# Will an Incan Outthrow an LED



## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

I am happily using my LED's every day now and I have always compared my new lights with my MC. Nowadays the MC is heavily in need of at least a new battery stick so the light coming OTF with the standard bulb is, well, it used to be a lot better, brighter and whiter... :mecry:

Still though, I have a few led lights which are rated at ~200, ~400 and ~600 lumens. The ~600 lumens is an M2XC4 Neutral and this is the only LED which _now_ can outhrow my good ol' MC. I am however very impressed it took this much to outthrow a basically dead MC!!!

Now I am going to modify it with a little FiveMega magic. It's going to be an MC60 with a 6 C-cell 5000mAh 7.2V battery stick and FM's 2.5" ThrowMaster. A few parts I have already and some are going to be on it's way soon. 

Now I just know this will make my MC get back on it's feet again, right? I am not the cleverest by a longshot by my gut tells me the incans will always (at this moment...) outthrow and LED (generalisation here!!!) just due to chemistry/physics alone. Phosphor dies compared to a wolfram/tungsten wire in a vacuum tube... Sure, you could add this, change that etc. etc. But if the hosts were comparable, wouldn't you say the same?


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## Sgt. LED (Oct 1, 2009)

The revamped magcharger will win.


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

I specialize in long throwing Incans, some of the stuff will make HIDs beg for mercy:devil:, LED don’t even have the slightest chance:nana:.


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## yellow (Oct 1, 2009)

thrower fans 
when that bulky, extremely high powered incan thrower stops giving light after some 10-20 mins,
use the E01 in jeans back pocket to get home



PS: do You _really_ wonder that lights, not built to be throwers, dont offer the reach of a Mag in full focus?
 
How about a Minimag on full focus compared to that "near dead" charger set to flood?
Any question which will "throw" more distance?


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## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

Glad to see the confirmation!!! lovecpf


So I am thinking... Juggernaut... where do I know that name from? So I looked at your sig line and checked out some threads. I found it, I remember just 1 of your posts:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2565712&postcount=224

Like then, I am thinking now: words fail me when I look at your collection. :twothumbs

Yellow:


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## Sgt. LED (Oct 1, 2009)

yellow said:


> thrower fans
> when that bulky, extremely high powered incan thrower stops giving light after some 10-20 mins,
> use the E01 in jeans back pocket to get home


 That's a solid plan. :thumbsup: But can I substitute a little bigger light for the trip back? Like a Haiku......


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## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

yellow said:


> PS: do You _really_ wonder that lights, not built to be throwers, dont offer the reach of a Mag in full focus?
> 
> How about a Minimag on full focus compared to that "near dead" charger set to flood?
> Any question which will "throw" more distance?



:thumbsup:True, just tried it and the MiniMag (2AAA) did outthrow the dead MC on full flood.


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## LuxLuthor (Oct 1, 2009)

You guys know I am the #1 Incan fanboy Jockey. However, even "LED Jockey" member, yellow,  missed the opportunity to set this question straight.

If you look up the threads on LED's using Aspheric lenses, you will see that they blow incands away with throw.

Now when you get into MaxaBeam HID & Ra's MaxaBlaster hand held spotlights, they (currently) trump these Aspheric LED setups.


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

fareast said:


> Glad to see the confirmation!!! lovecpf
> 
> 
> So I am thinking... Juggernaut... where do I know that name from? So I looked at your sig line and checked out some threads. I found it, I remember just 1 of your posts:
> ...


 


Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that picture, boy has my collection grow since then! The only light that is still competing with my current Generation is that _mean_ one in the back row “The Sun” Even that huge 1000 watt light has been built into a backpack capable light and is no longer under driven! In around a week I hope to have a few project lights finished and I’ll update that photo:thumbsup:. 



> LuxLuthor:
> You guys know I am the #1 Incan fanboy Jockey. However, even "LED Jockey" member, yellow,  missed the opportunity to set this question straight.
> 
> If you look up the threads on LED's using Aspheric lenses, you will see that they blow incands away with throw.
> ...


 
I’ll admit LuxLuthor that Aspheric LEDs have extreme throw that will easily beat out any Incan Mag Mod out there “I EDC one“, but they still can’t beat out true Long throw Incans. Even my very old “The Sun” can smother a DEFT by nearly 3 time fold, though it takes A LOT to do so (16 pounds!), True, you would have to be delusional to think you could make a similar sized Incan that could compete with the likes of the DEFT.


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## fivemega (Oct 1, 2009)

fareast said:


> It's going to be an MC60 with a 6 C-cell 5000mAh 7.2V battery stick and FM's 2.5" ThrowMaster.



*Battery pack of 6 sub "C" will flash WA1160
You will need WA1111 (MC11) with 6 cell or WA1160 (MC60) with 5 cell pack.*


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## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

I took a break (from reading LexLuthor's thread) to check up on this thread... that Ellie sure is a beast with a pretty name. 

FM
Thanks for chiming in!No worries though, I'll do some reading up and get the correct parts. :thumbsup: But, I'll likely get samples of both bulbs. This baby has hot to shine again!

Juggernaut
I'll be looking forward to that. I just looked again and I am thinking; the only thing I can actually relate to is the tiny 2AAA MiniMag... I have one just like it. It's a sturdy old bugger, perfect for dark times. One reason why I like your lights is the fact they remind me of the old incan bike headlights here in Dutchieland. 

secret dream: to carry a Polarion PH-50 as an EDC sigh


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## LuxLuthor (Oct 1, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> I’ll admit LuxLuthor that Aspheric LEDs have extreme throw that will easily beat out any Incan Mag Mod out there “I EDC one“, but they still can’t beat out true Long throw Incans. Even my very old “The Sun” can smother a DEFT by nearly 3 time fold, though it takes A LOT to do so (16 pounds!), True, you would have to be delusional to think you could make a similar sized Incan that could compete with the likes of the DEFT.



LOL! I can't sort out which light is which in that picture. What bulb is in The Sun? It would be interesting to walk down to object being lit that is 1000 yards away and see how much light is arriving on surfaces that far away with various lights. Part of the throw effect of DEFT is you don't have your vision of far away obscured from all the flood of typical incan/spotlights.


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## ampdude (Oct 1, 2009)

All things being equal such as reflector size or lense type, the incan should out throw the LED because of greater surface brightness.


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## Patriot (Oct 1, 2009)

I don't think that any sane person would ever argue against the decided throw advantage that some incans posses over LED but the better question might be, in what appliacation are we talking about?

In the category of pocket lights and those generally referred to as EDC-able, LED dominates the throw arena. If you include the MRV, A9, A10, DBS, Raptor and a few others with larger reflectors into this group, all of which still run on a pair of 123s or single 18650, they're still better throwers than some incans which are larger and producing more overall lumens.

About the only time incans commonly surpasses LED throwers is when they're outputing triple or more times the lumens of LED. Most stock incans drive their bulbs at or near specification where the surface brightness isn't much higher than that of LED. The real advantage is only clearly revealed when the surface brightness is increased through overdriving. For example to have any decided throw advantage to several of my EDC "throwers" I'd have to go to carrying something like the FM-11 in which the WA1111 bulb is driven very hard, limiting bulb life to apox. 10 hours.






My conclusion...

In limited applications such as carrying a light at work or just general EDC practices (this is a large percentage of us btw) the LED is the undisputed better thrower. Adding strength to the comparison, as *Lux Luthor* mentioned, LED has the aspheric option. At least two of the better known LED throw lights are offered from the manufacturer with an apheric head.

In an unlimited application the incan is the undisputed better thrower, especially when one of the unlimited factors is bulb overdriving. This often limits incan throw junkies to custom equipment.


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

fareast said:


> Juggernaut
> I'll be looking forward to that. I just looked again and I am thinking; the only thing I can actually relate to is the tiny 2AAA MiniMag... I have one just like it. It's a sturdy old bugger, perfect for dark times.


 
Yah, the good old AAA Minimag. I still EDC that light to this very day “love the form factor” though I’ve modded it’s output to about 34 lumens, not a lot, but way better then original! 



LuxLuthor said:


> LOL! I can't sort out which light is which in that picture. What bulb is in The Sun? It would be interesting to walk down to object being lit that is 1000 yards away and see how much light is arriving on surfaces that far away with various lights. Part of the throw effect of DEFT is you don't have your vision of far away obscured from all the flood of typical incan/spotlights.


 
The sun:



Was my first super light and even though I have built many lights after it, it still holds the honor as my favorite light:thumbsup:. Running an hour and 20 minuets at a bit over 5,000 lumens is good enough for me! Like you said LuxLuthor the massive side spill from these lights really destroy long range perception. On a few occasions I have placed the light down “pointing at something distant” and then walked away from the light to get a better view, this seems to work the best, though it is quite impractical:shakehead. With my A9 aspheric all I have to do is point and look to get long range identification:thumbsup:. Such lights like my Cardboard Hexagon Box Light “while being nearly 7 time duller” offer better long range illumination for the same reason that aspheric do “reduction of side spill”. So in most circumstances if you want small hand held throwing power:_ LED aspheric are the way to go:twothumbs._


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## Gunner12 (Oct 1, 2009)

For similar output and size, the incan can probably get more throw due to the smaller emitting area.


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## ampdude (Oct 1, 2009)

If you want NO sidespill such as with the aspherical LED setup, you can put an aspherical lense in front of an incan as well. It just better be made out of pyrex.


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## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

I am a bit humbled by all you "heavy hitters" posting replies here. :wave: It seems every post seems to toggle me into a search mode (no worries, I only use the google search...). What is that he is talking about, a 10.000W light???, gotta find more about it, then I see that maxabeam again; no movie or photo nonwithstanding, really does it any justice I think. One has to appreciate such light(s) personally. I have yet to. There's a good reason why I like that Alien vs. Predator flick... Once I got to handle a PH-40 though... . Needless to say I was stunned. So seeing Patriot post here has got me opening some more tabs. I even think I saw one on CPFMP the other day. You my man, have a beautiful sigline.


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

Gunner12 said:


> For similar output and size, the incan can probably get more throw due to the smaller emitting area.


 
The problem is battery power for the Incan takes up more room for the same runtimes.



> If you want NO sidespill such as with the aspherical LED setup, you can put an aspherical lense in front of an incan as well. It just better be made out of pyrex.


 
Yes they do work except while 100% of the light from an LED goes forwards “when I mean forwards, I mean 90 degrees or more”, and only 50% of the light from an Incan would be projected into the aspheric lens.


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## ampdude (Oct 1, 2009)

I think it could project all of the incan light forward if designed correctly. If it was made just for incans and not for LED's.

I don't proclaim to be an expert, so can anyone tell me what the current surface brightness of incans is compared to the latest LED's? If it's less than 50% than incans would still win.

Of course I think HID's would beat both as an electrical arc could throw like crazy if engineered correctly with the perfect lense. I believe their surface brightness is the highest.


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## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> Yah, the good old AAA Minimag. I still EDC that light to this very day “love the form factor” though I’ve modded it’s output to about 34 lumens, not a lot, but way better then original!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I have been looking at those drop-ins and I am tempted but still though, the little Minimag with that incan bulb is a bit special to me. I think I wold miss it's little pencil beam. 

So, the Sun. I recently read the Time Traveller-H.G. Wells and if he had one of those, the book would have been a lot shorter....
I felt the same way using my MC-E in the dark. and bye bye night vision. Hence an interest in throwers. 

So I will be on the lookout also for an aspherical for my 85T.


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

ampdude said:


> I think it could project all of the incan light forward if designed correctly. If it was made just for incans and not for LED's.
> 
> I don't proclaim to be an expert, so can anyone tell me what the current surface brightness of incans is compared to the latest LED's? If it's less than 50% than incans would still win.
> 
> Of course I think HID's would beat both as an electrical arc could throw like crazy if engineered correctly with the perfect lense. I believe their surface brightness is the highest.


 
It’s not that Incans can’t beat LEDs, they can easily, you just need very high power “out of the realm of LEDs”. 
 
As for as HIDs, Two words _*Night Sword*_, nothing will even come close to that, it would honestly be like comparing a 3D Maglite, to a 200 millwatt laser!


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

fareast said:


> I have been looking at those drop-ins and I am tempted but still though, the little Minimag with that incan bulb is a bit special to me. I think I wold miss it's little pencil beam.


 
:tsk:I do things differently:devil:…..No LED for me, this thing is still Incan:naughty:, I’m running 2x Lithium batteries and a modified reflector / holder with a 1A xenon bulb! It's Still got that very focused beam, great CRI and if an EMP takes out all the LED lights, this old timer will still work.


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## fareast (Oct 1, 2009)

ampdude said:


> I think it could project all of the incan light forward if designed correctly. If it was made just for incans and not for LED's.
> 
> I don't proclaim to be an expert, so can anyone tell me what the current surface brightness of incans is compared to the latest LED's? If it's less than 50% than incans would still win.
> 
> Of course I think HID's would beat both as an electrical arc could throw like crazy if engineered correctly with the perfect lense. I believe their surface brightness is the highest.



Taking into account my limited knowledge on reflectors/refractors/collimators/TIR optics, lens quality/transparency, drive levels/voltages/cell or size configurations, I always thought the higher the possible surface temperature, the further throw would be achieved. Simply due to the fact that it has a higher temperature, the wavelengths created would travel further. 

I had totally forgotten about the HID's. I have only experienced these just once and had no clue about it's specifics. Like a good amp, these fellas need to warm up a bit. And, as soon as we can find something which can glow/or better burn at even higher temperatures than HID's etc. etc. Luckily it's not likely to stop soon. Well, at least not until we can have a little sun in a nice little container with a very special opening and protection  and everything which we can use for our EDC duties.


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## Juggernaut (Oct 1, 2009)

fareast said:


> Taking into account my limited knowledge on reflectors/refractors/collimators/TIR optics, lens quality/transparency, drive levels/voltages/cell or size configurations, I always thought the higher the possible surface temperature, the further throw would be achieved. Simply due to the fact that it has a higher temperature, the wavelengths created would travel further.
> 
> I had totally forgotten about the HID's. I have only experienced these just once and had no clue about it's specifics. Like a good amp, these fellas need to warm up a bit. And, as soon as we can find something which can glow/or better burn at even higher temperatures than HID's etc. etc. Luckily it's not likely to stop soon. Well, at least not until we can have a little sun in a nice little container with a very special opening and protection  and everything which we can use for our EDC duties.


 
Color temperature does not affect “greatly” how far light will got “with in normal white light” example The 3,300K Incan bulbs produce will go just as far as the 10,000+K of HIDs. The differences is the higher Kelvin color “normally bluer” shows up better when it hits particle in the air and the CRI “ability to discern colors or objects at farther rangers" is made easer with lower Kelvin colors “like Incans“, “most of the time, Kelvin color does not always directly reflect on CRI, such as LEDs” Surface brightness mostly allows one light to throw farther then another “while reflector size stays the same”. As far as pocket carried Suns, well I’ll report back if MilkySpit builds mine:devil:.


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## [email protected] (Oct 1, 2009)

In simple reflector setups far more light from an incan will hit the reflector = better throw.


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## Outdoors Fanatic (Oct 1, 2009)

ampdude said:


> I think it could project all of the incan light forward if designed correctly. If it was made just for incans and not for LED's.
> 
> I don't proclaim to be an expert, so can anyone tell me what the current surface brightness of incans is compared to the latest LED's? If it's less than 50% than incans would still win.
> 
> Of course I think HID's would beat both as an electrical arc could throw like crazy if engineered correctly with the perfect lense. I believe their surface brightness is the highest.


Mercury Short-Arc has higher Surface Brightness than HIDs and even higher than Xenon Short-Arc. It totally humiliates any type of Aspheric LED that the craziest CPF genius could ever build.


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## LuxLuthor (Oct 1, 2009)

ampdude said:


> If you want NO sidespill such as with the aspherical LED setup, you can put an aspherical lense in front of an incan as well. It just better be made out of pyrex.



A while back, a number of us went on a hunt for a good aspheric that would really work well with incan bulbs...including the heat issue. The biggest problem is aspheric lenses have a precise focal point by design. They work well with LED because you can put the flat LED at the exact focal length behind the lens.

With incand bulbs, they are not flat, so the focal point can only optimize the source light in one, 2-dimensional flat plane slice of the filament. We tried a number of lens focal lengths, and one gave a minimal improvement with certain bulbs...but nothing as impressive as a better designed, larger reflector (FM 2" Deep, 2.5" Turbo, 3", etc.)



Outdoors Fanatic said:


> ...It totally humiliates any type of Aspheric LED that the craziest CPF genius could ever build.



I love how emphatically you worded that!  

For the sake of his own trauma, I hope CPF member, 'yellow" doesn't see that. :laughing:


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## PhantomPhoton (Oct 2, 2009)

Wow what a sticky question...
I think most of it has already been said. I would like to add in "it depends"

All things being equal, LEDs, especially XR-Es behind aspherics, will blow away any incan now. All things being equal includes amps...  

However the tricky thing with drive amps is that LEDs lights have to get more and more in order to run at higher drive levels... ie more dedicated heatsinking, more expensive/ multiple driver circuit setups, and simply more LEDs in general. Whereas an incan has a beautiful simplicity to it. They don't need all the hassle to get up in to the realm of high "power." A 100W LED setup would be a be a beast of a light to make. Whereas with the proper bulb and cell setup a 100W incan can be put together by a 10 year old (with supervision :naughty And for far less cost. 

So at the lower levels LEDs now reign supreme in most aspects, but at higher powers, and 1000+ lumens Incans are still a more elegant solution, as long as you're willing to sacrifice runtime.


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## Patriot (Oct 2, 2009)

Outdoors Fanatic said:


> Mercury Short-Arc has higher Surface Brightness than HIDs and even higher than Xenon Short-Arc. It totally humiliates any type of Aspheric LED that the craziest CPF genius could ever build.




Absolutely....and yeah, don't tell Yellow :tinfoil:







There is the application issue though. There's no such thing as a pocketable Short-arc of any type. There are pocketable incans but none of them can match the throw of pocketable LEDs. In the EDC arena LED wins the throw contest. Outside of the EDC arena everything beats LED in the throw department, as long as it doesn't have to run for very long.


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## fareast (Oct 2, 2009)

So an HID has the highest surface brightness, and an aspherical lens is well suited for reaching a distance from an optimal focal point from a flat surface, wouldn't an HID short arc mounted "sideways" with a well designed aspherical lens on top throw like crazy :thinking:?

As Patriot has said, it all depends on the application. You use what you carry and if that is an led, an aspherical lens would be best. For me this is definitely the case. But there's much joy to be had messing about with the bigger guns . Incandescents will keep me busy for a while and in the meantime I have a lot more reading to do about the HID's and everything...

After learning that the 2AAA Minimag is still an incan...


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## ANDREAS FERRARI (Oct 2, 2009)

fareast said:


> .....wouldn't an HID short arc mounted "sideways" with a well designed aspherical lens on top throw like crazy :thinking:?



Aren't all HID's mounted sideways??????


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## Juggernaut (Oct 2, 2009)

Back to similar powered Incan VS. LEDs, I might have to risk blowing one of my favorite bubs and put some money down, but MilkySpit has this silly 6 volt lantern “not like the ones you see in the store, their quite rear” and that thing was maybe 3.3 watts but could throw _For Ever_…..I mean I have some Par36 low wattage bulbs with the thinnest beams I have ever seen, but this thing was like 0.5 degree beam divergent! I’m willing to bet If I use my little 2.25 watt Halogen bulb “who’s filament is the size of a pin head:twothumbs and I hot wire it a bit:duck:: I might be able to beat out my aspheric A9 which uses more power and has more power (225 lumens VS. 40). Obviously they aren’t the same size but it would be a good challenge, the only thing is the filament would have to line up perfectly:sweat:. 
 
Here it is magnified with my Swiss army knife. 




Darn this flashaholic addition cost me so much money:hairpull:.


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## LuxLuthor (Oct 2, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> Here it is magnified with my Swiss army knife.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What are we looking at there? An octopus on a stick?


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## Juggernaut (Oct 2, 2009)

LuxLuthor said:


> What are we looking at there? An octopus on a stick?


 
No, That’s the filament in the green box “together with the “magnify glass from a Swiss army knife” and the bulb, all very bleary from my very old camera”.
 
Any who, the debate is up as far as similar power of LED VS. Incandescent. Today I drove out with the sole purpose of getting this light at a _semi-near_ Industrial Electrical supply company “not meant for the general public “the company my father works for uses their products so I got the chance to buy their stuff with little paper work”. Well I brought the lantern home which was much smaller then I remembered “smallest 6 volt one I’ve seen:thumbsup:” and put the bulb in and 6.6 volt battery and waited for darkness…… Well even with a very bright night the results are in and the “approximate" 50 maximum overdriven lumens beat out the 225 out of my aspheric A9. They were pretty close:thinking:, but once I got the bulb positioned just right, the Incan edged out the aspheric. To be honest I would much rather have the A9, it was much more impressive and useful:thumbsup:. While the little lantern on the other hand only succeeded by it’s incredible focuses. If people think aspheric look like lasers; this little lantern with my setup _is a laser!_ Of course this takes the impracticality of an aspheric to a new level with a hot spot that illuminated 1/8 the size of the LED die, you really couldn’t see much with it. I estimate that this lantern produces a beam divergence the same as or even less then the Maxabeam. I get the same optic illusion of the Maxabeam were the beam looks to concentrate into a point the size of an atom when pointed at the sky, though the 50 lumens simply make unlimited range of vision impossible:shakehead. From my test site I could easily illuminate the tree line at 500 yards, I’ll do more testing at later dates.


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## fareast (Oct 3, 2009)

ANDREAS FERRARI said:


> Aren't all HID's mounted sideways??????




Yeah... I am not sure what I what thinking....


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## fareast (Oct 3, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> No, That’s the filament in the green box “together with the “magnify glass from a Swiss army knife” and the bulb, all very bleary from my very old camera”.
> 
> Any who, the debate is up as far as similar power of LED VS. Incandescent. Today I drove out with the sole purpose of getting this light at a _semi-near_ Industrial Electrical supply company “not meant for the general public “the company my father works for uses their products so I got the chance to buy their stuff with little paper work”. Well I brought the lantern home which was much smaller then I remembered “smallest 6 volt one I’ve seen:thumbsup:” and put the bulb in and 6.6 volt battery and waited for darkness…… Well even with a very bright night the results are in and the “approximate" 50 maximum overdriven lumens beat out the 225 out of my aspheric A9. They were pretty close:thinking:, but once I got the bulb positioned just right, the Incan edged out the aspheric. To be honest I would much rather have the A9, it was much more impressive and useful:thumbsup:. While the little lantern on the other hand only succeeded by it’s incredible focuses. If people think aspheric look like lasers; this little lantern with my setup _is a laser!_ Of course this takes the impracticality of an aspheric to a new level with a hot spot that illuminated 1/8 the size of the LED die, you really couldn’t see much with it. I estimate that this lantern produces a beam divergence the same as or even less then the Maxabeam. I get the same optic illusion of the Maxabeam were the beam looks to concentrate into a point the size of an atom when pointed at the sky, though the 50 lumens simply make unlimited range of vision impossible:shakehead. From my test site I could easily illuminate the tree line at 500 yards, I’ll do more testing at later dates.



This is very cool, being able to try such things out! Waiting for darkness to hit is a pain ITA... thankfully the flashaholic season is right around the corner. What amazes me is the fact that a "50 lumens" can beat out a "225 lumens", practicallity be ^%$&$... As you said, this incan setup is basically a laser; it doesn't need much brightness to travel far. But this thing _isn't_ a laser! So for a tiny incan ( I am not even sure I can discern the filament in your photo, it is _that_ small) that is an impressive throw! Thanks for sharing the results . 

I am wondering, did you use any of your ahum, larger reflectors for this?


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## Juggernaut (Oct 3, 2009)

fareast said:


> This is very cool, being able to try such things out! Waiting for darkness to hit is a pain ITA... thankfully the flashaholic season is right around the corner. What amazes me is the fact that a "50 lumens" can beat out a "225 lumens", practicallity be ^%$&$... As you said, this incan setup is basically a laser; it doesn't need much brightness to travel far. But this thing _isn't_ a laser! So for a tiny incan ( I am not even sure I can discern the filament in your photo, it is _that_ small) that is an impressive throw! Thanks for sharing the results .
> 
> I am wondering, did you use any of your ahum, larger reflectors for this?


 
Yah, no problem:thumbsup:. I’ve been wanting to try this setup for a long time but this thread finally gave me the final push to buy the last piece of the puzzle and try it out. Yes the filament is that small. To the human eye it appears like the center is slightly thicker then the wire it is suspended on, while looking in the reflector you can see it is really made up of an absolutely minuscule coil no more then a 1/10 of a mm across. I also tried out a number of other bulbs including the stock 3.5 watt bulb, and even the ROP hi bulb “for only a few seconds because everything is plastic in this light:duck:”. While the other bulbs were much brighter, their surface brightness couldn’t come close to my Halogen bulb so they were easily defeated by the aspheric:shakehead. As for as the reflector it is the second factor as for why this light throws so well, while it’s not very large “to my standers at least” 4.25 inches it has one of the best mirror finishes I’ve seen “much better then my sealed beam bulbs, and most impotently it makes use of a double refracting design:naughty:: which captures all the light from about 65% behind the bulb and then a second suspened reflector intersepts most of the light that would become spill, thus directing almost all of it forwards:twothumbs “there is some dim sidespill”.

A little size comparison between some random lights = A9 aspheric - 4D Maglite - Oracle 35 watt - little yellow laser lanturn - 50 watt RayOvac - stock Bigbeam 1766C.




As you can see it’s not like your going to EDC this thing:laughing: but it is quite small compared to most lanterns and funniest of all, it will Destroy my 3,000 Lumen Oracle HID in throw!


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## [email protected] (Oct 3, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> It’s not that Incans can’t beat LEDs, they can easily, you just need very high power “out of the realm of LEDs”.
> 
> As for as HIDs, Two words _*Night Sword*_, nothing will even come close to that, it would honestly be like comparing a 3D Maglite, to a 200 millwatt laser!




How about going toe-to-toe with the 24" handmade HID reflector creation by Nightsward?


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## Juggernaut (Oct 3, 2009)

[email protected] said:


> How about going toe-to-toe with the 24" handmade HID reflector creation by Nightsward?


 
No, while the spot light your referring to is definitely very powerful:thumbsup:, I’m talking about the *NightSword - Portable Mega...* being built by Get-lit. This will be to many times more intense then even WWII anti-aircraft spot lights! “though not as bright” it will out throw every light ever built in history, and is all packaged in the size of a regular lantern:devil::twothumbs!


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## lolzertank (Oct 3, 2009)

Outdoors Fanatic said:


> Mercury Short-Arc has higher Surface Brightness than HIDs and even higher than Xenon Short-Arc. It totally humiliates any type of Aspheric LED that the craziest CPF genius could ever build.



I don't know... will a XR-E behind a 5 foot wide fresnel lens do it?


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## Juggernaut (Oct 3, 2009)

lolzertank said:


> I don't know... will a XR-E behind a 5 foot wide fresnel lens do it?


 
Honestly I could tell you right now I could “with a stupid amount of money” take a R5 LED set it up with a massive polished aluminum parabolic recoil reflector and out throw every thing short of the MaxaBlaster and NightSword. My older experiments with this technique using a basic P4 made the beam from a DEFT look like a flood light, were talking a hotspot 2/3 smaller then my new L.Y.L.L. with 4 times the out put! Scale that up with twice the output and 5 time better focusing and it would just be crazy:devil:!
 
Interesting note, now that I’ve got some help from mudman cj, I have calculated that my A9’s beam divergence is 4.8 degrees and my L.Y.L.L. is a ridicules 0.98 degrees!


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## fareast (Oct 3, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> !



:twothumbs. That's a very nice light, I like the yellow a lot! But that light at the far right, _very_ nice!


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## Tatjanamagic (Nov 8, 2009)

Juggernaut said:


> Honestly I could tell you right now I could “with a stupid amount of money” take a R5 LED set it up with a massive polished aluminum parabolic recoil reflector and out throw every thing short of the MaxaBlaster and NightSword. My older experiments with this technique using a basic P4 made the beam from a DEFT look like a flood light, were talking a hotspot 2/3 smaller then my new L.Y.L.L. with 4 times the out put! Scale that up with twice the output and 5 time better focusing and it would just be crazy:devil:!
> 
> Interesting note, now that I’ve got some help from mudman cj, I have calculated that my A9’s beam divergence is 4.8 degrees and my L.Y.L.L. is a ridicules 0.98 degrees!



If U want a laser light to play U could do such experiments but if U don't want buy something like A9+aspherical head and U will be surprised by it's possibilities because it is not only light to play as many of U say... It is serious light that has great use in outdoor activities like hunt where U can illuminate and shoot up at small distances (U can illuminate two 100 kg wild pigs at 40 meters) and greater distances ( up to 200 meters)...

And I don't see a point to light something on distances greater than 200 meters for normal outdoor use... Except maxabeam or something like that is good for helicopters, planes, boats, or maybe to find some alpinist by rescue tim on 1000 meters high mountain in combination with good scope...


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