# Incandescent Vs Led



## thinkFlashlights01 (Jan 18, 2015)

What's your favorite? I like Led because it's bright, efficient, and... Cheap? Is it cheap? The little breadboard led's are, so are flashlight led's cost less? Or are the incans Cheaper? The extremely cheap flashlights seem to be plagued with them.


----------



## gsr (Jan 18, 2015)

LEDs have evolved to a point where they exceed incandescent lamps in every significant performance category when it comes to handheld lighting devices.


----------



## chillinn (Jan 18, 2015)

gsr said:


> LEDs have evolved to a point where they exceed incandescent lamps in every significant performance category when it comes to handheld lighting devices.



Throw? I just discovered the hotspot of the Solitaire incan from 20ft is (not at all that useful, but technically still) brighter than both my Maratac AAA on low (1.8lm) and Fenix E05ss on low/med (8lm/25lm). Still, can't beat power LED flood, endurance and runtimes, or the high brightness (without much larger, power-hungry lights) . But until the worst, dimmest LEDs sold can do what the best incans can, we want to have both choices available.


----------



## more_vampires (Jan 19, 2015)

I live in a predominantly incan area.

Their reasons? Comfort, familiarity, safety (not many hotwires,) availability, mature technology. 

Alkaleaks at least fail safely.

My reasons?
*No PWM EVER.*  PWM drives me batty.
*Color rendition*: a non-flashy friend of mine said it best. "Those lights light up, but don't seem to *illuminate*." He didn't know the words, but he was talking about cheap, crappy, angry blue led. Bottom of the barrel. Then he got an Inova and relented somewhat.
*Known battery expiry:* You see the light dimming and are not caught by surprise unless you've a bulb failure.

If battery life and logistics aren't an issue, there's a lot to be said for incan.

I know someone who swears by original Mag Solitaire incan with dark-adapted vision. He's crawling under stuff in partially complete houses, sometimes with no power.


----------



## MidnightDistortions (Jan 19, 2015)

I prefer LEDs because they are far brighter and you got clean light. However in some situations incan lights are better such as fog or to avoid light glare from reading a map or bouncing from other object.


----------



## chillinn (Jan 19, 2015)

more_vampires said:


> I know someone who swears by original Mag Solitaire incan with dark-adapted vision. He's crawling under stuff in partially complete houses, sometimes with no power.



You reminded me of this excellent essay, The Red Myth.



> The red filtered light at the intensity most people use is likely decreasing night vision much more than a properly dimmed white or blue-green light would!



Not always, but when I just wake up in the pitch and too early for my clock, I've known for a while even a bright red (30-80lm) led light doesn't sting my waking eyes like my Maratac's Cree 1.8lm will. No issue after adjusting, but ouch and tears for 15 or 20 mins. Well, the incan Solitaire doesn't sting my eyes in this scenario, either. And if the author of the compelling essay linked above is correct, and contrary to what most who spend time in the dark and know and treasure their night adjusted vision, 2lm of warm incan is superior to that of the same output level of red for not only keeping your night adjusted vision intact, but SEEING. 

That said, unless I was already night adjusted, I'd rather have a super bright LED under a house... only because I assume I wouldn't be night adjusted. You crawl under houses in the day. So you just walked out of the sunlight into pitch, and that is really disorienting, and the vision adjustment is really slow coming, thus I'd want something really bright, and I'm not waiting for the night adjusted vision to arrive while sitting under some house, or even walking into a house under construction without lighting. After 30 mins, sure... but what your own mind can do to you in a few minutes of thinking you felt something, or stepping off something into nothing... you know what I mean. So your friend must have some amazing eyes, or he starts early and doesn't come out of there for lunch. I've worked in houses (when I was paint crew), and lunch time noon Sun always killed my vision. Wish I had something bright back then other than the work lights we dragged around.


----------



## more_vampires (Jan 19, 2015)

chillinn said:


> That said, unless I was already night adjusted, I'd rather have a super bright LED under a house... only because I assume I wouldn't be night adjusted. You crawl under houses in the day. So you just walked out of the sunlight into pitch, and that is really disorienting, and the vision adjustment is really slow coming
> 
> So your friend must have some amazing eyes, or he starts early and doesn't come out of there for lunch. I've worked in houses (when I was paint crew), and lunch time noon Sun always killed my vision. Wish I had something bright back then other than the work lights we dragged around.



Well, there's always the Pirate method of the eye patch. One eye dark, one eye bright.  I guess the modern method would be sunglasses, but it's hard not to accidentally catch a ray. :devil: Almost makes you feel like a vampire, doesn't it? *It burns!!*

...and you're right about day vision. He starts usually at 2-3am due heat and other people getting in his way. Another consideration is his particular use, which is very up-close. Were I to be checking lines for drips or some such, brighter is better as you need more range and punch.

Something else to consider is that he inspects wood and wood finish and needs bang-on colors. A bluey white cheap led is absolute no-go.


----------



## leon2245 (Jan 19, 2015)

thinkFlashlights01 said:


> What's your favorite?



My my favorite is Incan, can be bright, white, great intensity per lumen, high cri obviously, & achieves it without a color swirl, orange/pink hues in any surrounding rings.

I find Led more practical.


----------



## UnderPar (Jan 20, 2015)

I would go for LED


----------



## StorminMatt (Jan 20, 2015)

chillinn said:


> Throw? I just discovered the hotspot of the Solitaire incan from 20ft is (not at all that useful, but technically still) brighter than both my Maratac AAA on low (1.8lm) and Fenix E05ss on low/med (8lm/25lm). Still, can't beat power LED flood, endurance and runtimes, or the high brightness (without much larger, power-hungry lights) . But until the worst, dimmest LEDs sold can do what the best incans can, we want to have both choices available.



If anything, the throw of incandescents is a factor that works in favor of LEDs. To be sure, throw has its uses in some situations. But few people who use flashlights are law enforcement officers or engage in search and rescue missions. The primary use of flashlights for most is outdoor recreation (camping, hiking, etc), task lighting, and emergency illumination (like during power outages). For these sorts of uses, lights which produce a pencil beam are at a disadvantage. Floody lights capable of illuminating a wide area are MUCH more useful for most folks. Do you think Zebralight would be as popular as it is if most people wanted throwers?


----------



## NotSoBrightBob (Jan 20, 2015)

I had an old Surefire M6 back in the day and although paying way too much money for it I loved the glow of that bright incan. What started as a shelf queen ended up being my go to light. That ramp up to full brightness was so cool to me. Unfortunately it ate batteries like a 100 pound German Shepherd eats kibbles and bits.


----------



## alpg88 (Jan 20, 2015)

if you asked me that 10 years or more ago, i would not think, my answer would be inc. now as it was mentioned above, leds developed so that they outperform bulbs handsdown, even throw, (deep large reflectors, dedomed leds, aspherics lenses with colars reflecting some light back on the cristal), of course there are badly designed and build inc, just as there are crappy led lights, but led technology, imo, is far superior today than inc.


----------



## chillinn (Jan 20, 2015)

StorminMatt said:


> If anything, the throw of incandescents is a factor that works in favor of LEDs. To be sure, throw has its uses in some situations.



Let me know if I'm reading this right, and excuse the exaggeration to boil it down: 
_Throw is unimportant and useless except in the rare occasion of... xyz. For all intensive purposes, flood and/or spill is all that matters in a flashlight._

If inclined, please elaborate.

In _most_ qualities that matter in a flashlight, LED is superior. But IMO, LED is not superior, always, all the time. I myself see this, and if I had to have one or the other, I'd have to go with LED. But we cannot allow ourselves to completely dismiss a long standing quality of flashlights before practical LED arrived, pretty recently.

Besides throw, another quality that matters in the comparison between LED and incan is the literal quality (the kind) of the light, the photons themselves, their wavelength and temperature, in relation to what sunlight is. One or two LED manufacturers, at the bleeding edge, are closing in on this or have already. Every other LED manufacturer has NOT. Until ALL LED is of the quality of a CRI in the 90's ranges, this cannot be ignored, because a single great LED (say the Nichia 219 series, or the decent offerings from Cree) does not in any way improve the performance of all the other inferior LEDs, which is most of the current market, nor what you'd beforehand expect from a random LED before you saw it/tested it. You can't say rationally that, excuse the metaphor, a combustion engine vehical is inferior in all ways that matter to an electric vehical because the quickest electric vehical will always beat the quickest gas vehical, because the 0-60mph times are not the only consideration that matters.

For an LED flashlight to be great, it actually redefines what a flashlight is... no longer a simple circuit, not your fathers' flashlights. Technically, a great LED flashlight is really a computer. Well, my ancient grizzled 32-year-old Apple //e blows any LED flashlight out of the water... the comparison is ridiculous, of course. But the point is, to be any good, LED has introduced complexities into the manufacture and use of flashlights that was never there before. More complexity usually means more fragility, and more expense (but not always). But I realize... wow, look at what we have gained. Still, it is important to note this fact in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (see what I did there? there is science and it is distinct from technology, there is history of science that is distinct from history of technology, and philosophy of each is altogether a different thing, these are not the same disciplines, but I'll lump them all in together for brevity, the way the vast disciplines in a wide field are reduced down to one all encompassing idea or term, such as "medicine" is whether talking about a doctor, or technician, simple instrument or complex machine used in that field).



----
























Why the images? The point is that LED and incan are different. We're comparing motorcycles to cars. The last image is a subtle point. I hope you get it, but this will break your LED flashlight, forever, maybe all LED flashlights at once, and there's little you can do to protect it from ever present cosmic rays, but this will have little or no effect on an incan flashlight. edit: Because our atmosphere absorbs _most_ x-rays and gamma rays from coronal mass ejections, sunspots, solar flares, and supernova, terrestrial electronics are _fairly_ safe from these extraterrestrial and cosmic rays. The electronics in satellites are not protected if they orbit higher than Earth's magnetosphere.

source of one of the images, PM has great stuff, just put here for enjoyment of all, but no point being made by me posting the link:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/tec...scent-vs-led-ultimate-light-bulb-test#slide-1

---
I just thought of another decent metaphor. An incan flashlight is like a typical human (all too human), while an LED flashlight is like an android from sci fi, idealized and "perfect." But Star Trek's Data strongly disagrees.


----------



## more_vampires (Jan 20, 2015)

chillinn said:


> Why the images? The point is that LED and incan are different. ... The last image is a subtle point. I hope you get it, but this will break your LED flashlight, forever, maybe all LED flashlights at once, and there's little you can do to protect it from ever present cosmic rays, but this will have little or no effect on an incan flashlight.





chillinn said:


> I just thought of another decent metaphor. An incan flashlight is like a typical human (all too human), while an LED flashlight is like an android from sci fi, idealized and "perfect." But Star Trek's Data strongly disagrees.


But PWM is like the Microsoft way. It's not a RTOS. True LED control is current control. The current control must be assimilated.Resistance is futile. (By futile, I mean static resistance plus reactance and whatever your power supply is doing right now.)Is it integrate or derivative? (oops!  )PWM really drives some of us up the wall (me included.) Waving it in front of a wall is pretty much a deal maker/breaker when it comes to "visisble spectrum" EM.



> But Star Trek's Data strongly disagrees.


Brent eventually rebelled at being typecast as a weirdo scientist.


----------



## chillinn (Jan 20, 2015)

more_vampires said:


> But PWM... True LED control is current control.



Nonsense post contents removed. Bill


----------



## Bullzeyebill (Jan 21, 2015)

Chillin, would you please stick to the facts and not make nonsense comments in your posts. Your ramblings in this thread and other threads are looking like trolling. 

Bill


----------



## Bullzeyebill (Jan 21, 2015)

Chillinn, please make your rebuttal to my action in a PM. 

Bill


----------



## thinkFlashlights01 (Jan 21, 2015)

Bullzeyebill said:


> Chillin, would you please stick to the facts and not make nonsense comments in your posts. Your ramblings in this thread and other threads are looking like trolling.
> 
> Bill


I don't really like long "ramblings" either.


----------



## [email protected] (Jan 21, 2015)

Still mostly about incandescent over this way. Have enough LEDs but my favorites are incan, old Surefires. The only exception is 2 warm tint Malkoff's from Oveready. The light just appears more natural to me. I will admit that the spare lamp idea can get old, but it just seems to be worth it most days.


----------



## Bullzeyebill (Jan 21, 2015)

Chillinn, take a week off for "whining and complaining about the rules" CPF Rule 8, and "posting private communications, CPF Rule 12. Chillinn's public rebuttal to a moderators actions post was removed as well as a quote of it.

Bill


----------



## yellow (Jan 22, 2015)

... as to the "topic"
(a topic that has already been argued over and over and over and over and over and over ... )

--> compare:
* number of posts related to led (led forums)
to 
* number of posts related to incan.

got it?


----------



## alpg88 (Jan 22, 2015)

yellow said:


> ... as to the "topic"
> (a topic that has already been argued over and over and over and over and over and over ... )
> 
> --> compare:
> ...



yea pretty much, look at amount of people in led threads vs inc. that alone shows a lot, imo.


----------



## cpfyyz (Jan 22, 2015)

chillinn said:


> Why the images? The point is that LED and incan are different. We're comparing motorcycles to cars. The last image is a subtle point. I hope you get it, but this will break your LED flashlight, forever, maybe all LED flashlights at once, and there's little you can do to protect it from ever present cosmic rays, but this will have little or no effect on an incan flashlight. edit: Because our atmosphere absorbs _most_ x-rays and gamma rays from coronal mass ejections, sunspots, solar flares, and supernova, terrestrial electronics are _fairly_ safe from these extraterrestrial and cosmic rays. The electronics in satellites are not protected if they orbit higher than Earth's magnetosphere.



This post made me want to go out and buy an incan.


----------



## MMD (Jan 24, 2015)

cpfyyz said:


> This post made me want to go out and buy an incan.



Is that incan bulb really any safer than the led and driver? How about a faraday cage.


----------



## night.hoodie (Jan 24, 2015)

MMD said:


> Is that incan bulb really any safer than the led and driver?


Swap bulb vs swap driver... I guess at some point, those tiny champs of technology will be a commodity like light bulbs. 


MMD said:


> How about a faraday cage.


idk how to stop a gamma ray... 
oh, yeah, Earth-sized magnet! Probably not a problem. Still, why do so many have SUVs and never leave the road? For that rough, urban terrain? For the same reason, I want a crank turbo-diesel... just in case of nuclear war.


----------



## Raphion (Jan 24, 2015)

Going OT now, but I had to pop in to mention that small systems like flashlights and individual computers would be fine even in the most severe geomagnetic storms. Geomagnetic storms cause damage to LARGE infrastructure, the power grid, ancient wireline telecom (fiber optic is immune), and metallic pipeline systems. Oh and satellites most of all ofc, a lot of those are even outside earth's magnetic field so they take on very high doses of radiation.

EMP bursts and gamma radiation from nuclear weapons is an entirely different matter, that will fry small electronics, and the gamma radiation will also kill you, so you don't have to worry about the electronics. EMP like that won't ever be coming from the sun though, and neither will deadly radiation unless the earth's magnetic field happens to turn off.

Now back to your regularly scheduled LED vs Incan wars.


----------



## recDNA (Jan 24, 2015)

I still like high quality hot wires but it's getting hard to find parts for mods and I worry that bulbs will disappear. Most of my lights are led because they are so much brighter per volt and with neutral becoming more common the color isn't so bad.


----------



## MMD (Jan 24, 2015)

I have to vote LED. The reason being versatility of brightness modes. The E2e incan I have been using lately 
is great but it leaves me wanting a low mode for close work. I can't wait to put my Tana Nichia SingLed with LuciDrv. It is fun using that stock bulb but I will totally geek out on programming the drop in. Now I can setup and change it to whatever I want. 

Another point for versatility of the LED driver is the ability to use a wider range of battery chemistries and voltages while still getting the same regulated outputs in one light.


----------



## Minimoog (Mar 16, 2016)

Old thread and even older subject but I went outside to try my Nichia 219 High CRI HDS and compare it to a Surefire E2e incan yesterday as I was interested in seeing how a brand new premium light would fare against an older bulb light.

Light intensity: The HDS was a bit brighter on full but with a smaller hotspot. I would call it a draw.
Light usefulness: The HDS rotary has fully adjustable output to suit all tasks, so winds this round.
Light colour: The HDS is 4000K, the E2e around 3300K. Not much difference in when used individually, together the HDS is seen as a bit 'cooler'.
Light quality: The HDS falls short of the E2e, with a less three-dimensional rendering which showed up when using it to light up my mint patch in the garden or frit in the bowl. E2e wins this round by a fair bit.

So surprisingly it was a draw - which surprised me somewhat as I thought the 219 equipped HDS would win every category.


----------



## LeanBurn (Mar 16, 2016)

For me the incandescent bulbs weaknesses are power consumption and bulb filament durability. If it were not for those I would have all incans in my stable as I like the foolproof tech, _love_ the CRI. I could get by with 50 Lm or less so easily, :candle:


----------



## ZMZ67 (Mar 16, 2016)

Although incandescent light is probably superior in most respects I have to choose LED. LEDs are so much more efficient and are available in neutral-warm tints making them far more practical to use.


----------



## Minimoog (Mar 16, 2016)

ZMZ67 said:


> Although incandescent light is probably superior in most respects I have to choose LED. LEDs are so much more efficient and are available in neutral-warm tints making them far more practical to use.




Oh yes, LED is MUCH more practical, and massively more efficient. But its funny - the warm tint looks a bit flat when used side by side with bulb. LED Technology is getting ever better though.


----------



## Tachead (Mar 16, 2016)

Minimoog said:


> Oh yes, LED is MUCH more practical, and massively more efficient. But its funny - the warm tint looks a bit flat when used side by side with bulb. LED Technology is getting ever better though.



Your comparison may be throwing things off a bit though. It would be better to compare a light with the same colour temperature and similar CRI. Your HDS is likely 4400K and 88 CRI nominal(according to HDS's specs) and your incan is 3300K at 100 CRI. I bet if you compared a higher CRI emitter(you can get 96 CRI+ now) at the exact same CCT the difference would be much smaller. Colour temperature alone can make a big difference. I have 2 of the exact same lights with the same emitters at 85 CRI and with the warmer one trees and foliage look much nicer imo and there only 1000K different then one and other. 

Either way, LED technology is getting better every year so I bet it wont be long before they can match incans. But, there is some new incan technology in the works that could potentially change things soon too. The future of lighting technology is going to be interesting for sure.


----------



## TKC (Mar 16, 2016)

*​LED for me.*


----------



## Archangel72 (Mar 16, 2016)

LED-ZEP for me too


----------



## Lynx_Arc (Mar 16, 2016)

LED for me too, I grew up with incans and what has sold me more on LED than anything is the combination of output to runtime. you can get a 2AA LED light that runs circles around a 2D incan. I've had many incans that go from white to orange in output and the cost of batteries made you suffer with an orange light.


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 16, 2016)

Minimoog said:


> Oh yes, LED is MUCH more practical, and massively more efficient. But its funny - the warm tint looks a bit flat when used side by side with bulb. LED Technology is getting ever better though.



When the compact disc came out my friends all said "man just listen to all that treble"...plugging my ears I said "yeah I hear it"... that was during the 'bit wars' days where the companies were processing the analog signal 4x, then 8, the 24x etc. Seemed to my ears to be getting worse. 
I bought an early cd player but when it played out I didn't replace it for a few years. 

Enter the Yamaha 1x conversion that smoothed out all those square edges of the digital signal. Suddenly digital sounded pretty smooth. I bought one of those and life was good. 

Well for me an LED is not dis-similar. But in this case Mr. Malkoff's versions were like that Yamaha thing. At least to my eyeballs. The warm was akin to an old rayovac with half dead cells and the neutral like when you put in good cells, whacked against your hand just right and got ya some good output for a while. 

I still prefer vinyl using my bang & olufsen record player through an old Denon amp and Klipsch Hershey (furniture size) speakers though I mostly use cd's or mp3's on portable devices. 

In terms of flashlights I still prefer the old incan beam but go with LED for most uses. I mainly avoided LED until last year. 

After a while vinyl begins to make noise then sound like a fire place soon after. The incan bulbs yellow as batteries deplete and go poof a lot quicker than the LED. At least current incan bulbs. 

So using either vinyl or incan to me is like lighting up a $25 cigar or cracking open an expensive bottle of wine... not an ordinary event. 

But those whiz kids at MIT and some dudes in lab coats in South Korea are in the process of re-inventing the edison bulb in ways that already compete with LED for size and efficiency. I look forward to the next 5 years in regard to those possibilities. Heck, one version recycles it's own energy to increase the brightness with thoughts of the heat being used to charge batteries....


----------



## scout24 (Mar 16, 2016)

I think a big part of the equation here is a PROPERLY DRIVEN incan. Regardless of lumens, a nice white incan beam is a beautiful sight to behold. Think JS's X-LOLA MN15 in a Surefire M6. Lumensfactory HO-E1R in an E2e with a 17670. Surefire P90 on 2xRCR in your choice of host. Just that slight overdrive brings the color temp up a bit, and all is right with the world.  ( I like and use both... And hope to continue to do so!)


----------



## Minimoog (Mar 17, 2016)

scout24 said:


> I think a big part of the equation here is a PROPERLY DRIVEN incan. Regardless of lumens, a nice white incan beam is a beautiful sight to behold. Think JS's X-LOLA MN15 in a Surefire M6. *Lumensfactory HO-E1R in an E2e with a 17670*. Surefire P90 on 2xRCR in your choice of host. Just that slight overdrive brings the color temp up a bit, and all is right with the world.  ( I like and use both... And hope to continue to do so!)



I was just commenting to a friend yesterday about this great combo. Using a Keeppower charged to 4.3V the light quality is almost heavenly - pure white, no yellow, 100 CRI.


----------



## scout24 (Mar 17, 2016)

Mimimoog- Member Outdoors Fanatic wrote of that combo, calling it the best "free lumens" setup for the E2e, hands down. Good color temp, flat discharge curve, and enough light for most tasks. Great runtime... I'm going to have to invest in a 4.35v capable charger. Which do you use?


----------



## Minimoog (Mar 17, 2016)

scout24 said:


> Mimimoog- Member Outdoors Fanatic wrote of that combo, calling it the best "free lumens" setup for the E2e, hands down. Good color temp, flat discharge curve, and enough light for most tasks. Great runtime... I'm going to have to invest in a 4.35v capable charger. Which do you use?



Glad others are enjoying this combo. Its the sort of thing that when you try and see the result you get a internal kick when you see something special, different from other lights. I use the SkyRC MC3000, and nudged the voltage up in 0.01 increments to 4.32 which is the maximum permitted by the protection circuit. Not 4.35, but much better than 4.2. I saved it as a preset.


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 17, 2016)

I think it boils down to what has been experienced by the individual user. If all you've ever seen is the ugly of an incan or are used to the output of LED's because that's been the leading technology experienced by the user, the incan doesn't stand a chance in a poll. 

In terms of tight budget uses the LED is certainly the most practical. 

But another reason I like the incan light is due to being able to experiment with an output affecting temperature, increase brightness without drastically affecting life span of the bulb with simple to do methods. 

A recent example was when I sent 6+ volts to an LED just to see if brightness would increase. Poof! 
Well in order to use that light again a complicated procedure involving several tools and an hour to swap out the emitter.

When I sent that voltage to an incan bulb, again poof! 30 seconds later a higher voltage rated bi-pin bulb was slid in, the dull beam was now nearly as bright as the LED light I had just killed and there was light in darkness. Lots of light.

My point there is an average ordinary joe can drastically improve an incan light for a couple of bucks, where in order to drastically improve an LED light (unless it's P60 based) typical users have to send it out to an expert. 
So as a hobby the incan light is fun to experiment on without having to get out special tools. 

To this junkie there's a huge reward in the DIY approach vs sending it to an expert. It's easy to box up my light, mail it to a modder and have it return brighter than a star. But to me that's pretty sterile and not anywhere near as rewarding as discovering how to turn a candle bright flashlight into one that rivals a big box store, latest greatest flashlight...for a few $, in my living room while watching a movie.

I say all this not trying to change anybody's mind, but to say that's why I'm one of the only 6 (at this point) to vote incan.


----------



## Minimoog (Mar 17, 2016)

bykfixer said:


> I say all this not trying to change anybody's mind, but to say that's why I'm one of the only 6 (at this point) to vote incan.



Its up to 8 now! Woot!


----------



## Triburst1 (Mar 17, 2016)

I was a late adopter to LED, I didn't get my first high quality LED flashlight until 2006. For a while incan still had the advantage of throw, cutting through smoke/fog, etc. At this point, incandescent has zero practical advantage. You might as well buy a VCR. I'm sure there will be Incan hipsters for years just like there are people who swear buy safety razors and vinyl records.


----------



## xdayv (Mar 17, 2016)

Can't beat the nostalgic feel of an incan, but the advantages of LED far outweighs the use of incan nowadays. Best of both worlds, Warm (or Neutral) tint LED will do!


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 17, 2016)

Triburst1 said:


> I was a late adopter to LED, I didn't get my first high quality LED flashlight until 2006. For a while incan still had the advantage of throw, cutting through smoke/fog, etc. At this point, incandescent has zero practical advantage. You might as well buy a VCR. I'm sure there will be Incan hipsters for years just like there are people who swear buy safety razors and vinyl records.



This sounds exactly like a statement a hipster would make. lol


----------



## Inebriated (Mar 17, 2016)

All I remember of incandescants when I was a kid was them rattling after they broke, or being awfully dim.

I tried to find the old household D-Cell Maglite recently, the one that was probably older than me, but it must have gotten tossed along the years. I have been wanting to get a 6P just to poke around with, though.


----------



## scout24 (Mar 17, 2016)

Some of my takeaway from this, in addition to the experimentation available... In a nutshell. End user field serviceability... If it won't work, either the switch, bulb, or batteries are no good. No electronic engineering degree needed...


bykfixer said:


> I think it boils down to what has been experienced by the individual user. If all you've ever seen is the ugly of an incan or are used to the output of LED's because that's been the leading technology experienced by the user, the incan doesn't stand a chance in a poll.
> 
> In terms of tight budget uses the LED is certainly the most practical.
> 
> ...


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 17, 2016)

scout24 said:


> Some of my takeaway from this, in addition to the experimentation available... In a nutshell. End user field serviceability... If it won't work, either the switch, bulb, or batteries are no good. No electronic engineering degree needed...



Yeah...and that too.


----------



## ZMZ67 (Mar 18, 2016)

scout24 said:


> Some of my takeaway from this, in addition to the experimentation available... In a nutshell. End user field serviceability... If it won't work, either the switch, bulb, or batteries are no good. No electronic engineering degree needed...



End user field serviceability..........sounds like a good subject for a thread of it's own.....


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 18, 2016)

ZMZ67 said:


> End user field serviceability..........sounds like a good subject for a thread of it's own.....



Dew eeet!!!


----------



## eh4 (Mar 18, 2016)

Something I'd go for would be a nice, neutral, high CRI LED with deep reflector, 
Along With a tiny, durable, replaceable incandescent bulb with a small, shallow reflector. 
The incandescent bulb would be designed to be smoothly dimmable, and it's maximum current draw wouldn't be more than the medium-higher medium of the LED draw. 
At its lowest setting the incan would give off a light not much brighter than a small ember, and very, very warm. -A control ring would be good here. Dial it up and the ember gets brighter and climbs towards warm/neutral. 
-go ahead and give it a little quartz lens too for IR to better pass through. 

I'm firmly in the LED camp but if my light had the option to heat a little wire to glowing without draining much battery, and ramp smoothly between red ember and yellow candle, then I'd find all sorts of uses for that.


----------



## Tachead (Mar 18, 2016)

Originally Posted by *scout24* 

 
Some of my takeaway from this, in addition to the experimentation available... In a nutshell. End user field serviceability... If it won't work, either the switch, bulb, or batteries are no good. No electronic engineering degree needed...




bykfixer said:


> Yeah...and that too.



I have never had a LED flashlight fail me in 10+years of heavy use. I cant even count how many incan bulbs I changed over the last 25 years or so. Field serviceability will do you little good when you are out in the back country and your last bulb burns out or you drop your light shattering your last bulb filament. I personally think although LED lights are more electronically complicated, and thus less serviceable, they are much more reliable, durable, and shock resistant. Bulbs are the weak link for incans.


----------



## Magilla (Mar 18, 2016)

I don't know if things are different over in the States but in Australia I can buy a $20 incan light that will light up a bedroom or a $20 led light that will light up a football field.


----------



## scout24 (Mar 18, 2016)

I won't cross post, my reply is in the End User Serviceability thread.  Glad you haven't have one fail. 



Tachead said:


> Originally Posted by *scout24*
> 
> 
> Some of my takeaway from this, in addition to the experimentation available... In a nutshell. End user field serviceability... If it won't work, either the switch, bulb, or batteries are no good. No electronic engineering degree needed...
> ...


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 18, 2016)

Magilla said:


> I don't know if things are different over in the States but in Australia I can buy a $20 incan light that will light up a bedroom or a $20 led light that will light up a football field.



Guess you guys don't have these?...








^^$16 MagLite incan


----------



## Woods Walker (Mar 18, 2016)

How about an in da woods smackdown using 2 SF 6Ps. One with P60 & [email protected] Soliare the other M61WL & Clicky E01. Somehow I survived both hikes, even the one using incandescent lights. Amazing.......


----------



## Magilla (Mar 19, 2016)

bykfixer said:


> Guess you guys don't have these?...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Looks like a pretty serious globe, I would like to see the flashlight it screws into.


----------



## eh4 (Mar 19, 2016)

http://news.mit.edu/2016/nanophotonic-incandescent-light-bulbs-0111


----------



## Swedpat (Mar 19, 2016)

The nanophotonic is interesting. But I think it should be mainly used by incandescent lovers. It should still maintain the limited lifetime and vulnerability compared to LEDs. And a certain model would not be useful for a large range of brightness levels like an LED.
So even if this technology will be released I am sure LED still will be the main technology used for flashlights.


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 19, 2016)

Magilla said:


> Looks like a pretty serious globe, I would like to see the flashlight it screws into.

















^^ doubles as a streetlight.


----------



## ven (Mar 19, 2016)

awesome pics, i would love to see it in hand

How many D batteries i wonder............200? maybe


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 19, 2016)

ven said:


> awesome pics, i would love to see it in hand
> 
> How many D batteries i wonder............200? maybe



100 aa's...it's a kinder/gentler 125 volt-er.

In all seriousness, we ran 14/2 throught the loop of 16 lights total and each light uses 18/2 from a splice box at each one. They're very efficient. Not real pocket carry friendly though.


----------



## Tachead (Mar 19, 2016)

bykfixer said:


> 100 aa's...it's a kinder/gentler 125 volt-er.
> 
> In all seriousness, we ran 14/2 throught the loop of 16 lights total and each light uses 18/2 from a splice box at each one. They're very efficient. Not real pocket carry friendly though.



I hate lights without a pocket clip


----------



## bykfixer (Mar 19, 2016)

It comes with a removable clip.

It's getting it in your pocket that's the adventure.


Although the carburated engine is seen as a thing of the past, they can put out whopping numbers and for some... mighy fun to tinker with.
Same goes for the incan flashlight.


----------

