Question for the LUXEON experts

All of the lights around here (ie surefire etc) are rated in lumens. My EDC is Dorcy AA with a 14500 Li-ION running a LUX III Direct with a Faren optic. I ues it at my work all the time, (mostly for showing off). Anyway, I am not sure of the BIN, but it was a good one from the sandwitch shoppe. How would a LUX III with this optic compare to the name brand or other cusom lights here. It pulls about 1000-1100 mA.
thanks in advance

Jeff

Also, I have modified the original tail switch to operate with two stages, this works both direct and with the boost board. I will post pics when I get my camera back.

1000 mA luxiii is supposed to output about 72 lumens.. (67 to 87) is the most common bin... there are bins rated as high as like 192 and higher, but never heard of a lux 3 actually in that bin.. betting there are 5watters occasionally in a bin like that, but can't imagine what they would sell for =-o.

lumens doesn't change based on the focus (how bright the center dot is or how far the beam throws)... it's just a grand total of how much light is output.

Normally a good bright lux 3 is 80ish lumen.. aka 'very damn bright'. I dont' know how much brighter they get when over driven like my new micromighty (1300mA when fresh batteries).... it's a law of diminishing return thing... a logarithmic increase in brightness for linear increase in power.

-awr

To add to AWR's post....

The optic can make a difference, as different optics capture different percentage of lght from the LED and may even have multiple interfaces from led to air to reflector coating to ..... I think you see what I mean. A Fraen optic does a nice job of getting most of the light out the front, but there is some light that escapes through the back of the optic.

A direct drive that pulls 1 amp should be brighter than the commercial lights based on the same LED, at least for the first few seconds. After that, it depends on the heat management of the lights and the consistancy of the power supplied to the LED. As it heats up, LEDs put out less light.

I edc a DORCY 1 AA using a 3 volt battery and a lux III with Fraen lp. I've measured it at about 30 lumens. This excceds the ARC LSH-P that reads close to 20 on the same measuring set-up.



Daniel

thanks guys, I was put out by not winning any of the surefires, although who better to win than Craig, right. But looking at light outputs from various commercial lights I was unsure how mine compared. I have NX-05 optics, but I recientally got some Farens, I like the Farens better. People who dabble in LED stuff, cant believe how bright my 3 watter is, hard for them to believe it is a LED. especially when you can feel heat on your lips from 6 inches away. As far as heat management, I mixed JB weld quick set with heat sink grease, and potted the star to the inside of the dorcy head. It get warm after a min or two, I havent run it for more than 4 or 5 mins. My modular dorcy set includes a LUX III White head and a LUX III cyan head, both run full power DD (converter board bypassed. I also have another AA dorcy with the converter board still in it running a RB LUX III. The RB has a slightly higher Vf than the others so it runns better at 600mA with the inverter board. I also like this setup because when camping and the Li-ION batts go dead, I can swap the white head on the base with the converter and toss in a alky AA (which runns pretty good.

Thanks again

Jeff

Daniel, do you think the LSHF-P with the Fraen optics would stack up a little better against the Dorcey you're using since the battern will be a lot tighter than the LSH-P NX optics?

I don't think it would. The LSH-P has a NX05 and the Dorcy has a Fraen. Both use TIR and both surround the LED's head. I'm pretty sure that both have about the same efficiency.

I measure the relative light output using a white bucket with the lux meter 39 inches fom the end. The light points into the bucket. The Lux meter aslo points into the mouth of the bucket. For small lights, this does a decent job of catching all the light so it can be measured like an integrating sphere does. I get readings close to what the manufacturers claim.

With both lights, the entire beam is confined to the bucket. The Dorcy reads 50 percent brighter in total light. Bounce the beam off the wall behind you and the Dorcy will light the room better.

If I check just the hotspot, the fraen has quite an advantage over the NX05. That would be pointing the light directly at the light meter.

I'm using a brighter LED in my Dorcy (a T ranked LUX III) than the LSHF-P has, so the Dorcy would still outthrow it by about 50 percent. The LSHF-P is rated at about 22 lumens, and the Dorcy at about 30 lumens. Again, bounce the beam off the wall behind you and the Dorcy will light the room better.

BTW, my Dorcy is only driving the LED at less than 500ma.


Daniel