Is the ipHone flashight a mule? How many lumens?

stellar canuck

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Am I correct in thinking the iPhone 6 flashlight is a "mule"? If so, does anyone have an idea of how many lumens it puts out?

Thanks


Stellar Canuck
 

Illum

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The iphone flashlight isn't really designed to be a flashlight though, its more of a feature and a last ditch solution.

A "Mule" involves a light engine with no optics or reflectors in front of the LED to distort or focus the light. The iphone LED has a diffuser
 

nbp

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Not much collimation on the iPhone; it's pretty floody. If you were looking for a general idea of what a Mule beam looks like, it's a decent approximation.
 

StarHalo

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It's two emitters, a neutral and a warm, behind textured diffusers that essentially make it a single mule, ~30 lumens. I use the feature frequently, very handy for most about-the-house tasks, as a nicely tinted mule would be.

The iphone doesn't do anything real well. On an audio forum I'm on they tried to use as a high res dac not much action.

You need fat capacitors in the amp section for proper audio anyway, so the phone should be the source but not the converter; for that, go outboard.
 

more_vampires

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Am I correct in thinking the iPhone 6 flashlight is a "mule"? If so, does anyone have an idea of how many lumens it puts out?
Thanks
Stellar Canuck
Lumens?

Well, since I did an extensive comparison between iPhone 5 and China's Sipik 68, I'd say that the iPhone puts out less than 200 lumens. You see, China loves overstating (lying) about lumen output for the purposes of marketing. They say the Sipik is 300 lumens (or whatever they're saying.) I've seen figures far lower. So let's call the Sipik 160-200 "real" "out the front" lumens. (Some would say that's being generous.)

The Sipik still won. I did an apples to apples comparison, even going as far as to hook the Sipik 68 aspheric optics to the iPhone with some cardboard and tape. In every test, Sipik 68 visibly won with no lux meter or integrating sphere required.

Hope that helps. iPhone lumens: "not much."
 

StarHalo

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iPhone lumens: "not much."

You don't want too many lumens in an indoor-use mule, since it will be almost exclusively lighting only what's at arm's length and immediately in front of your feet. For checking a fuse box, finding the dropped object, scanning trash bin handles for spiders, ~25 lumens is about right. Anything brighter and you're just dazzling yourself/losing night vision and draining the battery faster.
 

stellar canuck

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I did a quick eyeball comparison with a small light that is "floody". At 30 lumen the iPhone seemed brighter, and at 85 lumen the flashlight seemed brighter. Not a very good way to compare, I know.

If I am understanding lumens correctly, and a 60 watt incandescent is about 8-900 lumens spread out 360 degrees, then wouldn't a mule at 300 lumens over 120 degrees be equivalent?
 

StarHalo

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If I am understanding lumens correctly, and a 60 watt incandescent is about 8-900 lumens spread out 360 degrees, then wouldn't a mule at 300 lumens over 120 degrees be equivalent?

Roughly, the shadows will look different since the bulb has a broader emitter area. I have an older light that can do 250 lumens muled, which is good for finding objects on the lawn outdoors, never found another use for that level of flood output though.
 

more_vampires

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I did a quick eyeball comparison with a small light that is "floody". At 30 lumen the iPhone seemed brighter, and at 85 lumen the flashlight seemed brighter. Not a very good way to compare, I know.

If I am understanding lumens correctly, and a 60 watt incandescent is about 8-900 lumens spread out 360 degrees, then wouldn't a mule at 300 lumens over 120 degrees be equivalent?

I got mad at a custom modder once due to my lack of understanding. :(

Here's my take on that: If you focus 100% of the lumens in a 1 degree beam, it's going to look searing and sizzling (high lux and candlepower.) You'll have almost no beam coverage and will have to pan around a lot. You'll also have maximum range. The same amount of lumens spread over 120 degrees will look lackluster by comparison. It's the same amount of light (lumens, but low lux and candlepower.)

I compared a custom build to my Zebralight Sc600 series. The ZL had tight throw (higher lux and candlepower,) the custom had wide throw (lower lux and candlepower.) Though the hotspot on the ZL was brighter, the custom had a much, much larger and much, much more usable hotspot. The custom was wide throw (a triple,) and the ZL is a much tighter single emitter hotspot by comparison. The ZL had the bright hotspot, but after I got my mind right the custom was definitely putting out more light (total lumens) in a smooth even wide hotspot.

I didn't get ripped off, my noob misunderstanding made me say something I regretted. I still feel kind of bad about it. Apologies to those involved. :(
 
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