LS questions

logicnerd411

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Jul 24, 2002
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Fairfax, VA
My friend has these questions he wants to ask you all:

How bright are LS's and what are their power requirements (amperes and volts)? Are they OLED's? How bright is the average incandescent light bulb in a flashlight? What are its power requirements (amperes and volts)?

All correspondence with him is through email, so give all answers to both sides if there are...
 

Nerd

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Jun 19, 2002
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Incandescent: At the low end, less than a watt to 2 watts, you don't really get bright light, unless the bulb is of halogen type. From there on, it's quite nice. Around 3-5 watts will be quite brite. 10 watts will be very brite... 15 watts will be very blindingly brite if shone in the eyes... makes you see spots for the next 1/2 hour or so.

5 watt Surge's bulb, 5.5 volts, 1 amp.

LED: LS are not OLEDs. The new (actually not so new) 5 watt LS are very brite for LEDs. As brite as a 5 watt incandescent. BUT Incandescent you can over drive to get more briteness and less life, LED also can, but not so effective.

5 watt LS needs around 7.2 volts, and around 750 ma of current draw... Ususually that is.
 

Charles Bradshaw

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Sep 14, 2002
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A decent 1 watt Luxeon is as bright as 10-15 regular White Nichia type LEDs. They are not organic. A 1 watt LS needs 350 MA at around 3 volts or so.

LSes come in three shapes: Low Dome (not for use with reflectors), High Dome (much better with reflectors), and Side Emitter (designed specifically for use with reflectors).

Best advice for in depth data, is to give him a link to the Lumileds website.
 

Rothrandir

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Aug 17, 2002
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actually, i get the best beams from batwings...i use *ag reflectors. (the beam shape is almost the exact same as the beam from an e2e.)

a 1w luxeon (unless a reddish color) is happiest with 3.42v @ 350ma...overdriving is fine as long as you have adaquate heatsinking. all of my mods run (initially) at 4.5v and more than 700ma.
ls's (and leds in general) also work when underdriven, they are obviously less bright, but their efficiency increases...that is part of the reason for the longer runtime.
 

INRETECH

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Aug 22, 2002
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LEDs are not voltage devices, they are current devices; their power factor (E/I) curve is not linear

Each device will have a different voltage/current ratio
 
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