet generates a staggering amount of overall light output for such a small light.

It's possible to compare one light with another for overall output. Go in a dark room with both lights, point them both at the same spot on the ceiling, and look at something in the room that's NOT on the ceiling. Alternate which light is on, and see how brightly the room is illuminated with each.

I just did a quick test with the Arc AAA Luxeon as compared with a modded Arc LS in which I'm driving 200mA of current flow through a Q2H emitter. Actually, the Arc LS was generating a slightly greater amount of overall output, but only just barely... the overall output of both lights was VERY close. That's pretty impressive on the part of the Arc AAA Luxeon!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif

The beam is most definitely a super broad angle flood, and yet there IS a noticeable hotspot in the middle. A stock Arc AAA floods an area with light, too, but its overall beam isn't nearly as wide.

Bottom line is that this LED_ASAP modded Arc AAA Luxeon is a fine piece of work! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif I'd definitely consider one for a truly bright, useful light source that's a legitimate keychain carry. The downsides would be that it probably won't run for long with an ordinary alkaline AAA, so NiMH is pretty much a must... and even on NiMH, runtime will most likely be no more than an hour. On the other hand, the stock Arc AAA is capable of something like 4-6 hours of runtime using an ordinary alkaline AAA cell, but with much less overall light.

Milky:

Can you do a light meter test that 0 distance? That may should be
closer to lumens - at least what comes out of the front of the light!
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Sure... I'll figure something out. 0 distance probably won't work for a number of reasons, but there are other ways to take a look at overall output, at least to compare one light with another. Might take me a little while to setup a good test apparatus, so please bear with me...
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

somebody (flashlight reviews?) built an 'overall light output' meter by putting a light into a white box and measure the reflected light in the box... it's a relative amt.. doesn't actually measure lumens.. but it's a decent way to compare.

I'm about to build some neat AAA mods... should have them in a day or three.. oops need some more emitters off to wayne.. see ya.

-awr