The brightest most powerful LED light I have seen

I was diving today in d most famous dive site in Malta - the Dwejra inland sea( actually in Gozo which is Malta's smaller sister island )which consists of an inland sea and a long tunnel leading to the open water. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wow.gif

Anyway I was happily flaunting my Barbolight U-09 and flashing it to other divers whilst im on my way out through the tunnel full of myself and thinking that it probably is the most powerful LED light on the island since i'm probably the only LED flashaholic on the island !

So with a grin on my face /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I carried out the rest of the dive until we got back to the tunnel on our way into the inland sea when from the other end of the tunnel I spot an intense snow-white light moving towards me. As it came closer my jaw dropped /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/drool.gif as I realised that it was LED powered ( a honeycomb of small reflectors i'd say IMS 17mm - 20mm).

Now, this light totaly humiliated my Barbolight ( which is no easy feat since the Barbolight is no pushover )which looked yellow and dim next to this beast.
Unfortunately I was running out of air and the guy holding it was 15 meters below me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Caring too much for my life and the lives of the two tourists I was leading I could not get a closer look at this 'deretinizer' therefore I have no idea of shape and size, or exact amount or type of LED's but I think it was something between 9 and 12 LED's probably LUX III's.

Then I thought i'd wait until the owner of this beast ( probably a tourist ) comes back up so that I could get a closer look and possibly hold this thing in my hands BUT one of the tourists I was leading felt sick and we had to leave.

I suddenly felt torn inside because I had lost the light of my life to the deep blue sea /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

I never knew a flashlight with as many LUXes had ever been created, let alone a proper dive rated one.

Has any one here ever encountered such a light ? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif because..........


...............I WANT IT !!!!!

And I know deep insude you guys want it too

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

Sure it wasn't a HID with some special optic / lens ?
bernie

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

http://www.tek-tite.com/src/product_info.php?id=3

maybe?

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

Hey, I have been to Malta twice... I Love it and you are SOO lucky to live there. Is the place you are discribing the Azur Window?

-David

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

Looking at those specs 6 C alkaline would give about 8 amp-hours at an average voltage of 7.2V, for a total of 57.6 watt-hours. Since they state battery life is 4 to 5 hours at full power then that means the LEDs use roughly 11 to 15 watts. Output is stated as 186 lumens, so we get an overall efficiency in the 15 lm/W area. Not very impressive frankly. 60 of the new 35,000 mcd LEDs or Nichia's U-bins driven at 15 mA each would both put out 186 lumens at a 2.8 watt power level. Coupled with a decent driver circuit, you would draw about 3 watts from the batteries, giving a battery life of close to 20 hours instead of 4 or 5. For something which costs so much, it seems they're just using run of the mill 8,000 or so mcd LEDs.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
http://www.tek-tite.com/src/product_info.php?id=3

maybe?

[/ QUOTE ]
I have one of these, and in no way is it as bright as no more than a few Luxeons driven at specification.
The model I evaluated has a maximum outout of 1,135,183mcd.
If the dive light described in the first post has 6 to 12 Luxeons, it would quite handily waste a Trek 6000 EX60. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

I'm with Bernie, with 9-12 LuxIII's, you are better off haveing a HID cost, power, simplicity, and efficiency wise...

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

I think one of the most brightest LED lights I've bought is the new ledbeam Luxeon III light. For the price and the power its a deal. I hope they expand and make dive lights,headlamps etc.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

Was it the creator of the barbolight himself? Perhaps he was testing out a 7 luxeon mode that he had prototyped at one point.. It had a bunch of optics all hexagonal or something that made a nice honeycomb design together...

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

Kiessling: Unless it had 9 - 12 bulbs i'm pretty sure it was not HID

Paulr: That has too many leds, it had somewhere between 9 and 12 leds with a reflector for each, besides that wouldn't smoke my barbolight

Cheapo: Yep it is the azure window. that area is the most beautiful dive site in the Maltese islands. Im happy you like my small country. Unfortunately I cannot persuade the Maltese to spend $450 for a dive light , they all think im crazy.

jtr1962: I agree but bot setups would not throw very much in the water which is not very desirable. nonetheless it would be interesting to build a flashlight with 100 x 65k leds since they seem to have the tightest & brightest beam thus throwing the most, driven at 20ma for led longevity and maybe with a momentary 40ma setting for that extra blast of light. 3 x D nimh cells, leds pulling about 2A total @20mA each = about 5 hours to 50% and about 11,000 Lux @1m ( 2 hours to 50% @ 40mA per led - 20,000 Lux ). correct me if i'm wrong. I dont know what that would be in Lumens but i think it would be quite a large number.

Ledmuseum: confirms what I told paulr

270winchester: that is true but having an HID bulb quitting ( short lifetime ) on you in the middle of a night dive is a very dangerous prospect. having it with leds does not guarantee that they will not quit on you but having 9 or 12 or 100 leds quitting all together is quite a rare occurance.

techwannabe: I hope so too. there are many many flashlight manufacturers but the percentage of them making dive lights is very very small. I dont understand why since they dont have to make very large changes to make a twisty light for example suitable for diving and it would add very little to the cost. It would also add to the value and reliability of the light in above water conditions. it would only add a little thinking at the design stage.

Isaac: that did pass through my mind, maybe it would explain his recent absence.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

who told you hid bulbs have a short life ?

over 2000 hours for 35 watt d2s

average 4300k 35 watt bulb has 3200 bulb lumens

a little over 40 watts(Includes ballast losses) to get 3200 lumens.

beat that with led or incan.

12 watts(including ballast losses)will generate 550 bulb lumens - light cannon 100.

It might be possible to out shoot the lc 100 with led
but I doubt it.

hid is more robust than incan - no filament to break.

almost all of the profesional divers I see on the discovery
or history channel use hid.

the unique start up flicker/color change is not hard to see.

then again these people spare no exspense - they have money.

no mater what lighting technology you use you should have a spare - backup lighting system.

the surefire beast is not a dive light but It has
been said in these forums that it can be thrown into the air
and hit concrete and still work.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

markdi: I thought HID did have a filament, sorry my mistake I have no experience with HID. But still it is more fragile than led and compared to led lifetime ( driven to spec. ) HID has a short lifetime ( this reminds me, Did anybody do a HID burn in test to check for lumen/lux maintenance against time ? ) u cant switch HID on and off at will either.

Discovery divers use HID lights probably because there is ( or was, until yesterday ) no LED powered dive light that can deliver as much light as HID.

I agree with having a backup light, which i do, but when u get used to so much light it is quite a disappointment to have to trade to a usualy much dimmer light and kind of ruins your dive. which is why having the brightest, most reliable light source, in the smallest package as a primary is a must ( for me at least )

Anyway this is just a matter of opinion and personally I prefer LED, you might prefer HID which is cool too.
But the main point of this thread is to find the who, where, how and most importantly the how much of the light I saw yesterday.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

hid has great lumen maintenance

hid bulbs in autos are Expected to last the life of the car.

my hid lights have instant hot re strike

using hid as a strobe is not recomended but turning them on an off a few times is a short period is no problem.

my ballasts overdrive the bulb for a few second at startup so lots of light the instant you turn them on.



hid is used a lot on moutain bikes

and off road quad bikes.

they are very tough.

sure led's are more impact resistant

but with shock isolation It would take a lot to break the glass capsul - the surefire beast comes to mind.

It is also true that something could go wrong with the ballast during a dive.

the ballasts are very reliable in my opinion.

I have not heard of a auto manufacturer recalling any ballasts.

so for absolute max reliability I hope all your led dive lights are simple direct drive - no up or down converters to fail on you.

when led's hits 95 to 104 lumens per watt I will switch

the History Channel's Deep Sea Detectives John Chatterton and Richie Kohler use hid dive lights and are very safety minded.

I have no idiea how much a real dive rated 35 watt hid light costs.

so If I was into diving maybe I would use led because of the cost of real hid dive lights.

http://www.intellexual.net/hid.html

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

[ QUOTE ]
Amonra said:
I agree but bot setups would not throw very much in the water which is not very desirable. nonetheless it would be interesting to build a flashlight with 100 x 65k leds since they seem to have the tightest & brightest beam thus throwing the most, driven at 20ma for led longevity and maybe with a momentary 40ma setting for that extra blast of light. 3 x D nimh cells, leds pulling about 2A total @20mA each = about 5 hours to 50% and about 11,000 Lux @1m ( 2 hours to 50% @ 40mA per led - 20,000 Lux ). correct me if i'm wrong. I dont know what that would be in Lumens but i think it would be quite a large number.


[/ QUOTE ]
The 65,000 mcd LEDs are 65 lux at 1 meter if they are as bright as advertised. 100 of them at 20 mA would be 6500 lux. 40 mA would give about 60% more output so maybe you would have 10500 lux or so. Battery life would be around what your estimates are. I don't know what the total lumens would be since I didn't test these LEDs. If they use the same die as the 35,000 mcd then at 20 mA 100 of them would put out around 375 to 400 lumens, and at 40 mA you would have maybe 600 to 650 lumens.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

[ QUOTE ]
markdi said:
12 watts(including ballast losses)will generate 550 bulb lumens - light cannon 100.

It might be possible to out shoot the lc 100 with led
but I doubt it.


[/ QUOTE ]
You probably won't outthrow it but you can definitely beat 550 lumens with 12 watts of LED. 120 of either the 35,000 mcd LEDs or Nichia U-bins driven at 30 mA will use about 12 watts and give you 600 to 650 lumens. If you want to include converter losses then maybe you're down to around 575 lumens. If you want to drive ~700 LEDs at 5 mA then you'll get about 800 lumens accounting for converter losses. I'm assuming a 90% efficient driver circuit here so the LEDs end up with 10.8 watts.

LEDs will hit 100 or so lm/W at rated drive currents within two years.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

I may be wrong but according to this by chimo the 65k leds give about 115 lux @20 mA and about 185 lux @ 40mA

Also according to chimo's tests here the nichias give 20 lux @ 20mA.

Now always according to chimo's tests here the 65k leds give 150 lux @ 30mA and the nichias give 28 lux @ 30mA.

So that's about 5 times the lux due to the tight beam but im going to be conservative and say that it is 2.5 times brighter to compensate for that.

Therefore according to jtr1962 the nichias @ 30mA give 5 lumens each multiplying that by 2.5 gives 12.5 Lumens each for the 65k leds. multiply that by 100 and u get 1250 Lumens.

According to this to get the 65k's running @30mA u need 3.26V therefore 100 leds will be pulling 9.78 Watts.

Can anyone confirm this or am I getting too excited to notice that I did something wrong in my calculations ?

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

I wasn't sure whose 65K mcd LEDs you were referring to. Several sellers on eBay have those. They must have a pretty tight beam to give those kind of lux readings.

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

I too am curious as to the light you saw! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

In this discussion of HID VS LED, I would like to point out that for UW use, an Incan or HID will provide full spectrum light whereas the LED is shy on the reds. Your ambient is already missing red light at any depth so your "balance" of light will be different. I was going to state that the incan or HID would bring you a more natural balance of light but that is misleading as there is nothing "natural" about such a bright light source UW! I understand that some divers will use UV filters on incan light sources to keep this damaging light from reaching the critters. Then on the other hand, some divers are looking for UV light sources to get the corals and critters to flouresce. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

If the light is a matrix of LED's, it might be cool to have a few red LED's in there to bring the color wash up to provide a more full spectrum of output. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

edited my last post, check it out as it might be interesting

Re: The brightest most powerful LED light I have s

Darn, sounds like that was a custom piec...
...ok Don, the /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif gave you away.
Spill the beans!
When did you make that one? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif