Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/Torch

mobile1

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A couple of months ago I sent an email to the Guiness Book of Worldrecords people, asking them what the current records are for brightest handheld flashlight/torch.

In an earlier post I tried to find some people interested in building a record breaking light - however the interested seemed to be moderate.

However the Guiness people wrote back, saying that they currently don't have any records, but that they would be interested in opening up a new category!!!!

So I would like to come up with a definition how the world record for a handheld flashlight/torch can be measured.

How about: "1 hour sustainable lumens per cubic inch of flashlight"

Then how do we define bright, or how is it measured and who measures it (LED-museum?).

Let's all define these things to help the guiness book people establish a flashlight category... and give us all something to look forward to when modding and building flashlights...
 

cy

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Also the world's brightest small LED light as measured by cubic in per lumens should be considered.

one off Larry modded ARC AA body mated with Li14430's head, 3 stage, w/CR2 li-ion would be in the running. The Li14430 next to it is pretty small/bright too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

cr2 14430.JPG
 

WildRice

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

And you know if they open up a flashlight section, more than likely it will be a CPF'er in the top ranks

Jeff /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

Would also need sub-catagories ie

Smallest, brightest, LED, filiment, gas discharge...
 

evan9162

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

How would they measure brightness? If it's just lux/f-c, then a laser pointer would beat everything. They should go for overall lumens, but you'd need an integrating sphere for that, which would be rather expensive.
 

HarryN

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Hi - I remember that post - looked very interesting. It might be harder to define the goal than to build.

From a practical viewpoint, the brightest are likely to be incans, and the ones with the most potential factory support are likely to be LED.

Perhaps we should have 2 catagories
- World's brightest LED Flashlight
- World's brightest Flashlight

OK - here are some ideas for dartboard specs just to open up the discussions.

Size Limit
Rather than artificially restrict the shape to our conventional thinking, perhaps we should set a "volume" standard. - This allows odd battery shapes, etc to be used as needed.
- Total volume, including reflector, power source, electronics, and wiring - based on submerging the light in water? not larger than a tube that is 100mm dia. x 300mm long (approx 4 inches x 12 inches)
- I just picked this out of the air based on what I could hold in one hand.

Runtime
- Light measure averaged over a 60 minute period.

Harder part
- measuring light output and color rendering index (because in general, the lower the CRI, the potentially brighter a light can become, at least in LEDs
- We may need to get NIST involved, but here is a starting point
- Measured in an integrating sphere
- CRI of at least 50
- Measurements taken within the visible spectrum (not UV and IR), so nominally 450 - 700nm ?

Throw vs Flood - ok - someone else suggest.

Maybe 2 or 3 other catagories based on volumes 25 % as large and 5 % as large ?

Sounds fun - HarryN
 

Doug S

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

I like the "1 hour sustainable lumens per cubic inch of flashlight" as part of the requirement though they would probably prefer all metric units rather than mixed English/metric. Without the time consideration you could have some very high output flashlights by fitting flashbulbs into a light. I like lumens/unit volume and also lumens/unit mass. Having a defined short time like 1 hour is good. If you simply allowed integrated lumen-hours/unit volume it would advantage dim but long runtime LED lights due to efficiency gains at low drive levels.
 

evan9162

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Purely based on lumens, you could probably get it with something like a CCFT tube.
 

MR Bulk

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

By putting Too many parameters on it you might end up with a light that is Not the absolute brightest. For example we might end up with a winning light that is admittedly pretty bright, but since it has to sustain this brightness for an HOUR, several other TRULY bright lights may be capable of blowing it away for the first five or fifteen or twenty-five or forty-five minutes.

Also by putting a volume constraint on it, the brightest light may end up being just a reflector glued to a Luxeon soldered onto a battery; sure it would be small in volume, but how useful/durable could it be? Yes, it would degrade into a contest between lights that are purpose-built to win, yet not be practical in any other way such as carryability or bonafide utility, etc.

Lots of wriggly worms to herd from this can...
 

McGizmo

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Better decide on lux or lumens and if lumens are chosen, who is going to measure this?!?! Don't tell me you will go by the LED manufacturer's specs!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif I can put a luxeon in a green 7UP bottle and tout the mfg's luminous output all day! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif

By worlds brightest, the public will expect to see a bright beam in the sky (MegaRay) and not a photon that wins by virtue of the helium in its bladder that floats it above your hand! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif
 

liteglow

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

can`t we make a TOP 10 list of the SHARPEST\Brigthest led light ?

That will help out all the neewbie that wonder "what led light to buy" like me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

the top 10 worst list, i dont know is nessasery?
 

_mike_

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

You said "hand-held"...some folks are pretty strong, so there might need to be a weight class. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 

jashhash

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

IRemember reading in another post about a HID light that could produce 2,400 lumens. I think it was called a Gator Light or something like that. So if you plan on getting in the guinis books maybe you should consider using HID bulbs (which are like $100 per bulb). Over all this mod is going to cost you in maybe the $2,000 range to build such a bright flashlight. Also you might consider using Li-ion unprotected cells for your fuel source. You might be able to convert a 4D m*g light (or something like it) into a 12x aa li-ion for a 44.4 V 800mah power source. Perhaps you could run 3 HID bulbs in series for 30 minutes. If each bulb produces 2,400 lumens then maybe this thing could put out 7,000 lumens. Thats the equivalent brightness of 14 60watt bulbs.
 

mobile1

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Mr Bulk brought up some valid points.... but I think it should be simple. How about:

"The lowest 1 hour sustainable lumens per cubic inch(or centimeter) of flashlight"

By looking at the LOWEST lumens output in a 1 hour timeframe, would require the light to be regulated, making it more usefull. Now we would have to see whether the "brightest" light with this definition is not something odd like a tiny mini led and tiny battery... or the boeing-landing light with battery-backpack, as this hardly would count as a handheld light.

Sure side categories like "brightest light - no rules" for the boeing-landing-light and smallest flashlight would be fun. But for the main category we should find an easy definition.

If we take lowest-1h-sustainable-lumens-per-square-inch of flashlight, how would lights like, Arc4, Firefly, incand.torches stack up?

Regarding measurement, instead of measuring the output, how about if we measure the brightest spot, from a distance of 1 or 2 meters away (or whatever the most commen operating range is for a flashlight). This would also put some focus on the optics which would result in more usefull lights entering the competition (to prevent happening what Mr Bulk posted...)
 

oldtimer

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Isn't the brightest ever Ginseng's Aurora based on the Mag 6D body at over 10000 lumens?
 

jashhash

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Hmm... No I take back my original statement. THere are already 10 million candle power lights out there. Thats about 10,000 lumens (I think). The world record light should atleast double that at 20,000 lumens to hold any kind of sustainable record. Ofcourse even at that much output you have to realize that as technology improves theres a good chance that your world record would be passed up in a few years.
 

Lynx_Arc

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

just get arnold to hand hold a generator in one hand and a helicopter searchlight in the other.
 

mobile1

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

Does anyone have any links tot he 10,000 MAG 6D light, how about the Boeing-Landing-Light did we ever see a picture of that one? And whats the runtime of those lights?
 

HarryN

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

One way to ensure some level of usability and not just a "bare components" light, is to measure its volume by submerging the "entire light and related items" in water just before the test.

If we want to keep the catagory "flashlight", then it is reasonable to set a volume limit, and not just an unlimited class.

The reason for 3 volumes is to allow for "large", "medium" and "small" lights. Perhaps we can use the volume of some typical lights as starting points - Ideas:
- "small" - Surefire G2 Nitronol
- "medium" - 4 D mag
- "large" - A large, existing, commercial spotlight under 10 kg.

In theory, we could define a "worlds smallest light" catagory based on some slightly different definitions.

As far as light measurement and optics, (which are quite significant), we could set up some kind of measurements based on the size - example
- Area to be measured - round disc, 5 meters dia.
- Measure 9 points and average
- Distance - 25 meters for a small light, 100 meters for a medium light, 1000 meters for a large light.

(yes, I just made these numbers up for further discussion)
 

cheesehead

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Re: Guiness Book - Brightest Handheld Flashlight/T

I think the general public would expect it to light up the clouds. Thus, only short arcs would be in the running,... Maxabeam and Megaray. Otherwise a 1000 watt landing light with 5-6 6 volt SLAs would be the winner. But then, they need to define "portable". Great idea! And boy would it be cool to have that light! Keep up the good work and convince them to create this category. That would really be something! All of us would want to have that light.

cheese
 
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