# LED Mafia and Incadescent Technology



## Esthan (Jun 29, 2007)

Today I have realized, that there must be a LED lobby out there, that is trying to terrorize us and move us away from the undependable and outdated incandescent technology. 

First the Evil Ones arranged things in such a manner, that no matter where we go we are always reminded that LED are nearly indestructible, will not burn out like a bulb and will likely last for a lifetime. C'mon: compared to those 100.000 hours lifetime of LED those lousy 50-100h of a bulb is a middle age technology.... Then the economy has been taken hostage and agreed to work for the them, better runtimes hence lower costs.

We have been brainwashed for so long, that just like a herd of sheep we followed their orders and abandoned the Yellow Road of Sudden Darkness and turned to the true road of White Light Output. Even I got so brainwashed, that I was scared to buy a filament based torch that could shatter upon a smallest vibration.... So many posts about it after all.....

The Yellow light began its slow ascent into nothingness...... Lonesome, abandoned, unloved, forgotten and finally laughed at.


:candle:


And then, this morning some idiot shined me in directly the eyes with his badly regulated (vertical axis ) car lights... And it hit me.... 

I've been a sheep. Just like this ones:





or the Carroty one 

These "middle aged" bulbs are in each car, shine each day and manage to handle all those nasty shocks, current and voltage instabilities. How could I have missed it in the first place is a mystery to me... Must be some evil brainwashing force out there 

How could I have allowed my logic to be shut off and ignore such facts as:
- Filament and it's support are lightweight and thus have a very low inertia that IMO is the prime cause of "bulb death" upon falling to the ground.
- All those car bulbs operate quite long in far worse conditions than a pocket lamp would ever be subjected to (Shock, Temperature etc)
- The filaments that I have at my home (had the pleasure of visiting a Factory that is manufacturing machines that wind the wire into filament) are far from fragile.

Have I been brainwashed or simply silly ? :thinking:

Be aware my fellow CPF'ers. There is an evil force somewhere around as trying to influence us 


P.S. That above is just some fuzzy theory to make You smile, the fact is, that after reading JS post I got myself an A2 Aviator in February. It changed me  and since then I view Incans a bit differently. All Torches got sold....

There can be only one


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## Daniel_sk (Jun 29, 2007)

Great reading, thanks .
Watch out for the LED mafia!


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## Learjet (Jun 29, 2007)

Is this another LED vrs Incan thread?

I've been a LED only guy for a while but I have to say I have been bitten by a bug. A hotwire bug. I've only just realised how cool (hot?) these things are. Browsing through the custom and mod forum there is fun to be had modding mags and building really bright lights. Brighter than LED by 10-100 times. I'm starting at the bottom with a ROP but even this lowly mod kicks butt! Sure the bulbs gobut we do drive them to and past their limits! 

I never realised you can burn holes through garbage bags and set paper on fire with a "torch". There is much fun to be had with Incans! 

Now which mod to next... I need more power Scotty! :devil:


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## mchlwise (Jun 29, 2007)

Now if someone could only stuff a headlight bulb into a 1AA form-factor without losing any brightness or throw...


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## vandrecken (Jul 1, 2007)

Well said that man !

Much more fun to be had building hotwires.

As for LED's, once you have a small set to cover all your needs for portability, variable brightness, color, long runtime - say six or so - I don't see any need for more  Just swap them out each time a new one comes along that does the same thing but goes brighter / runs longer / gives a better color !

Gotta get me an A2 ! Does anyone mod them to dump the LED's and just have a regulated light with a clean beam pattern ?


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## kelmo (Jul 1, 2007)

"...I will do this favor for you. In return I will ask you to illuminate something in the future with no questions asked..."

-Don Corleone


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## BSBG (Jul 1, 2007)

vandrecken said:


> Gotta get me an A2 ! Does anyone mod them to dump the LED's and just have a regulated light with a clean beam pattern ?



That seems a little extreme - the LED's provide just enough 'walking around' light to justify keeping them. Otherwise you need a photon in your pocket too


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 1, 2007)

Sigh....these puny, limp wristed LED capguns and their Scientology-like brainwashed owners have a mega-oedipal complex of interplexed inadequacies. 

It is truly hysterical to see their fanboys writhe about in perverted cacophonies of 'lumenary' bliss when the latest Korean neighborhood strikes up yet another semi-conducted bauble.

LED's are as boring as watching paint dry. You see one, you have seen them all. 

One after another, the thumb-sized, custom lathed cylindrical lemmings spew forth from Mount Doom hoping to conquer The Land of Incand.....only to be vanquished endlessly into the trasheap of mediocrity.

Wake me up when you find Galadriel's Light of Eärendil.


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## TorchBoy (Jul 1, 2007)

Esthan said:


> - All those car bulbs operate quite long in far worse conditions than a pocket lamp would ever be subjected to (Shock, Temperature etc)


Some good points but vibration is not the same as shock. If you were to drop a car headlight from waist height onto concrete (or asphalt) without those lovely soft air filled tyres/tires and suspension, what do you think would happen?


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## PhotonWrangler (Jul 1, 2007)

...so why does Mag feel the need to include a spare bulb in the base of their incandescent lights, since those filaments are all sturdy and everything?


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 1, 2007)

PhotonWrangler said:


> ...so why does Mag feel the need to include a spare bulb in the base of their incandescent lights, since those filaments are all sturdy and everything?



Only girls use stock mags.


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## nerdgineer (Jul 1, 2007)

I think one reason the incans in your car work so well is that they are designed for robustness as opposed to efficiency (which trade off against each other in filament design). There are bushels of watts to burn in a car having a BIG battery and an alternator for power. If you want a self contained incan flashlight, you'll need to give up some (a lot?) of that robustness to keep from having to carry a lead acid battery around with you to power the thing.


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## TorchBoy (Jul 1, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> Only girls use stock mags.


:ironic: So Luxy dear, why do girls (or anyone else) have a spare bulb supplied to them in the tailcap of their Maglite?



nerdgineer said:


> I think one reason the incans in your car work so well is that they are designed for robustness as opposed to efficiency (which trade off against each other in filament design). There are bushels of watts to burn in a car having a BIG battery and an alternator for power.


+1. I was going to say something like that but I'm glad I didn't because you said it so much better.


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## PhotonWrangler (Jul 1, 2007)

nerdgineer said:


> I think one reason the incans in your car work so well is that they are designed for robustness as opposed to efficiency (which trade off against each other in filament design). There are bushels of watts to burn in a car having a BIG battery and an alternator for power.



This is a valid point. There are "rough service" and "long life" incandescent bulbs that have extra-sturdy filaments with additional support structures inside that are designed for long life rather than efficiency. I've used some of them in the past in lighting fixtures in really high ceilings. Their lumens/watt ratio stinks but that's not the most important consideration in a hard-to-reach location.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 1, 2007)

TorchBoy said:


> :ironic: So Luxy dear, why do girls (or anyone else) have a spare bulb supplied to them in the tailcap of their Maglite?



Torchy Toddler, obviously it is to make them think they are getting a good deal. Don't worry whenever the bulb burns out they won't remember or notice the sponge covering the bulb anyway. :shakehead

There are tons of incan bulbs that are rated at 4,000 & 5,000 hours at default specified voltage....for example this 12V 90W 1800 BL Osram bulb that we crank up to 20,000+ lumens in the "DeathBlaster."

All hail....Sauron's minions are upon us. Woe are we.


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## o0o (Jul 1, 2007)

We need more regulated incandescents. Surefire... are you listening??? (the A2 is nice, but I want a PURE incandescent with regulation)

The one issue I have with my incandescent Surefires is that they start going to amber usually withing 15 minutes of turning on--the color shifts to brown 30-40 minutes after turning on. Add a regulator to the C2, C3, etc. and it would be the perfect package. At full output, you cannot beat the color rendition of an incandescent. The problem is, they are only at full output a brief time before the drop starts.


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## Esthan (Jul 2, 2007)

PhotonWrangler said:


> ...so why does Mag feel the need to include a spare bulb in the base of their incandescent lights, since those filaments are all sturdy and everything?



I never said that Incands do not die :]


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## TigerhawkT3 (Jul 2, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> Torchy Toddler, obviously it is to make them think they are getting a good deal. Don't worry whenever the bulb burns out they won't remember or notice the sponge covering the bulb anyway. :shakehead
> 
> There are tons of incan bulbs that are rated at 4,000 & 5,000 hours at default specified voltage....for example this 12V 90W 1800 BL Osram bulb that we crank up to 20,000+ lumens in the "DeathBlaster."
> 
> All hail....Sauron's minions are upon us. Woe are we.


20k lumens, on that bulb? Really? It's only rated for 1,800L at 12V. Did you mean 2kL, or can you really get it to twelve times the rated output? What voltage are you giving it, and what's the approximate (re-rated) lifetime?


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## UncleFester (Jul 2, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> Only girls use stock mags.



Ummm..... What do they use them for :thinking:


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## 270winchester (Jul 2, 2007)

yeah, damn those 6 dollar, 3000_ lumen incan bulbs. 

they are so inferior, you can repalcement by pulling them out of their g3.5 SOckets!!!!

the lack of need for massive heatsinking must gives many of us headaches.

the full spectrum color temperature is so last decade. mono-chromatic landscape rules!!!!

oh, did I mention that no need for worrying baout polarity? that's right, inserting the battery backwards will not make you lose a 30 dollar circuit board or 3-4 LEDs.

how about those bulbs that last thousands of hours? surely a car will run for 100,000 hours, no?

yeah, these incan versus LED threads are so much fun....


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 2, 2007)

TigerhawkT3 said:


> 20k lumens, on that bulb? Really? It's only rated for 1,800L at 12V. Did you mean 2kL, or can you really get it to twelve times the rated output? What voltage are you giving it, and what's the approximate (re-rated) lifetime?



My DeathBlaster has 16 x Elite 1500mAh that when charged get up above 24V. It drops after resting a bit, but hot off the charger with all the resistance fixes, AWR's hotrater shows:

15,000 at 22V w/ 2 hrs
17,500 at 23V w/ 1.6 hrs
20,300 at 24V w/ 1.0 hrs

I have not blown my bulb yet and have at least 10 hours on it in short bursts. I suspect these life calculations begin to break down at the far ends of pushing, and if you use in shorter bursts to allow cooling.


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## Learjet (Jul 2, 2007)

Yeah baby, Deathblaster, that's what I need. What parts do I need to put it together?


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## TigerhawkT3 (Jul 2, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> My DeathBlaster has 16 x Elite 1500mAh that when charged get up above 24V. It drops after resting a bit, but hot off the charger with all the resistance fixes, AWR's hotrater shows:
> 
> 15,000 at 22V w/ 2 hrs
> 17,500 at 23V w/ 1.6 hrs
> ...


Holy heck.

100% overdrive, 1/4,000th rated life, 77L/W... wow.

I've got a Philips 23177 that I'm hoping to fire up at some point, and it has a standard life of 50h. If I pushed it to 1/4,000th of its rated life (pretend it didn't instaflash), it would last for a whole 45 seconds.

Awesome.

What reflector do you use? Did you have to ream out the bulb opening? Is it in a Mag host? What's the firestarting time?


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 2, 2007)

Any of FM's wider openings like the 2.5 TurboDeep, FM3H-2, or remove cammed small reflector.

It does the best with a hellatious hot spot in the 2.5" Deep Turbo. Needs a custom high current switch upgrade. I bypass all the stock Mag switch parts.


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## TigerhawkT3 (Jul 2, 2007)

Cool stuff, but I don't think I want a FM3H-2, as one recently sold on BST for $270. That's a bit much for me. 

How about a reflector for a 2/3" (17mm) diameter bulb, namely the 23177? Any ideas? More specifically, any inexpensive ideas?


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## TorchBoy (Jul 2, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


>


77.3 lm/W... I wonder what temperature that would be running at. :thinking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy (emphasis added):


> Sources that depend on thermal emission from a solid filament, such as incandescent light bulbs, tend to have low overall efficacy compared to an ideal blackbody source because, as explained by Donald L. Klipstein, "An ideal thermal radiator produces visible light most efficiently at temperatures around 6300 °C (6600 K or 11,500 °F). Even at this high temperature, a lot of the radiation is either infrared or ultraviolet, and the theoretical luminous efficiency [sic] is 95 lumens per watt. *Of course, nothing known to any humans is solid and usable as a light bulb filament at temperatures anywhere close to this*. The surface of the sun is not quite that hot."[4] At temperatures where the tungsten filament of an ordinary light bulb remains solid (below 3683 kelvin), most of its emission is in the infrared.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten:


> Melting point 3695?K (3422?°C, 6192?°F)



Donald L. Klipstein - http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.baldwin/bulbguide.html#eff (emphasis added):


> *Higher efficiencies near 35 lumens per watt* are only achieved with photographic and projection lamps with very high filament temperatures and short lifetimes of a few hours to around 40 hours.



77.3 lm/W? :thumbsdow

What's T-lum in that spreadsheet?


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 2, 2007)

The point is that the panty waist "ooohhh look at my big 120 lumen" LED jockeys can find incan bulbs that burst their "short run-time bubbles" by running stock at 4,000+ hours for a whopping price of $4.50....so then the Orcs move on to their next Mount Doom argument, lumens/watt. 

We Lords of the Incands, seek lumens.....lumens that allow us to see brightly and proudly. We leave capgun wannabes to issue your muffled squeals of WiKi melting points or Tungsten drivel. You probably bought "*An Inconvenent Truth*" hook, line, and sinker as well.

So much for Big Donald's grandiosity:


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## big beam (Jul 2, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> Any of FM's wider openings like the 2.5 TurboDeep, FM3H-2, or remove cammed small reflector.
> 
> It does the best with a hellatious hot spot in the 2.5" Deep Turbo. Needs a custom high current switch upgrade. I bypass all the stock Mag switch parts.




You forgot the asbestos gloves.

DON


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## winny (Jul 2, 2007)

I concur with TorchBoy. You won't be able to run it at 24 V.

When I tried ramping up the voltage on Osrams IRC lamps, they failed at around 22 V when slowly ramped up. Link here


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## PhotonWrangler (Jul 2, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> The point is that the panty waist "ooohhh look at my big 120 lumen" LED jockeys can find incan bulbs that burst their "short run-time bubbles" by running stock at 4,000+ hours



O'tay... but when you drop yours and you go from 4000 lumens to 0 lumens in one second, plunging yourself into darkness, I'll still be cooking with my 120 lumens of crisp white light while you bump into walls.
:nana:


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## 270winchester (Jul 2, 2007)

PhotonWrangler said:


> O'tay... but when you drop yours and you go from 4000 lumens to 0 lumens in one second, plunging yourself into darkness, I'll still be cooking with my 120 lumens of crisp white light while you bump into walls.
> :nana:



I have many, many LED lights, 

but, when your LED light fails, good luck trying to pin point where the problem is(hmmm, is it the solder, the circuit, the LED, or all three?) while I open up my incan and put in a spare bulb.


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## PhotonWrangler (Jul 2, 2007)

Number of times I've blown an incandescent bulb = too many to mention.

Number of times I've had an LED flashlight fail = zero.

Having a reliable light = priceless.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

Winny, what bulb were you testing and how long ramping up to that voltage? Your album title link shown here says it was a 35W bulb. The section of AWR's Hotrater sheet was the Osram 90W 64458 bulb. I do know that hot off the charger the Deathblaster's 16 cells read above 24V (16 x 1.55V = 24.80V), and I ran it immediately without flashing the bulb. I did the tail spring mod, and the POS end of the cell pack makes direct contact with one 18AWG wire of a 10A switch with other wire going directly to one side of bipin....so I have very low resistance.

Granted the unregulated voltage drops rapidly with something pushed this extreme, and granted that overdriving beyond 20% of default leads to increasingly innacurate hotrater results, and granted the theoretical 42L/W limit of Tungsten meilting in a vacuum, there is still a higher efficiency L/W reading with these IRC bulbs demonstrated conceptually by figure 2 perhaps up to 52-53 L/W...but it is more the fun of making the night into day than being practical and picking the most efficient light generating modality. I'm currently working on some 24V bulb setups and using 18, 20, 22, & 24 combinations of cell packs that I am making.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Number of times I've blown an incandescent bulb = too many to mention.



Then you are not doing your homework before popping your bulbs. In the last 2 years with over 50 Incan lights all overdriven, I have flashed 4 bulbs....two of them on purpose to check other setting, and one to show someone what it looks like to flash a bulb. Sorry for your losses. :nana:

I have 7 LED's, including a SF-L2. Two Fenix (one is a P1D-CE), two stainless Jetbeam clones, and two aspherical 1D Mags. I like all of them for indoor use, or up close work on a computer, etc. The asphericals are fun outside, but not particularly useful. 

All I am saying is outside LED's are a joke. They don't put out squat for lumens, their color is schizophrenic, and they have no focussable hotspot unless you add an aspherical lens. I know they are more efficient, but I don't care about that when I want some REAL light and throw. 

If you understand how to use them, how long their batteries run, etc. etc. it is easy to manage them. Same with a gun. Your argument is akin to bringing 10 bullets and when those are gone you have a worthless tool. However the intelligent person understands the need to bring additional rounds for the intended purpose. 

I guess the lesson being demonstrated here is that we cannot assume LED jockeys are intelligent enough to be able to manage the proper use of a (real) incan light.  Yeah, you are right....so you should just go play in the sandbox with your capguns and GI Joe dolls.


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## Learjet (Jul 3, 2007)

Who cares about efficiency? As long as it's bright.  And who cares about heat? In fact the more heat the better, help light paper faster.  Like a moth to the flame I am drawn to the hot side Lol. 

Mmm, $4.50 per bulb is nice, but you need a host and batteries costing $hundred$ of dollars to run the thing so it doesn't melt itself. 

I have an old Philips 7023 12V 100 watt slide projector bulb here that I connected to a 12V SLA battery to test it. Man that thing runs hot. Held a stock plastic mag reflector over it for just a second or two to see what the beam was like and ended up with a pile of melted plastic. For the second or so that it lasted it looked really nice though.  

Now I just need to cram it into a 3 or 4 D mag and remove all the plastic bits.

Ahh hotwire hoons, what have you done to me?


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## RCatR (Jul 3, 2007)

PhotonWrangler said:


> Number of times I've blown an incandescent bulb = too many to mention.
> 
> Number of times I've had an LED flashlight fail = zero.
> 
> Having a reliable light = priceless.


Exactly.(except for that one that I didn't glue the luxeon to the heatsink )
Every time I drop an incan, it blows the bulb


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

So I should add that LED Jockeys are also unable to hold onto their (real) Incan lights? I could go back to dropping the gun analogy, but I assume a minimal amount of dexterity in addition to intelligence when I discuss Real Lights with flashaholics. 

Talking to LED Jockeys who pick a fight making an anti-incan thread in the incan section is like trying to explain the economic mistake of higher taxes to a liberal. They don't have the capacity to understand. 

Again, just go play with your capguns and GI Joes in the sandbox, while us adults use our REAL lights the way we like.


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## o0o (Jul 3, 2007)

Why is everyone assuming one is better than the other?

LEDs and incandescents both have disadvantages and advantages.

I say carry one of each.... heck or even two of each.

Use the LED inside (where you don't need as much color rendition or sheer lumens), and the incandescent outside (where color rendition and sheer lumens is a must), or whatever works best for you.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

o0o said:


> Why is everyone assuming one is better than the other?
> 
> LEDs and incandescents both have disadvantages and advantages.
> 
> ...



I agree, but remember this is the incan section of the forum, and the LED Jockeys feel the need to come in time after time, forcing their panty waist "liberal" LED agenda upon us. 

You offer them a 4,000 hr bulb run at default, and they move on to L/W efficiency. You deal with that, and they squirm over to dropping your light. 

They literally do not have the capacity to understand how to properly use REAL (Incan) lights, or what they can accomplish. It doesn't matter if we recognize the (limited) uses of their LED lights, and use them accordingly. These LED-Nazis insist that we all must ONLY use LED's for everything, because that's all they know about.....so we just let them play mindlessly in their sandboxes.


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## Learjet (Jul 3, 2007)

o0o said:


> Why is everyone assuming one is better than the other?
> 
> LEDs and incandescents both have disadvantages and advantages.
> 
> ...



Well put. I totally agree there. They both have their uses. 

For EDC I still think LED is the way to go. I find myself just grabbing the smallest unobtrusive light I can. After all I don't need the power of a car headlight to walk up the stairs and find the keyhole. Even walking outdoors a P3D is fine. It doesn't light up the wild boars at much of a distance compared to a hotwire though. All have their respective uses.


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## TorchBoy (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> I do know that hot off the charger the Deathblaster's 16 cells read above 24V (16 x 1.55V = 24.80V), and I ran it immediately without flashing the bulb.


Open circuit perhaps?  What was it under load?



LuxLuthor said:


> ... granted the theoretical 42L/W limit of Tungsten meilting in a vacuum, ...


That's quite a bit less than 77.3 *lm/W*. Didn't you question the higher figure?



LuxLuthor said:


> All I am saying is outside LED's are a joke. They don't put out squat for lumens, their color is schizophrenic, and they have no focussable hotspot unless you add an aspherical lens. I know they are more efficient, but I don't care about that when I want some REAL light and throw.


[Puts on HID-enthusiast hat.] On the road incandescents are a joke. They don't put out squat for lumens, their colour is schizophrenic, they are less efficient, and I care about that when I want some REAL road illumination and throw. [Doffs HID-enthusiast hat.] Or words to that effect.

But HID is expensive and the bluer light is more easily scattered, meaning it's not perfect either. So calm down, will ya? Stay secure in what you like to use incan for.


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## DM51 (Jul 3, 2007)

LOL. This thread is coming along nicely. So far I think LuxLuthor has the best of it, with his “real men eat incans, LEDs are for cross-dressers and liberals” argument lol. Just one thing, though:


LuxLuthor said:


> … the POS end of the cell pack…


 Come on now Lux, you don’t need to be quite so rude about that cell pack.


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## TorchBoy (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> ... there is still a higher efficiency L/W reading with these IRC bulbs demonstrated conceptually by figure 2 perhaps up to 52-53 L/W...


I must have missed something there. The highest efficiency I found in that pamphlet was just 27 *lm/W*, only half your figure. Care to enlighten us?


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## winny (Jul 3, 2007)

LuxLuthor,

Take a digital camera and a DMM and measure the voltage straight over the bulb. If you can provide a picture in which your DMM says 24 V, I'll cut you some slack.
35 W or not, both are 4000 hour bulbs and are rated 3000 K at 12 V IIRC so the drive point is just about the same. I have not to this date managed to drive a 12 V 4000 hr bulb to 24 V. Please prove me wrong, I'm all eager if you do.
I ramped the voltage slow enough to avoid any current rush and fast enough to eliminate the influence of remaining lifetime.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



TorchBoy said:


> I must have missed something there. The highest efficiency I found in that pamphlet was just 27 *lm/W*, only half your figure. Care to enlighten us?



In typical LED Jockey style, they now move on to comparing an incan to a HID when their LED savior complex fails to shine beyond their front door. 

As far as your limited reading of a "pamphlet" which Xenu was likely distributing at your local Scientology temple, you can enlighten yourself and try to recover a modicum of flashoholic respect by simply reading the entire thread that winny linked previously, including the more detailed pdf linked on Osram's site. Be warned however that it uses some big words, and doesn't speak in your familiar panty waist LED lexicon. 

Until you at least get yourself slightly educated on incan & IRC technology, you should just go play with the other children in the sandbox with your capguns where you won't hurt yourself. You showed your lack of photo-sophistication by asking what is T-lum previously. 



winny said:


> LuxLuthor,
> 
> Take a digital camera and a DMM and measure the voltage straight over the bulb. If you can provide a picture in which your DMM says 24 V, I'll cut you some slack.
> 35 W or not, both are 4000 hour bulbs and are rated 3000 K at 12 V IIRC so the drive point is just about the same. I have not to this date managed to drive a 12 V 4000 hr bulb to 24 V. Please prove me wrong, I'm all eager if you do.
> I ramped the voltage slow enough to avoid any current rush and fast enough to eliminate the influence of remaining lifetime.


Winny, I don't have the PS that will allow me to soft ramp up to that voltage as you did. I only know that I have an ultra low resistance setup, and I put in the battery pack immediately hot off the charger and it lit up. Whether it was exactly 24 volts, including bulb resistance I don't know. 

While I compliment you on your Triple power PS23023, I don't agree on extrapolating a different model and wattage bulb to the one I'm talking about. I also do not agree that the time it required to take over 100 pictures is insignificant in the life of this bulb when pushed to those extremes. 

I additionally question your use of those apparent pincer DMM clip leads which if like Fluke's are not for use beyond 1A applications, or if a hook model up to 3A. Without the same equipment, however, all I can do is disagree conceptually that there are too many uncontrolled variables to be accurate. I'm not going to go out and buy a new PS just to verify your test extrapolation....but I respect your rigor and background.


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## TorchBoy (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*

Interesting, Lux. Instead of rational defence you give us ad hominem arguments. Instead of providing evidence to back up your claims you attack the person questioning them. We all make mistakes, and if you made the mistake of thinking your bulb was magically putting out lumens long after the filament would have evaporated, be a man, just admit it and move on.

FYI, T-lum is an abbreviation for torch lumens, B-Lum for bulb lumens. I asked since your T-lum figure looked like a much more reasonable figure for B-lum. Perhaps you got the two confused. It's a pity that you were more interested in a cheap slanging match than in education - you still haven't explained it.

And the pamphlet you refer to as being distributed at my local temple is the one you yourself linked to trying to support another of your claims. What does that say about your method of refutation?

I think this myth is *busted*. Apologise and move on, Lux.


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## Bertrik (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*

Heh 4000 hrs... My LED lights probably won't last that long, because by that time something better has already come out!


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## winny (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> Winny, I don't have the PS that will allow me to soft ramp up to that voltage as you did. I only know that I have an ultra low resistance setup, and I put in the battery pack immediately hot off the charger and it lit up. Whether it was exactly 24 volts, including bulb resistance I don't know.
> 
> While I compliment you on your Triple power PS23023, I don't agree on extrapolating a different model and wattage bulb to the one I'm talking about. I also do not agree that the time it required to take over 100 pictures is insignificant in the life of this bulb when pushed to those extremes.
> 
> I additionally question your use of those apparent pincer DMM clip leads which if like Fluke's are not for use beyond 1A applications, or if a hook model up to 3A. Without the same equipment, however, all I can do is disagree conceptually that there are too many uncontrolled variables to be accurate. I'm not going to go out and buy a new PS just to verify your test extrapolation....but I respect your rigor and background.



You don't need a PS. IF your battery pack supplies 24 V to your bulb, you DMM would show this and you could take a picture of it, low resistance in your setup or not.

Oh, it's not mine. It's the electronic club's which I used to be the president of.
Taking the pictures took about 20 seconds IIRC. The lifetime at 22 V is a few hours. Please prove to me how 10 seconds more or less matter.

Jesus Christ! How I hooked up the lamp is totally irrelevant. Yes, they did get hot as they weren't rated for the current but the bulb did not know this. How can I emphasis this enough, *I measured the voltage straight over the bulb, and you should do the same*.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



TorchBoy said:


> Interesting, Lux. Instead of rational defence you give us ad hominem arguments. Instead of providing evidence to back up your claims you attack the person questioning them. We all make mistakes, and if you made the mistake of thinking your bulb was magically putting out lumens long after the filament would have evaporated, be a man, just admit it and move on.
> 
> FYI, T-lum is an abbreviation for torch lumens, B-Lum for bulb lumens. I asked since your T-lum figure looked like a much more reasonable figure for B-lum. Perhaps you got the two confused. It's a pity that you were more interested in a cheap slanging match than in education - you still haven't explained it.
> 
> ...



Nice try on your excuse about not knowing what T-Lum stands for. We all know better than you had no idea until now that it stands for Torch Lumens. The only person who has been confused about BL and TL is you since you didn't know what T-Lum even stood for. 

Now that you finally took the time to minimize your embarassment by finding out what it means, go read the rest of that first thread that Winny linked and the full Osram PDF so you can now learn about theoretical L/W limits and how it is extended with the IRC technology.

The Scientology Temple link that you globbed onto beyond what I referenced was specifically related to the qualitative display of figure 2. Anything beyond figure 2, as well as your other panty waist techniques of jumping from spare bulbs in the tailcap, to Tungsten melting point, to Uncle Don's 35L/W, next to 27L/W, and then HIDs to Incans....is between you and Tom Cruise.

Next, have a REAL Incan Light user send you AWR's Hotrater spreadsheet (assuming you know how to use Excel), and then learn that all of the info is from his formulas extrapolated from WA calculations....with the default values from Osram's description inserted. Those who understand his Hotrater spreadsheet also recognize its limitations, but there is nothing else available to use, other than the WA Rerating URL system for their bulbs.

Not sure what myth you are referring to....but yeah this light is actually bright outside, unlike your LED capguns. 


Winny, I will try taking a reading hot off the charger and see what I get over the next few days. I stand by my other points that there was too many uncontrolled aspects in your test....mostly using a 35W bulb to extrapolate to a 90W bulb that has different construction characteristics. My test will also be different from yours since I don't have a soft start capability in my setup.


----------



## TorchBoy (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> Nice try on your excuse about not knowing what T-Lum stands for. We all know better than you had no idea until now that it stands for Torch Lumens. The only person who has been confused about BL and TL is you since you didn't know what T-Lum even stood for.
> ...
> Not sure what myth you are referring to....but yeah this light is actually bright outside, unlike your LED capguns.


After you didn't answer the question yourself the other night (still not interested in education?) by chance I happened across the answer myself, I think last night while reading another thread. Your conjecture on other people's understanding of the jargon is probably quite unfounded, and hence why I included it myself. It's a pity you couldn't. :sigh:

I don't doubt your light is bright, indoors or out, or particularly compared to an LED light (that's just a straw man argument BTW :tsk: ) but it's nowhere near as bright or as efficient as you claimed. That myth is well and truly *busted*. How about admitting you made a boo-boo, apologise, and move on?


----------



## PhotonWrangler (Jul 3, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> ....but yeah this light is actually bright outside, unlike your LED capguns.



Lux, I understand that you feel strongly about incandescent vs LED; that's ok with me. But when you start tossing out terms like LED capguns, you're only baiting us for a fight. I trust this isn't your intention.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 3, 2007)

This is the Incan section of the CPF forums. 

You don't see me going into the LED section baiting the LED Jockeys like this. If you read my posts, you see I freely admit to owning a number of LED's that I use and enjoy for their limited purposes indoors. 

However, there is a significant percentage of LED Jockeys who do not in turn own (or understand) high output incan lights, yet think they have a Scientology-like obligation to come lecture those of us who prefer incans for outside purposes. 

You just saw the typical ignorance displayed over a series of posts, jumping from one unrelated feature/comparison to another trying repeatedly to trash incan lights, and having to settle for disputing some numbers in AWR's spreadsheet when they obviously do not understand its terms, derivation, or limitations.

My only purpose in copying a section of AWR's Hotrater spreadsheet was to demonstrate a 4,000 hour bulb at DEFAULT Osram features when the specious argument was made about why MagLite must put an extra bulb in their tailcaps. All the other aspects of that image with overdriving voltage had nothing to do with the reason it was used...but seeing their short bulb life theory fall apart, these various LED Jockeys (not including winny in that group) begin to pick apart other aspects of AWR's Hotrater without even knowing what it is or the terms is uses.

Compared to (REAL) Incan lights, at the present time, LED's are like capguns, and have a ghoulish color spectrum. I am aware that LED Jockeys don't like hearing that, but it is the truth. Again, I own a number of LED's including the Cree, and they do not get the job done outside. If they continue to be developed and can improve their ability to be focussed for throw, increase their lumen output, and fix the color spectrum, then they can start giving incandescent lights a real run for outside use. Until then, there is a large, vibrant LED section of this forum that they have plenty of room to play in.


----------



## 270winchester (Jul 4, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> Compared to (REAL) Incan lights, at the present time, LED's are like capguns, and have a ghoulish color spectrum.




I can't say I disagree with that.


----------



## TorchBoy (Jul 4, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



PhotonWrangler said:


> Lux, I understand that you feel strongly about incandescent vs LED; that's ok with me. But when you start tossing out terms like LED capguns, you're only baiting us for a fight. I trust this isn't your intention.


I'm sure it is. Winny and I have both pointed out that, at best, he's exagerating the performance of his beloved phallic symbol (and he may well - needlessly - feel quite threatened by that realisation) but instead of responding "Hm, right, I wonder what it really is" and giving us some real measurements and beamshots to drool over he just dissembles and comes up with simple red herrings and straw man arguments, thus never admitting even to himself that while it's really impressive, it's not quite the brightness he thought it was.

Either that or he's really _really_ stressed about something at the moment. Maybe he's just done a $cientology course and like an over driven bulb he's about to go  himself. Or maybe his grandmother is dying of cancer. Hmm. If it's something like that, hang in there, LL.


----------



## winny (Jul 4, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> Winny, I will try taking a reading hot off the charger and see what I get over the next few days. I stand by my other points that there was too many uncontrolled aspects in your test....mostly using a 35W bulb to extrapolate to a 90W bulb that has different construction characteristics. My test will also be different from yours since I don't have a soft start capability in my setup.



Good.

Uncontrolled aspects, namely?

Alright, I'll try this way instead. Both bulbs start out at 3000 K, and the change in CCT is a given function for all incandescent bulbs. Hence you can find out the point where tungsten melts and your bulb undoubtedly fails. 
If you take a look at Osrams halogen guide and do regression on the chart of true temperature-CCT, you find that CCT = 8.749207582·10-1 T^1.019488766.
If you set T to tungstens melting point, 3695 K, the CCT at that temperature becomes 3794 K. Hence, you can go no higher.
Now, the CCT for your bulb at 24 V is 3979 K, and 3979 > 3794.
Although some second order effect probably comes into consideration here, you are 200 K away from the absolute maximum.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 4, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



TorchBoy said:


> I'm sure it is. Winny and I have both pointed out that, at best, he's exagerating the performance of his beloved phallic symbol (and he may well - needlessly - feel quite threatened by that realisation) but instead of responding "Hm, right, I wonder what it really is" and giving us some real measurements and beamshots to drool over he just dissembles and comes up with simple red herrings and straw man arguments, thus never admitting even to himself that while it's really impressive, it's not quite the brightness he thought it was.
> 
> Either that or he's really _really_ stressed about something at the moment. Maybe he's just done a $cientology course and like an over driven bulb he's about to go  himself. Or maybe his grandmother is dying of cancer. Hmm. If it's something like that, hang in there, LL.



You know you have completely exposed and humiliated someone when they need to go back to infantile high school tactics of attacking the size of their opponent's *****, needing to call in other members to support their failed emotional issues, shifting from one argument to another -- when unable to get any traction, and finally to then suggest that perhaps the opponent's personal family members may be dying of cancer....which despite crossing the line of CPF's rules, exposes the utter bankruptcy of Torchy Toddler's attempt at making claims against incan lights that his capgun LED toys cannot fulfill.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 4, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



winny said:


> Good.
> 
> Uncontrolled aspects, namely?
> 
> ...



Winny, the uncontrolled aspects which I have said a number of times are that you did your tests with an entirely different 35W bulb, with different filament, IRC, resistance, and glass construction. It is even possible that there is a slightly different composition of this filament in terms of purity which fluctuates in all manufacturing processes. 

You tested a completely unique 35W bulb and then assumed the 90W must be the identical filament alloy (or purity of just tungsten), internal bulb pressure, IRC coating, and that all other specifications & tolerances must be identical. I also raised the question of you using probe pincers which if like my Fluke brand have a rated limit of 1A, because I do not know how much of them heating up may have contributed to the bulb flashing since they had direct contact with the bipins. I also question whatever chart you just posted, since I have not seen how its formulas and calculations are done to know it maps out at the high extremes.

The fact that I question some of these variables is a matter of good scientific modality. If you read my words carefully, I never have said your assertions are wrong. I have only stated my empirical observations in my own light, while not knowing what the actual measured voltage would be if I measure peak bipin voltage in the light with a freshly charged pack inserted. 

If you are representing that your testing and photographs provide irrefuteable evidence of what happens in a whole other bulb in an entirely different testing environment, then questions on test modality and calculations are reasonable tests of objectivity. Again, my questions do not mean you are ultimately wrong, just that I see that you have not controlled all the elements to backup your extrapolated claim about the actual 90W bulb's capability when properly inserted into a KIU heatsink setup. 

I did not bring up additional factors such as ambient air temp, barometric pressure, verified calibration of your power source, and all the other things which must be done for proper industrial published test results to be considered valid. They can all be considered as legitimate questions that an intelligent observer should have in mind when someone tells you something like this is absolutely true.

Now, if I had said that your findings are absolutely wrong, then I would be required to do several, repeated tests with as many of the variables I can think of be controlled, and to publish those testing procedures for anyone else to reproduce. I did not say that about your findings....I just say that I question some of the uncontrolled aspects of your testing and extrapolation.

In addition,* I have said repeatedly that I posted the initial AWR spreadsheet ONLY to show there is an incan bulb (among many) that at default voltages can run for 4,000 hours to dispell the LED Jockeys who claim that incan bulbs don't last since they put an extra bulb in the tailcap.* It is not my job or interest to defend the extremes of AWR's Hotrater spreadsheet since you and I both know its accuracies break down as you move away from minor overdriving. 

Let's say I had originally posted this even more extreme manipulation of AWR's sheet the voltage calculation, to again illustrate that this is a 4,000 Hour bulb at default values. Because there is still 0.2 Hours then it must mean that this bulb can be driven to 30,000BL !!! 






Stop being daft about this whole spreadsheet, Winny. It demeans your more rigorous and valuable contributions, since you already went down this road in other threads and know its limitations. Your beef is with AWR's Excel calculator which is used all the time (as is the WA URL Re-rating links) in promoting the lumens of many lights because no one has a 100% accurate way of evaluating hardly any of the various lights we discuss here on CPF. Similar claims are made with HIDs, LEDs, Lasers, and Lanterns. 

Some people use a light meter reading of a supposedly scientific ceiling bounce test, and present it as real lumens. Almost no one discriminates between BL and TL. No one has an accurate way of discussing the effects of reflector surfacing, shape, and size. Almost no one includes variables of glass lens quality and thickness, nor condition, type, and quality of batteries used when lumens are batted around publicly.

You can take this criticism and examination of light performance down to a gnat's *** in details where you will find out that almost none of the claims that anyone is making about anything is actually fully controlled and scientifically verified and calibrated. 

*None of that however, dispells the reality that next to incan hotwires, LEDs are like capgun toys in terms of the lumen output*. It's too bad that LED Jockeys cannot hear that, because it is the obvious reality...albeit at lesser incan efficiency. 

Individual LED total lumen output may change in the future, but nothing on the horizon that I have seen is close to displacing incand hotwires. I don't consider multiple LED lights to be the same apples to apples comparison to a single overdriven incan bulb. 

Similarly, HID's are generally more powerful and practical than most incans, which is why I have a good number of them. However my Larry14K and Deathblaster do appear on empirical observation to be brighter than my Barn Burner which is reportedly in the 8,000 lumen range. Then you can always move into carbon arc sky spotlights and the MaxaBeam/MegaRay.


----------



## jtr1962 (Jul 4, 2007)

It should be fairly easy to test lumens per watt of these IRC bulbs. Put the bulb in a secure holder and mount a light meter a fixed distance from it. First start off at the rated voltage (measure the voltage _at the bulb_). Note the current and the light meter reading. Now increase the voltage until the color temp gets into the 3400K to 3500K range. This is about the practical limit of overdrive where you can still get 5 to 15 hours life. Note the voltage at the bulb, the current, and the light meter reading. The lumens at overdrive is simply the ratio of the two light meter readings times the rated lumens of the bulb. The input power is simply volts times amps. Obviously efficiency is lumens divided by the input power. The only caveat is that this method takes the manufacturer's lumen rating as gospel. I suspect the results of such a test might at best be in the 45 lm/W area, perhaps even the high 40s.



LuxLuthor said:


> Individual LED total lumen output may change in the future, but nothing on the horizon that I have seen is close to displacing incand hotwires. I don't consider multiple LED lights to be the same apples to apples comparison to a single overdriven incan bulb.


As far as being the _least expensive_ solution to getting a lot of focused lumens you're correct for the time being. HID is more practical in that you get much better efficiency and whiter light, but it's also horrendously expensive. For general interior lighting however, incandescent has probably been obsolete for the last decade with the development of fluorescents with much better color rendering.

Down the road LEDs maybe approach 90% efficiency or more (i.e. 300 lm/W with excellent color rendering or 360 lm/W with acceptable color rendering). Only 10% waste heat could mean driving a single LED at 50 watts, and with a resultant light output of 15,000+ lumens. This may not happen for another decade, but there's no theoretical reason it can't. I'll also grant that new IRC and/or UVC, as well as new filament materials capable of operating at much higher temperatures than tungsten, may well be developed, thus giving incandescent a new lease on life. For my own uses, LED serves me well in the flashlight department since I prefer the whiter light, and don't need enough lumens to light a ballpark.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 4, 2007)

jtr1962 said:


> It should be fairly easy to test lumens per watt of these IRC bulbs. Put the bulb in a secure holder and mount a light meter a fixed distance from it. First start off at the rated voltage (measure the voltage _at the bulb_). Note the current and the light meter reading. Now increase the voltage until the color temp gets into the 3400K to 3500K range. This is about the practical limit of overdrive where you can still get 5 to 15 hours life. Note the voltage at the bulb, the current, and the light meter reading. The lumens at overdrive is simply the ratio of the two light meter readings times the rated lumens of the bulb. The input power is simply volts times amps. Obviously efficiency is lumens divided by the input power. The only caveat is that this method takes the manufacturer's lumen rating as gospel. I suspect the results of such a test might at best be in the 45 lm/W area, perhaps even the high 40s.
> 
> 
> As far as being the _least expensive_ solution to getting a lot of focused lumens you're correct for the time being. HID is more practical in that you get much better efficiency and whiter light, but it's also horrendously expensive. For general interior lighting however, incandescent has probably been obsolete for the last decade with the development of fluorescents with much better color rendering.
> ...



*All excellent and thoughtful points.* I agree with everything you said, except I just have not done enough reading to know if your technique of measuring the Δ Lumens/color/voltage/current is a linear curve allowing direct extrapolation. It may be, I just don't know. In any case, I have never attempted to excuse or rationalize worse efficiency of incan vs. LED. Us "Hotwire Jockeys" just enjoy the tremendous outdoor lumens. At the point where LED's achieve what you portend, I will completely drop my incan-fervor.


----------



## jtr1962 (Jul 4, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> *All excellent and thoughtful points.*


Thanks! :thumbsup:



> I agree with everything you said, except I just have not done enough reading to know if your technique of measuring the Δ Lumens/color/voltage/current is a linear curve allowing direct extrapolation.


I've thought of that myself since most light meters are calibrated for ~2850K incandescent. The shift from maybe 3000K at rated voltage for these IRC lamps to ~3450K at maximum overdrive may indeed cause the light meter to underread or overread somewhat. My guess based on the CPF light meter testing which I participated in is that this error will be pretty small. For my own lightmeter my readings for incandescent were almost dead on, and LED, which looks nothing like incandescent, was less 10% off. Since the difference between two drastically different types of light was so small, I'd guess that the differences between two different color temperatures of incandescent will be far smaller, on the order of a few percent or less.


----------



## TorchBoy (Jul 4, 2007)

*Re: LED Mafia and IncaNdescent Technology*



LuxLuthor said:


> At the point where LED's achieve what you portend, I will completely drop my incan-fervor.


You won't have to even then, since there are still good reasons why incandescents are great. However, then and now, you shouldn't attack the _person_ instead of their _point_. That doesn't do anything for your cause, but instead just makes you look insecure and/or unable to admit you made a mistake.

And I'm really glad to know that your apparently stressed state wasn't caused by anything serious. :twothumbs


----------



## Outdoors Fanatic (Jul 5, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> This is the Incan section of the CPF forums.
> 
> You don't see me going into the LED section baiting the LED Jockeys like this. If you read my posts, you see I freely admit to owning a number of LED's that I use and enjoy for their limited purposes indoors.
> 
> ...





> *Compared to (REAL) Incan lights, at the present time, LED's are like capguns, and have a ghoulish color spectrum. I am aware that LED Jockeys don't like hearing that, but it is the truth. Again, I own a number of LED's including the Cree, and they do not get the job done outside. *


 
Hard to disagree with that... You hit it on the head. Great post!


----------



## winny (Jul 5, 2007)

LuxLuthor,

Any progress with that picture?


----------



## ampdude (Jul 5, 2007)

I'm the same way. I like to be able to see with my flashlights, rather than project pale ghostrings on everything. :twothumbs


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 6, 2007)

winny said:


> LuxLuthor,
> 
> Any progress with that picture?



Not yet. As you can imagine it is a pretty low priority item on my list of many projects.


----------



## Hodsta (Jul 6, 2007)

Lux,

Not sure if this is the right forum but I have an SF M6CB that I would like to convert to a Seoul P4. 

You any tips on this mod?

Cheers
Hodsta
:nana:


----------



## DM51 (Jul 6, 2007)

I'm putting my fingers in my ears


----------



## [email protected] (Jul 6, 2007)

Converting a M6 Incan to a SSC P4? Converting 500 TORCH Lumens to 240 BULB lumens(max)? hmm.........:thinking:

I was thinking of getting one of those cool 1.6L VTEC Engines from a civic and put it in a Mustang.
You know everyone is saying that VTEC is the ultimate trend. Pushrods are like from the 60's, man.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 6, 2007)

DM51 said:


> I'm putting my fingers in my ears



LOL! You mean covering your eyes, right?

Hodsta, as you saw from the previous post, that doesn't make any sense.....but I'm not the one to ask about it anyway. Good Luck.


----------



## DM51 (Jul 6, 2007)

LOL!! I was expecting an almighty explosion! Is it safe to come out now?


----------



## 2xTrinity (Jul 6, 2007)

[email protected] said:


> Converting a M6 Incan to a SSC P4? Converting 500 TORCH Lumens to 240 BULB lumens(max)? hmm.........:thinking:


Using a Seoul in an M6 is a ridiculous idea. He should use a Cree instead with an aspheric lens to turn that old M6 into a real throwing machine! He could also primer the inside of the light, then paint a thick layer of thick green glow-in-the-dark paint all around, so that just after using it, the lens would glow bright green :thumbsup:

Also, imagine the runtime on that thing, unlike the crappy yellowish stock setup that only runs for ~20 minutes, a single Cree could sustain a perfect pure white beam with bright luminescent green spill for an entire 8 hours


----------



## Hodsta (Jul 6, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> LOL! You mean covering your eyes, right?
> 
> Hodsta, as you saw from the previous post, that doesn't make any sense.....but I'm not the one to ask about it anyway. Good Luck.


 
You guys ain't gonna rise to this are you? 

Why oh why oh why would anyone CREE or P4 a M6?

Looks like my Brit sense of sarcasm don't travel to well! .


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 6, 2007)

Hodsta said:


> Looks like my Brit sense of sarcasm don't travel to well! .



No....sorry, but it's just too sophisticated for us stupid, boneheaded American cowboys. You pretty much have to hit us over the head with a fish for us to notice anything.


----------



## Hodsta (Jul 6, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


>


 


I will add a Gilthead to my EDC next time I'm Stateside!.

To be clear, I meant there was a cultural difference and not implying cultural superiority, I've spent too much time in the US to think that to be the case.

Now that's cleared up - you are free to get this thread back on topic and return to your rant.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 7, 2007)

Rant? Stress? That's in the eye of the beholder. If this is what a rant or stress looks like to some of you....you have led pretty isolated and 'applesauce-bland' lives. I have never felt stressed while using the computer. I guess some see a rant when told that incands are brighter than LED's. Curious.


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## Hodsta (Jul 7, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> I guess some see a rant when told that incands are brighter than LED's. Curious.


 
And two incands are brighter than one incand of the same type, however not always conveniant or neccesary to carry two.

Not better, just different.

Just out of interest - if you could keep only one flashlight that you had to use for all future tasks what would it be and why? 

Hodsta


----------



## lctorana (Jul 7, 2007)

My goodness, what a question.

So...

...this scenario means that the same monster torch I normally keep in the car boot for emergencies wold be the same one I see my way to the bog with at night...


----------



## Hodsta (Jul 7, 2007)

lctorana said:


> My goodness, what a question.
> 
> So...
> 
> ...this scenario means that the same monster torch I normally keep in the car boot for emergencies wold be the same one I see my way to the bog with at night...


 

OK - that would be plain daft! If you could keep only two...................


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## DM51 (Jul 7, 2007)

...it would save him from confusing the trunk of his car with the privy.


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## Hodsta (Jul 7, 2007)

DM51 said:


> ...it would save him from confusing the trunk of his car with the privy.


----------



## LuxLuthor (Jul 7, 2007)

Hodsta said:


> And two incands are brighter than one incand of the same type, however not always conveniant or neccesary to carry two.
> 
> Not better, just different.
> 
> ...



Perfect demonstration of being what I call an "LED Jockey."  

You can only imagine an LED being the one true light of salvation, and only through believing in the one, true, almighty LED, can one hope to save their wretched soul from eternal darkness. What a load of <Insert Mammal> excrement.

Someone makes the obviously truthful statement that incands are *brighter *than LED's, and the LED Jockey hears that as "*better*." Freshly wounded, the LED Jockey is driven to introduce the "not better, just different" irrelevant argument. We can add that to the earlier L/W efficiency, or introducing HID vs. Incand, or size form factor, etc. etc. :kiss:


----------



## Hodsta (Jul 7, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> Perfect demonstration of being what I call an "LED Jockey."
> 
> You can only imagine an LED being the one true light of salvation, and only through believing in the one, true, almighty LED, can one hope to save their wretched soul from eternal darkness. What a load of <Insert Mammal> excrement.
> 
> Someone makes the obviously truthful statement that incands are *brighter *than LED's, and the LED Jockey hears that as "*better*." Freshly wounded, the LED Jockey is driven to introduce the "not better, just different" irrelevant argument. We can add that to the earlier L/W efficiency, or introducing HID vs. Incand, or size form factor, etc. etc. :kiss:


 

Lux,

Calm down my friend. I have no real issue or problem with incands, at least not so much that I would label the users incand jockeys or worse.

What exactly is your point?

There are countless combinations of bulbs, LEDs, cells, reflectors all yielding varying combinations of brightness, runtime, size and weight. Each capable of being mated to a particular task. If you are saying that a single incand bulb currently can generate more light than a single LED regardless of size, efficiency or weight of host - you win. 

My view is that I use my LEDs the most, because they suit my needs the most. I own and love my M6 and usually use it with the HOLA, however it serve up more lumens than I can usually deploy with any great aplomb in the majority of situations I find myself in.

If brightness is the holy grail - What do you use your mega bright flashlights for? If I were a security guard patrolling wide open spaces or owned a large amount of land that I wanted to watch over, or a similar task I can immediately see the use. Extreme brightness has a limited use and therefore flashlights exhibiting extreme brightness are limited use tools. WHAT DO YOU USE THEM FOR!

I do not agree that LEDs lights are useless outdoors --- for 5 out of the last 7 years my 6P with P60 lamp assembly served me well on all of my night hikes across varying terrains and only recently has it been replaced with a higher output longer run time CREE assembly which serves me aswell if not better in terms of brightness and throw with a definate upside in runtime - incands seen to penetrate moist or smokey air better and I live with this compromise. A Modamag assembly would undoubtedly be brighter but so would a SF Hellfighter or the bulb and power assebly off a 747 - BUT - my torch of choice gives me all the light I need, runs for longer and is not cumbersome.

I would be the last person to want incands to go the way of the dodo. However if I had to get off the fence and choose one over the other it would be LEDs for the reasons stated above.


By the way ..........I was in all honesty wounded by your words 
(did you feel that fish just then?):huh:


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 8, 2007)

I am calm. I have been calm in all posts on CPF. I am simply making points about why I prefer incands outside, and that they are in fact brighter and a more realistic color. That's about the only point I ever had to make....but look at all the responses to that. 

If you look at the start of the thread, and the numerous comments afterwards, there is a misunderstanding/mischaracterization of incands from those who seem to only worship at the altar of the almighty LED's...and mostly don't have much experience/ownership of some quality incands. :thinking:

None of my comments are intended to be personal, but rather are speaking up for incands in the incand section of the forum. I would expect a similar set of responses if I went into the LED section of the forum and started ridiculing LED's in favor of incands. 

Your post did not respond to my simple statement about incands being brighter, so you appeared to be just another "LED Jockey" in the thread as far as I could tell. BTW, you could call me an "Incand Jockey" for outside use. 

I use them for everything I do outside. I can't stand the pale, ghostly color of LED's outside, as nothing looks realistic. You cannot focus them. They have no throw, and even the Cree/Seoul do not put out enough lumens to see details beyond 10-20 yards unless it is pitch black, and you have had enough time to start using your night vision rods. 

Most of the places where I use my HID's or Incands, there is some degree of intermittent ambient lighting, or a car headlight just frequently enough to wipe out my night vision. I need the throw and focussed beam to see things clearly in various settings from 25 to 300 yards away. 

Again, none of this was intended to cause you any ill will or bad feelings, so sorry about that!


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## Hodsta (Jul 8, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> I use them for everything I do outside. I can't stand the pale, ghostly color of LED's outside, as nothing looks realistic. You cannot focus them. They have no throw, and even the Cree/Seoul do not put out enough lumens to see details beyond 10-20 yards unless it is pitch black, and you have had enough time to start using your night vision rods.


 
Lux/All,

Is there any quantative and empirical data in other threads that prove that incands. have a better throw than LEDs? I'm no physicist but to me light is light. If you have a properly disigned reflector for the bulb/LED in question surely they shoud throw equally? All that I could imagine is that there maybe a difference in the human interpretation of throw due to the difference in colour balance of the two sources? 

Serious question - I would love it if someone could dig up a thread that addresses this question - whatever the outcome.

On the "pale, ghostly" colour balance point - many of my SF LEDs (manily Lux IIIs I think) output light with a shift to the blue end and I can recognise thie point being made here. However both my McGizmo offerings have a beautifuly balanced warmish beam with great rendition of colour and depth. There is clearly nothing inherent in white LEDs to make them exhibit any particular hue even though some exhibit the blue/white that I think you are refereing to. 

Hodsta


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## winny (Jul 8, 2007)

Hodsta said:


> Is there any quantative and empirical data in other threads that prove that incands. have a better throw than LEDs?



Sure thing!
You can compare the surface brightness for LEDs vs. incans. IIRC, the new CREE LEDs uses 1 mm * 1 mm huh2: anyone?) chips and produce ~240 lumen, so 240 lumen/mm^2. The filament of an 65 W Osram IRC is pretty much a cylinder, 2.8 mm in diameter and 4 mm high, so 47.5 mm^2. You can push it to about 18 V, pushing 6500+ lumen which gives us ~137 lm/mm^2. 

Although you can do very much with optics, a high surface brightness to start with gives you ahead start when it comes to throw.

If we move up in power, there are obvious reasons why they use short-arc xenon and short-arc metal halide lamps in skytrackers instead of larger lamps with better efficiency and longer life.


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## AWGD8 (Jul 8, 2007)

Incans waste a lot of energy- Not ideal for average Joe who can`t afford batteries if he chooses a High Lumen torch.

LED- eats up lesser energy. Perfect for the average Joe.

Incans fit the Law Enforcers, Military bec. they don`t pay for the batteries.


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## ampdude (Jul 8, 2007)

AWGD8 said:


> Incans waste a lot of energy- Not ideal for average Joe who can`t afford batteries if he chooses a High Lumen torch.
> 
> LED- eats up lesser energy. Perfect for the average Joe.
> 
> Incans fit the Law Enforcers, Military bec. they don`t pay for the batteries.




They make rechargeable lithium batteries now you know..

All I use is incans anymore, I haven't used a primary battery in a loooong time except just for the novelty of it.

I really tried hard to like LED's, but they are just a complete joke compared to xenon/halogen lights.

LED's serve a better purpose as keychain and caving lights. For the spelunker types out there.

I have a Photon on my keychain and I have a RR2AAA I use to navigate around the house at night. For those types of purposes I like LED's alot.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 8, 2007)

winny said:


> Sure thing!
> You can compare the surface brightness for LEDs vs. incans. IIRC, the new CREE LEDs uses 1 mm * 1 mm huh2: anyone?) chips and produce ~240 lumen, so 240 lumen/mm^2. The filament of an 65 W Osram IRC is pretty much a cylinder, 2.8 mm in diameter and 4 mm high, so 47.5 mm^2. You can push it to about 18 V, pushing 6500+ lumen which gives us ~137 lm/mm^2.
> 
> Although you can do very much with optics, a high surface brightness to start with gives you ahead start when it comes to throw.
> ...



Great information. _(Alas, no 24V picture yet)_

Hodsta, I don't have any McGizmo LED's, but if anyone could work magic, it would be him. I don't know enough about LED technology to understand what controls their color, or if the envelope &/or glass lens is a way to alter that by filtering out some of the blue spectrum. As I said earlier, I have 3 Jetbeam clones, Fenix L2P & P1D-CE (on my keychain), SF-L2, and two Aspherical Mags that Ledean & Mac made. All of those have a "ghoulish" unnatural color.

To add one other aspect of incand's enhanced focus and throw....the LED is mounted on a flat panel with a 180° dome shaped output. Incands such as this IRC model are more nearly giving a spherical 360° light source that can move forward and back into the focal point of the reflector.







AWGD8 makes another "LED Jockey" type comment. Obviously incands are less efficient and have shorter runtimes. Congratulations on that shrewd observation, Einstein. :kiss: 

So going back to my previous post in this thread....the masterful incan user develops the unbelieveable skill of actually being able to buy rechargeable Li-Ion or NiMH cells. If we need mega run times, like using a gun which holds a limited number of rounds....we bring extra ammo. In this hobby, if the average Joe can only afford a limited supply of batteries, then they should not consider themself a flashaholic, and they may be better off playing with capguns in the sandbox. 

Oh wait, lest I forget my and have someone take my comments too seriously...let me go and add this before posting. (I better add one more for good measures)


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## 2xTrinity (Jul 8, 2007)

> You can compare the surface brightness for LEDs vs. incans. IIRC, the new CREE LEDs uses 1 mm * 1 mm huh2: anyone?) chips and produce ~240 lumen, so 240


Actually, the virtual image exiting the LEDs dome is actually larger than the physical die size, so the surface brightness relevant for focusability is actaully somewhat worse than that. When after I accidentally broke the dome off of one of my Cree LEDs, I found I could produce a smaller image using an aspheric lens than before (with no dome though, not as much light was captured by the aspheric lens as the Cree no longer had a narrow beam angle -- so throw was ultimately worse). 



LuxLuthor said:


> Great information. _(Alas, no 24V picture yet)_
> 
> Hodsta, I don't have any McGizmo LED's, but if anyone could work magic, it would be him. I don't know enough about LED technology to understand what controls their color, or if the envelope &/or glass lens is a way to alter that by filtering out some of the blue spectrum. As I said earlier, I have 3 Jetbeam clones, Fenix L2P & P1D-CE (on my keychain), SF-L2, and two Aspherical Mags that Ledean & Mac made. All of those have a "ghoulish" unnatural color.


I don't believe filtering the blue spectrum is going to help -- the best Cree LEDs (WH bin particularly) have a yellowish green appareance as most of the blue light is activating the phosphor (this goes hand-in-hand with high efficiency, the eyes are about 6 times more sensitive to the light emitted from the phosphor than the blue light from the die) the only problem is the deficiency of red. While I have been able to use filters to improve cheaper LEDs to the point where they match Cree WHs, filtering out any more blue than that just causes the emitter to look green. The only way to improve from there is to go with two phosphors, separate red and green. I have been able to emulate this in multi-emitter builds, by adding 1 red Lux III for every 5 or so cool white LEDs (Seoul SVO bin or "warmer"). I believe McGizmo has actually implemented this technique in his house LED lighting fixtures as well.




> To add one other aspect of incand's enhanced focus and throw....the LED is mounted on a flat panel with a 180° dome shaped output. Incands such as this IRC model are more nearly giving a spherical 360° light source that can move forward and back into the focal point of the reflector.


Agreed. I believe this fact may ben even more relevant than color spectrum as to why LEDs perform poorly in the fog. Most LED lights have a less intense beam, and much much brighter spill than an incan of comparable lumens. The more intense spill causes a greater amount of backscatter, and the weaker beam means the target receives less of the initial light output, making it much harder to see through the veil of lit up fog.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 8, 2007)

Useful and interesting info, 2X. Thanks.

Oh yeah that is the other reason now that you mention fog....that I gravitate towards incands. I live almost on the ocean here in Connecticut, and it's pretty common to have some degree of fog. One of the striking things is shining light at trees and have them cast a distinct shadow against the low fog ceiling.


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## Learjet (Jul 9, 2007)

My property is about 130 metres long, although a lot of that is in scrub. For practical purposes these are my results with various lights. 

My 100 LED Ebay light running on nimh D cells puts out a lot of light. But it's a flood light, good for illuminating near objects with wide angle light. Does not have much useful throw farther than about 50 metres. 

Dorcy 3D 1 watt Luxeon overdriven is a spot light. Throws about 60 metres but the spot is very narrow. Great runtime though. 

Fenix P3D, out throws the Dorcy and any other of my LEDs and also produces more flood. Great light for walking and avoiding snakes. Small, light weight. 

6AA ROP high incan using FM's MOP reflector out throws any of the LEDs X 2. Will light up trees 130 metres away. 

Was watching a Curlew at night and compared the P3D to the ROP. At 30 metres the ROP was the best for making out detail of the bird, but then it does put out more light. 

The colour of LED or incan doesn't really bother me. It's a choice of either goulish LED or sickly yellow Incan anyway.  The yellow light is good for colour and contrast but if a LED is bright enough it's fine. I only need to avoid snakes.

Hunters and shooters would probably never use LED. The big bright halogens are mainly used here for lighting up boars hundreds of metres away. I know which I'd use in big cat or bear country. Fortunately we don't have those here.


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## uk_caver (Jul 11, 2007)

Personally, I find foliage one of the things LEDs seem to be oddest-looking on.

With grass being anything from yellow to blue-green, and current white LEDs tending to have a dip in the spectrum between the blue spike and yellow hump, maybe the dip is just in a bad place for rendering some plant-greens properly?

I don't actually _mind_ the odd colour much, since I don't expect colours to be day-perfect at night, and I don't have a great choice over light sources anyway - for underground and headtorch use, incandescent is basically dead, and underground, some LEDs actually seem to give a more realistic light than the older incandescent lights used to do, even if the particular reasons for that don't necessarily apply to incans as a whole, let alone to the more cutting-edge ones.

I like LEDs, and I actually have a reasonable sideline selling niche LED homebuilds, but I can imagine if I was somewhere where I could usefully carry a large incan, I wouldn't have some religious aversion to doing so.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 11, 2007)

uk_caver said:


> Personally, I find foliage one of the things LEDs seem to be oddest-looking on.
> 
> With grass being anything from yellow to blue-green, and current white LEDs tending to have a dip in the spectrum between the blue spike and yellow hump, maybe the dip is just in a bad place for rendering some plant-greens properly?



There is a current design limitation with all of the LED's I have seen, namely the lack of a semi-realistic spectrum, especially absence of red. While I don't consider this issue the MAIN reason to dislike LED's for outside use, unlike fire (torches & candles), incan light bulbs, and color balanced fluorescent light sources....LED's turn the darkness into "Night of the Living Dead." If they can solve this issue it will help.



uk_caver said:


> I don't actually _mind_ the odd colour much, since I don't expect colours to be day-perfect at night, and I don't have a great choice over light sources anyway - *for underground and headtorch use*, incandescent is basically dead, and underground, some LEDs actually seem to give a more realistic light than the older incandescent lights used to do, even if the particular reasons for that don't necessarily apply to incans as a whole, let alone to the more cutting-edge ones.


I'm glad you had the integrity to restrict your incan death theory to caving and headtorches, which I consider more of an indoor use which is the only place I use my LED's (or in a tent or inside a car). I also have to agree with headlamps purely on the LED runtime advantage...but not if you are doing something outside that needs a more realistic color rendering.



uk_caver said:


> I like LEDs, and I actually have a reasonable sideline selling niche LED homebuilds, but I can imagine if I was somewhere where I could usefully carry a large incan, I wouldn't have some religious aversion to doing so.


It is also refreshing to see an "LED Jockey" (I am an "Incan Jockey") be up front about their position and even having a financial stake in LED's being more successfully adopted. 

Incan's are not inherently larger than LED's, as I have 1D size Maglites running regulated 900 BL & non-regulated 1450 BL lights on 4 x 14670 Li-Ions. I don't need to run them continuously, and have no problem completing an hour long walk with all the light and throw that I need...despite not comparing to the LED runtime. 

However, once you are seeking more than 500L AND THROW AND REALISTIC COLORS, the LED's don't get the job done.


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## uk_caver (Jul 11, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> I'm glad you had the integrity to restrict your incan death theory to caving and headtorches, which I consider more of an indoor use which is the only place I use my LED's (or in a tent or inside a car). I also have to agree with headlamps purely on the LED runtime advantage...but not if you are doing something outside that needs a more realistic color rendering.


Underground, about the only advantage incans might have had was a spectral one, but that was largely cancelled out by lumpy beamshape and/or the poor balance between spot and flood light from a single bulb (the spot tending to make everything else look darker), which made looking at things reasonably close-up less than pleasant.
In any case, underground, cave colours (usually shades of grey or brown rock) and clothing/equipment colours (usually fairly saturated dyes) do seem to look perfectly natural under good LED light. I guess that's another parallel with indoors - there aren't really the nature-colours there that would tend to show LEDs up.


LuxLuthor said:


> It is also refreshing to see an "LED Jockey" (I am an "Incan Jockey") be up front about their position and even having a financial stake in LED's being more successfully adopted.


Well, my stake isn't huge (more paying for my caving than paying for my living), and isn't anything I'm promoting here, but it would feel odd not mentioning it. My things are just functional rather than also objects of beauty and I dread to think what some people here might think if they saw them. Fortunately, my target niche (cavers) don't generally much worry about cosmetics.


LuxLuthor said:


> Incan's are not inherently larger than LED's, as I have 1D size Maglites running regulated 900 BL & non-regulated 1450 BL lights on 4 x 14670 Li-Ions. I don't need to run them continuously, and have no problem completing an hour long walk with all the light and throw that I need...despite not comparing to the LED runtime.


For surface use, I guess I got used to using headlights where batteries would last a long time, and put up with whatever brightness was the end result, whether it was a Petzl Zoom with a dim non-halogen bulb, or any of the subsequent improving LED replacements.


LuxLuthor said:


> However, once you are seeking more than 500L AND THROW AND REALISTIC COLORS, the LED's don't get the job done.


Quite, but for my current uses, I have all the throw I need. Dark-adapted, I can probably see 60-70m on LED, and if drops are any deeper than that, I'm not sure I _want_ to be able to see down them.


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## 2xTrinity (Jul 11, 2007)

> With grass being anything from yellow to blue-green, and current white LEDs tending to have a dip in the spectrum between the blue spike and yellow hump, maybe the dip is just in a bad place for rendering some plant-greens properly?


This I believe has more to do with the fact than most LEDs have a blue hump that is too strong relative to the yellow/green phosphor. I don't believe the lack of cyan (500nm) is a significant problem. If the blue spike and yellow-green hump are in the proper proportion, then naturally cyan colored objects should still appear about the same, as objects that reflect 500nm strongly will also reflect a combination of 470nm blue light, and 530nm green that looks about the same to the eyes anyway.

Using LEDs that are inherently strong in green wavelengths like Cree WH, or using blue-blocking filters on cheap LED to get them to match Cree WH tint (about 4800K with a slight greenish cast) I find fixes the foliage "strangeness" quite well. The bigger problem is the lack of red -- filters can be used to bring LEDs down to around 4800K, but any lower than that and they just start to look green rather than white. To get any further improvement it is necessary to add separate red emitters. 

At present though, while building these sorts of LED arrays is possible and IMO quite fun, for the money there's not much practical reason to go that route when I can build a very nice focusable ROP or Mag85 with similar overall output but much greater maximum throw (and enough spare LiIon cells to make up for the difference in runtime) for about the same price. I do believe the tables will start to turn when high-output neutral white LEDs that use two phosphors become available -- but unfortunately It doesn't seem like manufacturers are interested in going that route in the near future, even though the technology to do so is already available.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 11, 2007)

UK Caver, pretty much agree with most of your last post, except the lumpy and/or donut hole incan issue. That is easy to fix with reflector surface texture, size, length in combination with bulb selection. That is not a legitimate criticism unless someone has little experience with incands. Personally, if I am interested in throw (which you are not when caving), "lumpy beams" are irrelevant. You also see the same issues with most HIDs that focus between spot and flood. Again, the tradeoff with having a perfectly smooth "Surefire" type of beam pattern, is throw. In many circumstances, I am more interested in throw.

2xTrinity, you really know your stuff, and again your post in very useful and informative regarding the spectrum issues. Given how many find the current LED colors objectionable, I am confident that there will be a segment of their manufacturing sector that will solve it.


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## uk_caver (Jul 12, 2007)

LuxLuthor said:


> UK Caver, pretty much agree with most of your last post, except the lumpy and/or donut hole incan issue. That is easy to fix with reflector surface texture, size, length in combination with bulb selection. That is not a legitimate criticism unless someone has little experience with incands.


It's not a criticism of incans, it's a description of a historical situation.
Within the constraints of the lights used, essentially mining lamps, and (later) some incan-based headtorches, there wasn't a great deal of choice. In the mining lamps, reflectors were either smooth or (rarely) seriously stippled with almost zero throw. With the almost ubiquitous smooth reflector, the generally available bulbs really didn't give great beam patterns or spot/flood balance.

It may well be that underground incans _could_ have been better, but for whatever reasons, they weren't.


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## chazz1975 (Jul 15, 2007)

Well, if it makes anyone feel any better, this noob is leaning back towards the incands. I'm sorry, but my first real light was (oops, IS) an incand., a Mag 6D. This thing has been with me for almost 20 years. It has been with me through some tough times and has seen some real work and duty. It now sits at my bedside (carrying a 6D on car accident scenes at night now gets envy or remarks from the local police depts. I think they are jealous because they are no longer allowed to carry them). I am probably going to replace it with a Surefire 9P or G3 nitrolon. I have a cheap Cabelas knockoff of the surefire, and it is bright, but just not the same quality as the surefire. Turns off when rattled, but those Xenon bulbs just do more for me than an LED at night. I also like the MAG's extra bulb in the tailcap. People may ask about why they do that or "if they are so great and dependable, why are they needed?" But, hey, they have made the necessity for the spare bulb AVAILABLE within easy reach, where as I don't think the same could be said about the surefire or streamlight. Also, the batteries of a MAG are more common and available than others, i.e. cr123a. I can go into ANY mom and pop shop around and get a few D cells or AAs. So, yeah there may be newer, better lights out there. But they also cost more than the MAG which will still be functional and kicking at the end of the day/shift.


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## 2xTrinity (Jul 15, 2007)

chazz1975 said:


> Well, if it makes anyone feel any better, this noob is leaning back towards the incands. I'm sorry, but my first real light was (oops, IS) an incand., a Mag 6D. This thing has been with me for almost 20 years. It has been with me through some tough times and has seen some real work and duty. It now sits at my bedside (carrying a 6D on car accident scenes at night now gets envy or remarks from the local police depts. I think they are jealous because they are no longer allowed to carry them). I am probably going to replace it with a Surefire 9P or G3 nitrolon. I have a cheap Cabelas knockoff of the surefire, and it is bright, but just not the same quality as the surefire. Turns off when rattled, but those Xenon bulbs just do more for me than an LED at night. I also like the MAG's extra bulb in the tailcap. People may ask about why they do that or "if they are so great and dependable, why are they needed?" But, hey, they have made the necessity for the spare bulb AVAILABLE within easy reach, where as I don't think the same could be said about the surefire or streamlight. Also, the batteries of a MAG are more common and available than others, i.e. cr123a. I can go into ANY mom and pop shop around and get a few D cells or AAs. So, yeah there may be newer, better lights out there. But they also cost more than the MAG which will still be functional and kicking at the end of the day/shift.


If you want to do something more special, I would look into doing a 6D ROP Mod, essentially a high-output bulb running on 6 NiMH D-Cells. The mag into a very nice, very high output light that outperforms what most would expect. 6 NiMH cells is ideal for that setup, and you can always run the "high" bulb installed, and use the ROP "low" bulb in the tailcap as a spare, or for when long runtime is needed. Alkalines probably wouldn't cut it for the high bulb, but you could most likely still use them for the low (not sure on that) if you were in a situation where it was necessary to do so.


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## chazz1975 (Jul 15, 2007)

How much do NiMH batteries cost as opposed to standard D's? I have only used standard alkaline batteries in my life. Never had the want or desire for rechargeables. Still, ROP mod sounds like fun though.


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## 2xTrinity (Jul 15, 2007)

chazz1975 said:


> How much do NiMH batteries cost as opposed to standard D's? I have only used standard alkaline batteries in my life. Never had the want or desire for rechargeables. Still, ROP mod sounds like fun though.


About $8 from Batteryjunction for 10AH cells seems to be the best deal. (12, enough for 2 full packs would cost just under $90 with quantity discount) Amondotech has 12AH cells but those are $12. I would wrap up the cells into packs of 6 and use a smart charger with magnetic attachment leads to charge them in series (cradle charging 6 D cells separately would be pretty irritating). With two packs, you could use one while the other charges. The other changes that would be needed would be a high-temp socket, aluminum reflector, and AR coated glass lens.


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## LuxLuthor (Jul 15, 2007)

2xTrinity said:


> About $8 from Batteryjunction for 10AH cells seems to be the best deal. (12, enough for 2 full packs would cost just under $90 with quantity discount) Amondotech has 12AH cells but those are $12. I would wrap up the cells into packs of 6 and use a smart charger with magnetic attachment leads to charge them in series (cradle charging 6 D cells separately would be pretty irritating). With two packs, you could use one while the other charges. The other changes that would be needed would be a high-temp socket, aluminum reflector, and AR coated glass lens.



As 2xT shows, the initial investment to get a significantly more powerful light is easily gonna go over $200 including metal reflector, new bulbs, bulb socket, glass lens, batteries and charger...so if you want to stick with the stock bulb/batteries you shouldn't bother. But also realize that if you "try" this newer, brighter setup....I can guarantee that you won't be able to go back. You cannot look at it as $ for $ replacement. You need to include the improved performance and rechargeable factor as an added value you are willing to pay for.


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