Is Xenon better than luxeon

After been recommended by the kind people of CPF in this thread:

Looking for a powerful led torch light

I went to take a look at the streamlight 3C but was not very impressed as the shop owner showed me a surefire G3 which was good. He told me that xenon light are better as they are able to penetrate fogs while luxeon bulb are unable to do so. How true is that? I also need some recommendation of other brands of xenon torch under US$50.

Thanks

Sebastian,
After being a bonafide LEDhead, I've recently become a convert to xenon lights. They're less efficient, casting less illumination per watt, but their photons can, indeed, penetrate fog, mist, and smoke better than LEDs. And they provide much more effective contrast when shined into grass or trees, targets that seem to suck the light from "glost light" LEDs. You can find many threads on this subject by perusing the Incandescent forum, or by searching that forum for the words, smoke, fog, and mist. (Do our forums allow the OR operator?)

You might also want to see two recent threads that I began:
Which <$50 incandescents [can] use a glass lens?
and
Wolf Eys 6MX throw vs. TL03, PM6?

The most penetrating xenon lights need large amounts of power--typically, 7 to 12 watts. If you plan to use your light a lot, I suggest a rechargeable solution like the Streamlight Strion. For greater flexibility, many WolfEyes/Pila lights will let switch between rechargeable Pila batteries and CR123A cells.

The Pelican Big Ed was designed for firefighters, so it would be a great choice for cutting through smoke.

You have to know your needs before making a decision - xenon lights tend to have better penetration through fog and smoke, probably because of the fact that they're casting light across a variety of spectra that LED lights do not, as a rule, generate photons in. They do, on the other hand, take quite a bit of power, which will reduce your runtime significantly.

Again, isolate your requirements, and work from there - what are you doing with it? Are you going to be going into areas with a lot of particulate matter or other items suspended in the air, thus reducing visibility? Are you aiming for distance, or do you need a wall of light? Will this be used outside where there's little ambient light, where there's quite a bit of ambient light (which creates confused lighting conditions)? Are you using it indoors, or outdoors? Urban setting (lots of shadows) or wilderness/field settings?

As far as Luxeons go, you may find a V1 or YO will have better contrast when presented with greenery than a WO or YA will. In general, Luxeon lights without optics don't throw as well as incandescents will, either due to the difficulty of focusing them or because the LED itself does not have the output of a high-power HID or xenon/halogen bulb. Also, the color of the light in general may affect the range that the light is usable under - I've noticed my whiter LEDs tend to have problems with ambient lighting (mercury or sodium lighting), more so than my yellower ones at similar distances.

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Haesslich said:
You have to know your needs before making a decision - xenon lights tend to have better penetration through fog and smoke, probably because of the fact that they're casting light across a variety of spectra that LED lights do not, as a rule, generate photons in. They do, on the other hand, take quite a bit of power, which will reduce your runtime significantly.

Again, isolate your requirements, and work from there - what are you doing with it? Are you going to be going into areas with a lot of particulate matter or other items suspended in the air, thus reducing visibility? Are you aiming for distance, or do you need a wall of light? Will this be used outside where there's little ambient light, where there's quite a bit of ambient light (which creates confused lighting conditions)? Are you using it indoors, or outdoors? Urban setting (lots of shadows) or wilderness/field settings?

As far as Luxeons go, you may find a V1 or YO will have better contrast when presented with greenery than a WO or YA will. In general, Luxeon lights without optics don't throw as well as incandescents will, either due to the difficulty of focusing them or because the LED itself does not have the output of a high-power HID or xenon/halogen bulb. Also, the color of the light in general may affect the range that the light is usable under - I've noticed my whiter LEDs tend to have problems with ambient lighting (mercury or sodium lighting), more so than my yellower ones at similar distances.

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Actually I need a wall of light, but the shop owner told me that it will be very bulky and heavy. that is why he introduced to me surefirs G2. The area that I'm going will be totally without lights and near forested area.

Xenon does penetrate smoke and fog better but I rarely encounter those conditions. I carry a G2 with the bugoutgear 3W drop in and the P60 incandescent lamp in the spares carrier. Maybe you should consider a flashlight that offers a simple drop in so you can switch out the lamp if you need to.

When I go out into the fog, I usually carry both as each has its own qualities

I am thinking a getting a chemical infused lamp in addition of the G2, but apart from the Wolf Eyes 6MX which is $49.95 rahter than 35 (Paul_in_Maryland bought at that price), any other recommendation that is as good as G2 and can flood?

I thinks Luxeon will go with us for long time used. But Xenon might dramage during long time used. This is a major difference of filament bulb and chemical bulb.

Xenon provides better light but that light is expensive in terms of lamp life and power consumption.

Check out the streamlight twintask 2 lithium (2l). These lights have a xenon bulb and 5mm leds. The Xenon bulb puts out around 72 lumens (manufacturer spec) and the three leds a nice flood for getting around. These lights are very well built and a tremendous value. Replacement bulbs are available for 7.95/2 bulbs. So your 50 bucks would get you a light some bulbs , shipping and a little left over to put towards batteries. They aren't as small as the surefire but aren't large either. As far as output is concerned it is easily comparable to the 5 times the price surefire aviator 2.
Unlike the 3c this runs on 2 cr123's making it much smaller.

as xochi said. The Streamlight 2L is the poorman's (ok budget concious CPF member to be politically correct) Surefire A2 Aviator. I personally own a 1L (1 cell version of 2L) and find it a decent light (my mom and dad each have one too) but I hate the switching, After experiencing two stage tailcaps, the cycle switch has to go. I hate not knowing which mode I last left it on (don't want to destory night vision.) Other than that its a nice light under $50.

This may be out of your budget range but I use my U2 a lot on low setting to get around the house with the option of being able to crank it up to the higher levels. If something goes bump in the night and I need lots of light now, forget the U2 (using a 5 watt LED), I grab my Surefire M6. Sure I need to feed it 6 CR123 cells every 20 minutes or so (running HOLA), but it doesn't get used often so I only had to replace the batteries only a few times in the past few months (lots of bumps in the night, mainly stray cats fighting and the M6 seems to stun them and they run away.)

Seems like you are out in the middle of no where (no lights + near forest = middle of no where for this city boy) so rechargables seems to be out of the question (field swappable batteries) unless you have access to electricity and use the light often.

In this case, carry two lights (or a Streamlight TT 2L or Surefire A2.) A long running LED light and a high output incandescent light.

I think the Streamlight Twin Task 2L makes for a darn fine light that gives you lots of options. Here is a review I did on mine vs. my A2 Aviator.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB16&Number=979710&Forum=f16&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=979710&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=11720&daterange=1&newerval=1&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post979710

Chris

The general rule is that a tighter, more intense beam will be more useful for illuminating objects at long distances. It will also be better for penetrating smoke and fog. This rule holds for both incandescents and LEDs. The difference is that most LED flashlights--Luxeon lights included--have poor beam collimation when compared to the typical incandescent flashlight.

The debate about LEDs versus incandescents is a recurring theme on CPF. You might want to take a look at the following threads:

Quantifying urban throw

Brightness chart: Incandescents vs. LEDs

I recently built a 3D Mag mod that uses a Luxeon III TV1J inside the original Mag reflector. It has excellent throw and beats everything else I own in outdoor tests, including the PT Surge. In my experience, you need a decent-sized smooth reflector to get this kind of performance from an LED. My Streamlight ProPolymer Luxeon also uses a smooth reflector. Its throw is not nearly as good as my Mag mod, but it still beats most other LED flashlights and a lot of common incandescents (such as the E2e), too.

Wow!! Thanks for all the info. Ok, now a little vote. Given a choice which one will you buy to give a good throw and spill in a forest area:

- Surefire G3
- Pelican M6 Xenon
- Streamligth TT 2L
- Wolf Eyes 6MX xenons (I do not think they sell in singapore though)

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asdalton said:
The general rule is that a tighter, more intense beam will be more useful for illuminating objects at long distances. It will also be better for penetrating smoke and fog. This rule holds for both incandescents and LEDs.

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Exactly. The only reason incandescents win the war (for now) is because they have more lumens, not because of any differences in the spectrum. Once we start seeing 10 watt, 2000 lumen emitters (trust me, they'll be here within a decade) the debate will be over. I've found that all things being equal (i.e. lux, lumens, beam angle) the whiter light of LEDs allows one to see better, perhaps as good as an incandescent with twice the output.

Now I have heard that light which has more blue in the spectrum scatters more in foggy conditions, but under those conditions you would be hard pressed to see more than a few yards in front of you regardless of the light source. Even an LED keylight would probably be as effective as a 2000 lumen incandescent monster when it's that foggy out.

cslinger -

Could you re-do your hyperlink? It's stretching the page. In preview and I think edit mode, just below your text window you'll see URL. Hit that. It will give you a little window to paste your URL in. The OK button on that window will give you a second window for the script prompt that allows you to type in a short, descriptive text like asdalton did.

Thanks.

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- Jeff