LED vs incandescant throws

When comparing LED lumens vs incands I have learned that the LEDs offer more of a flood effect than the incands. I was thinking of a L2 for a brighter light (I have an L1 for general outdoor use-which I like a lot) I have a G2, will the L2 or L4 throw as well as the G2 lamp or do I need to go to a higher LED output. I just don't want to have to carry an extra bulb, hence the idea of the LED. Or is this a question just getting another "toy" for my collection?

Unless you go custom, no production LED based light will out throw a similar incan light. The Inova T3's and XO3's do a good job, but the beams lack that incan. "punch" needed for longer range work.

--dan

An L2 or L4 will not equal the G2 for throw. Maybe some one can comment on an L6 or L7 perhaps?

Some of the Mag mods can out throw an incandescant,
The 2 cell lambda Promagnum Flashlight and the Everled
drop in Led replacement are just a couple, these use a
single Led.

IMHO, I realized no amount of throw (modded) in an LED can beat an incand. Like what Dano said, it lacks the "punch" needed for long range work.

It is not related to "punch" but to wavelenght absortion by air, steam and floating particles. Lower energy wavelenghts as red or yellow travel better through this medium. Underwater is a different story, as teh "window" is between blue and green, pending on amount of fitoplancton and other issues.
The advantage of LEDs is that we can see better with higher temp light sources, so even if that light can't pass through fog as good as red we can compensate it by obtaining better efficiencies.
Curiosly our human vision system is most sensitive to underwater wavelenghts, and that is a part of a theory in which humans does not come soem directly from apes, but from a oceanic antecessor (under skin grease tissue, form of our bodies.... etc) BTW, it is a serious theory, not a exotic one that can be found on UFO and paranormal activities websites.

After joining in on cpf i have now realized personally what leds and incan's do for me. Here it is:

leds' are good for hiking, work, general purpose for their run time is awesome and leds dont have great throw.

incans are good for tactical/bump in the night purposes for they have still the greatest throw and brightness of all. Throw and brightness are very important in tactical/bump in the night situations.

Plain in simple and my .2cents

What say you?

<<...it is not related to "punch"...>>

Nope. Its related to being able to see farther.

We went on a raid last night; I was supposed to be on the inside group, but ended up out back poking around in a cluttered back yard/woods area. I had neglected to bring my issue Stinger, only having my two-speed L4.

My partner had his Stinger; it simply allowed him to see a LOT farther into the woods than the L4 on high did for me.

In absolute darkness, or areas of very low ambient light, a good LED can't be beat for lighting up your surroundings. But if you need to reach out to see what might be lurking out of sight (IOW, "tactical", as junior put it), a good incan is necessary.

The SF X200 LED weapon light does this well. Alas, that makes it less than desirable for its intended purpose... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif But my point is that some LED lights may indeed be able to approach the reach of powerful incans. I haven't seen what the L5 or L6 can do, so perhaps they are viable for "tactical" use. I can tell you that the L2 and L4 are NOT.

I really like my two-speed L4, and if I could only have one light it would be my choice. It shall remain my EDC, along with an ARC AAA. But the Stinger and a G2 are always in the war bag close to me.

I don't do much "tactical" work these days; last night was an aberration. But it did show me that I've gotten too comfortable with being an office pogue, and have become too enamored of LED lights. Everyone, regardless of avocation, should have a good, powerful incan in their battery.

Hey... was that a pun???

rifle59,

L5 - 50/60 yds. maximum, both eyes open; if you close one eye, you cut the max effective range to 30 yds. A good, shock-resistent tactical light for handgun range.

L6 - 90/100 yds. maximum, both eyes open; if you close one eye, you cut the max effective range to 50 yds. A good shock-resistent tactical light for handgun/shotgun range.

I mention the single-eye restriction because of the predominent tendency of people to close one eye when they site and fire a weapon.

The comments made earlier about being able to see better with the blue/white light of the LED are true. The object contrast is a little better. However, range and power is the realm of the incandescent bulb. If you are considering a higher power LED, I recommend that you wait for the U2 because of it's versatility.

As the power and lumen output increases with the L5 & L6, the beam narrows - (i.e. the LED on the L6 is set in a deeper reflector than the L5 to throw the lumen output farther. This narrows the overall spill of the beam. The more powerful incandescents seem to retain better spill than the L5, and especially the L6.

Hope this helps.

L4 has a wide light pattern optics. To be fair when comparing LEDs to Incands you should try a 27mm Optics with a 3 Watt LS vs a 3Watt Halogen.
The most similar comparison I have done is the following.
3 x LSIII with 27 mm Optics vs a 10 Watt halogen well focused on a Magcharger. Unfortunately I have not pics, but it was better thrower than the incand.

Actually, I would assume it is more related to power than anything else. A 5W led is at the top of the led power sources (not counting overdriving, etc). Also, due to the 4 combined 1.25W dies being used, the source isn't a single point and more of a flood results in typical reflector sizes. An incan is scalable, meaning the larger the light gets (more voltage and current from the batteries), there is a bulb than can match it. Leds can't do that. So, there are stock incan lights out there running at 8-20W without overdriving. Power still rules.

This test was designed to see how the brightest LED light compared to the brightest incandescents:

SN II FACES DOWN INCANDESCENT WOLFPACK


Brightnorm

Yes, the L4 does not have a very tight beam at all, and beam angle matters a lot. For a given light output, the brightness of the hotspot is (approximately) inversely proportional to the square of the beam angle. So if you go from a 6-degree beam to a 2-degree beam using the same light source, the hotspot will be 9 times as bright.

Until relatively recently, LED lights have not had focusing mechanisms remotely as good as what you get with an incandescent lamp and a reflector. This is changing quickly, but incandescents still have the advantage of being able to scale up to arbitrarily high power levels.

Interesting comments regarding focusing of the beam. And I can see how comparing the L4 is not really "fair", due to its wide beam.

One imagines that McGizmo could build me an LED light that at least equals the "throw" of a Stinger or 6P/G2, eh? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Actually, the only problem I have with the Stinger (aside from it being a bit larger and heavier than its 123-eating SureFire competitor in my war bag) is that it is tied to that bloody charger; you MUST keep it "topped off" if you want the brightest beam that will last more than half an hour.

Perhaps one day we will be able to have our cake and eat it too, at "consumer" prices. It all boils down to domestic issues; while she is normally tolerant of me and my toys, the wife knows how many lights I have, and what they cost. If I dropped over two bills right now on a custom light, she'd stroke out.

Can't have that... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Here's a good thread about LED vs. incandescent throw: why I still carry incandescents /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Thanks for that reference.

I have seen several references to this "ambient light absorbs an LED beam" theory, and was, to put it mildly skeptical. After last night, I'm a believer. There was a pole-mounted street light in that back yard, and the light it put out did indeed seem to suck the L4's beam away in the shadows.

At any rate, from now on whenever I'm out working at night, there will be a strong incan attached somewhere to my ***... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/au.gif

It is amazing how quick we forget. About half of my 26 years on the job have been spent working the road. Like Dave in PA, I too carried an SL-20 with a 6P back-up (after 1990, anyway). Those two old warhorses never let me down; not once.

I have been too bedazzled by the LED phenomenon. While I like, and will continue to use, my several LED lights, its back to the basics for me; at least until I can afford a custom LED with some serious throw.

It all comes down to how your eyes adjust to relative light levels. The more ambient light, the more throw you need, because the beam has to stand out more strongly from the background.

In pitch black conditions the opposite is true, and you can get away with tiny amounts of diffuse light. Some people prefer the original CMG Infinity to the Infinity Ultra--because to dark-adapted eyes the Ultra can often be too bright.

Well put, Andrew. That makes perfect sense.

i did a test with my L2 and G2Z, and i was the test subject /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

i was in a small and completely dark room

i tested with both my G2Z and L2, fire it at a large mirror and me looking at it

the L2 is bright and white, but i can never really blind myself

with the G2Z, the beam is yellow compared to the L2, but I could blind myself pretty good when I pointed it right

the distance of me and mirror is a little more than 3/4 of the height of a door. so, 1.5 doors height< the total distance the light travelled is like < 2 doors height

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

My thoughts..

Something to do about the wavelength. I love my C2-90 outdoors.