Anyone have Lux figures of the Terralux Diamond DB-3W LED drop-in?

Hi all,

Was looking around for a good Lux III mag and was comparing between mags with in-built Lux IIIs and the Diamond 3W drop-in. Seems like most people have bought the other drop-ins like the Tektite and other Terralux modules.

Anyone with a Diamond DB-3W kind enough to get some Lux figures at 1m? Anyone know which bin is used in this? Thank you!

LEDcandle, I believe the module you're describing has been reviewed by Quickbeam at: http://flashlightreviews.com/reviews/diamond_magbulbs3w.htm

He has some measurements, but I don't think he has lux@1m. Hope this helps a little bit just incase you're still thinking about it!

EDIT:
I'm so silly, I should of looked at all the threads that came back when I searched for "Diamond 3W" before posting to this thread. I see you already had one of these, sold it, and that the review I just linked to was only posted a fewy days ago. I tried!

:laughing: No problem!! Thanks for the attempted help... He does have the lux figure (8400), which is very nice! I think running it on 4 cells would be higher.

I got another mag mod with a T-bin lux III running 3 x Nimhs, it gets 11k lux (on my meter at least) and it is visibly slightly brighter than my friend's DB-3W on 3 cells, though now he is running it on 4 and I haven't had the chance to compare yet.

Really? I'm assuming its a 1D host using something like 2500mAh cells in a D-cell carrier, right? How is the head hooked up (LOP standard size reflector with luxeon on a heatsink of some kind)? What kind of runtime do you see? I'd be very interested in seeing pictures of your mod. I'm going to be searching CPF after I post this to look for some 1D luxeon mods as you've just piqued my interest! Please do respond!

Running on 4 cells??? According to my email conversation with Terralux, the DB-3W is a "3 cell only" creature, and that you should not exceed the recommended input voltage of 4.5 by more than 5%. AFAIK dummy batteries are required when using the DB-3W in a 4, 5 or 6 cell Maglite.
If you can verify that someone is actually running a DB-3W with 4 live D-cells and the module is still thriving, I would like to know.

randyo, you have a valid point. My friend was chasing lumens so he took the risk. But his light is hardly used, so immediate signs of wear will be hard to detect.

I will have to borrow his light and take some current measurements and maybe try to get a rough idea of the temperature on the slug (tho I have a very limiting thermometer at the moment). If its 1 amp or less, I don't there's any real danger as the Lux III can run at that spec and the DB-3W's metal (alu?) seems like it can help a out with transferring the heat away into the other metal parts of the mag head.

TerraLux told me they had run their DB-3W at 1 amp (don't know if this is achieved with 4 cells or a convertor) and got 30-40 lumens more. Of course I don't think they're gonna guarantee it or anything, but at least they didn't exactly 'shoot me down' instantly.

Some members here run their Luxes at 1.5 amps! With proper heatsinking, usually overdriving is safe within limits. However, no one has really used their lux till the end of life (except overheating cases), so overdrive at your own risk. An overdriven lux may have only 1000 hrs of life as compared to the 100,000 hrs of a stock one. At this point, who knows :shrug:

I would be thrilled to find out it's safe. I asked Terralux about running Lithium batteries (4AA paralleled inside 3 Aventrade adapters). Since new Eveready Lithium AA cells ouptut 1.75V, I would have been feeding about 5.25V to the DB-3W. Terralux told me not to do it. I am still having trouble believing that feeding 5.25V to the DB-3W would be dangerous, but I didn't want to experiment with an expensive module. If you have the time and can post numbers, I would like to see them. I was thinking about picking up another DB-3W since the price is starting to drop, but ONLY if I can use it with the Lithiums.