Surefire L2 Death Throes

How does your L2 die? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

My L1 (old style) dies rather suddenly. It goes out of regulation, and I have a few minutes left. I can let the battery rest a while, but I only get several seconds of really low level light when I hit the button.

My A2 does better. I lose the incan bulb, but then have plenty of LED time left. Not a searchlight, but plenty of light to get me back from wherever to my batts.

I am thinking about getting another light. One of the factors is how suddenly I lose useable light.

So, once your L2 goes out of regulation, what happens? Sudden death, or do you still have low mode for a while?

Scott

[edited bacause I cannut spel.]

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

Question about the A2. When the incandescent bulb is out of regulation, does it stay on dimly or go out all-together? I would think it would increase bulb life if it went out as soon as the regulation ended?

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

Mine goes into low mode for quite a while. I didn't wait for it to completely die out though, cos its not fun having an L2 without the high!

Surefire specs the L2 at 60 mins on high, or 18 hours on low. But no mention of just how long on low AFTER it drops out of regulation. Hmmm...... a test is in order, I think

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

My A2 incan bulb just goes out, at least as far as I can tell. It is as though the bulb is not even there. The batts still have plenty of juice left in them at this stage, so I send the "hand-me-downs" to my L1's feeding queue.

Scott

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

My A2 will suddenly go orangy for the incan mode indicating the batt juice is going flat soon. I'll switch to LED at once as I think leaving the incan in the orangy state is really bad for the MA02 bulb which cost $25.00 a pop???

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

Here's a run time plot by kj for the L2:

L2 on high and low

L2 on high compared to L4

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

I think it also depends on the batteries used; IIRC SF batteries tend to give everything and go off rapidly while some other brands will die off slowly.

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

[ QUOTE ]
Hoya said:
My A2 will suddenly go orangy for the incan mode indicating the batt juice is going flat soon. I'll switch to LED at once as I think leaving the incan in the orangy state is really bad for the MA02 bulb which cost $25.00 a pop???

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, my understanding too which is why I ask. My understanding being incandescents don't take running below full power too well. As soon as the orange, its best to put full batteries in is what I remember hearing. Is this true?

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

*smart alec mode ON*

the L2 causes death when you THROW it?
does surefire know this?

how hard do I have to throw it to kill someone?

or do you mean throes?

*back to normal*

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

Ah, yes -- throe. I knew something was amiss, but my PDA with its wonderful little dictionary card was in my briefcase. My wife would beat me. Actually, my grammar isn't so good either. She's getting old, you know.

Scott

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

I have (had) excellent command of the english language. Even though I don't always show it on the forums, I at least try to use proper spelling/puctuation/grammar. I have found that forums-visiting can really kill your language skills. There's such rampant abuse(?) and misuse/misspellings/etc that I think it takes a toll on your/my own language skills.

Wish there was a solution other than abstinence.

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

[ QUOTE ]
KahveOrta said:
Mine goes into low mode for quite a while. I didn't wait for it to completely die out though, cos its not fun having an L2 without the high!


[/ QUOTE ]

i agree that its not fun having the L2 without the high! my L2 is still on its original batteries since the summer of 04 and its still going strong! if it ever drops out on high i'd have to change the batteries or else it'll bug me unless its for survival and i dont have any spares with me.

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

[ QUOTE ]
KahveOrta said:
Here's a run time plot by kj for the L2:

L2 on high and low

L2 on high compared to L4

[/ QUOTE ]

Beautiful graphs. Seeing how well the L2 performs over time makes me love mine even more!

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

I just completed testing my L2 with semi-depleted SF batteries that wouldn't light up on high. I ran it for 2 hours on low, until the light diminished to about what you'd get with a coin battery LED light (like a Photon). Still sufficient for bedtime reading

So, I guess there's still some juice left, at least 2 hours after the L2 drops out of regulation.

L2's don't die....they just fade out....... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Re: Surefire L2 Death Throws

To my knowledge, there is a 10 ohm resistor in the L2's tailcap that lowers the voltage enough to switch from the high mode circuit board to the low mode circuit board.

When my batteries are depleted to the point of no longer powering the high mode, I like to leave my L2 in high mode because I think it gets better efficiency. At this point it really isn't running in high mode even though the tailcap is screwed all the way in. Because the voltage is lower, it is running on the low mode circuit board without going through the 10 ohm resistor. That means the low mode circuit runs brighter and no energy is lost through the resistor (heat).

Though leaving the L2 in low mode after battery depletion will give you longer runtime, I prefer to leave it in high mode because it runs more efficiently by not going through a resistor. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif