# Output of the Sun: How many Lumens?



## Aepoc (Jan 24, 2007)

Hey guys,

My roomate and I, both enlightened cpf users and flashlight enthusiests, were just discussing the output of the sun. We both have no idea where to begin with this kind of quiestion. 

I was wondering if anybody else had any thoughts on this subject. How many lumens does the sun produce?

Also, obviously the sun has way more spill then throw, but i would like to hear your thoughts on possible lux readings as well.


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## PoliceScannerMan (Jan 24, 2007)

6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. :rock:


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## Arkayne (Jan 24, 2007)

PoliceScannerMan said:


> 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. :rock:



BZZZT WRONG!! 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001!!


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## dgc (Jan 24, 2007)

Have a look at Wikipedia: ~3.75×10^28 lm


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## qip (Jan 24, 2007)

the sun is just a maglite lol compared to these "look at size difference after sun"

http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1166716908/Planet_Sizes


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## Phaserburn (Jan 24, 2007)

Oh, yeah? The Sun is incandescent!! Take that, led lovers!


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## WAVE_PARTICLE (Jan 24, 2007)

dgc said:


> Have a look at Wikipedia: ~3.75×10^28 lm


 
We can't be sure....we'll have to put it in a calibrated integrating sphere to determine the output with any kind of accuracy.....

I think I have one in my garage...


WP


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## DM51 (Jan 24, 2007)

*Re: +++SOLD+++ Output of the Sun: How many Lumens?*



PoliceScannerMan said:


> 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. :rock:


I'll take it.


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## redskins38 (Jan 24, 2007)

:lolsign:Ill take any light that burns that long and that bright


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## Manzerick (Jan 24, 2007)




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## tygger (Jan 25, 2007)

what size reflector will i need? and is it regulated?


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## carbine15 (Jan 25, 2007)

qip said:


> the sun is just a maglite lol compared to these "look at size difference after sun"
> 
> http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1166716908/Planet_Sizes



No audio.. But that made me feel just a little smaller.


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## Led_Blind (Jan 25, 2007)

tygger said:


> what size reflector will i need? and is it regulated?



dont know about a reflector but is sure is regulated.... right up to the END!


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## JanCPF (Jan 25, 2007)

Pretty good runtime, but it needs a clicky. Nice color temp at 5700K too, very close to err... it self. :lolsign:


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## tygger (Jan 25, 2007)

i wonder if heat will be an issue?


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## gallagho (Jan 25, 2007)

Don't be soft DM51 take "LBV 1806-20" instead, it's up to 40 million times(!) brighter than the Sun, that might even satisfy some of the HID guys :laughing:


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## NAW (Jan 25, 2007)

Phaserburn said:


> Oh, yeah? The Sun is incandescent!! Take that, led lovers!


 
More like HID,

those Kelivn temperatures are way to high for an Incandescent.


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## Long John (Jan 25, 2007)

Phaserburn said:


> Oh, yeah? The Sun is incandescent!! Take that, led lovers!



No no no:tsk:...:shakehead , so far I know, the sun is manufactured by Lumileds 

Best regards

____
Tom


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## Nereus (Jan 25, 2007)

Long John said:


> No no no:tsk:...:shakehead , so far I know, the sun is manufactured by Lumileds



In that case it will not be delivered until 2010, starting with very low bins.

-N


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## Long John (Jan 25, 2007)

Nereus said:


> In that case it will not be delivered until 2010, starting with very low bins.
> 
> -N



:lolsign:......:laughing:

Best regards

_____
Tom


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## Nereus (Jan 25, 2007)

Led_Blind said:


> dont know about a reflector but is sure is regulated.... right up to the END!



Luckily there is moon mode available, too.

-N


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## DM51 (Jan 25, 2007)

gallagho said:


> Don't be soft DM51 take "LBV 1806-20" instead, it's up to 40 million times(!) brighter than the Sun, that might even satisfy some of the HID guys :laughing:


Runtime? Bulb life? USPS Interstellar Priority delivery charge? Beamshots? Is LBV a reliable company to deal with? Is #1806-21 available as well? And more importantly, what the hell was it that went wrong with the emitter in #1806-01? Come on now, you know we need these details.


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## RadarGreg (Jan 25, 2007)

I think I'm going to hold out for the upcoming DealExtreme version, Sun 2.0. It is suppose to have a Cree, run at only 750,000 degrees instead of 1.5 million degrees and it is bored out for a 18670 battery. There is a warning label on it; something about not shining it in your eyes, but I'll just scrape it off like I did with my 500mW green, non-IR filtered laser pointer.


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## 2xTrinity (Jan 25, 2007)

No thank you. I can't get past the fact that the optics are so inefficient: more than 99.999998% of the lumens just fly off into space, and of those, less than half actually make it to the ground! Visual light transmission on the thing is terrible, half the time it looks completely "cloudy"! If they put a reflector on they could really drive up the lux readings but as it is I'm not impressed. Don't even get me started on the tint -- I absolutely hate those 6000k cool white lights, they lights make everything look blue and nasty , call me again when they make one in warm white.


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## RebelRAM (Jan 25, 2007)

Why not wait for the Super-Nova version of the Sun? It is expected to be much brighter. And excellent at burning newspaper, ants, and most anything else. Would it be consider a one-time-use only device?


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## Phaserburn (Jan 25, 2007)

There are many little annoying, blotchy artifacts present in the Sun's beam however. They have names like, "Earth".


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## Arkayne (Jan 25, 2007)

I don't know if you saw the latest Surefire catalog but the Hydrogen Turbohead looks like a winner. It looks like it runs really HOT so don't forget your oven mitts.


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## Aepoc (Jan 25, 2007)

tygger said:


> i wonder if heat will be an issue?



You might have to upgrade to a metal reflector and glass borofloat lens

I'm not sure what size you would need... I would assume a turbo head would be the best for collecting all that throw.


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## WAVE_PARTICLE (Jan 25, 2007)

I wonder what the output would be on "burst".


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## TigerhawkT3 (Jan 25, 2007)

The sun isn't incan, it's fusion-powered. It actually has a pretty weird runtime plot - It takes a long time to start up, then kicks into normal pretty suddenly, then there's a big but short-lived increase near the end, then it slowly dims down.

Terrible UI, though - no variable brightness, and you can't even turn it off! It just runs until its power source is gone.


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## Long John (Jan 25, 2007)

.......and at last, it will be so small........perfect EDC'ing

Best regards

_____
Tom


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## Xygen (Jan 29, 2007)

Pretty good runtime.... No need for rechargeable cells!


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## BentHeadTX (Jan 29, 2007)

So much hype! 
Geez, it is not like the Sun is the only 5 billion-year, disposable light source out there. 98 lumens per watt? Sounds like a decent Cree XR-E Q3 bin but it will be surpassed pretty soon. A XRE P4 bin breaks 100 lumens per watt at 20-60mA so it is soooo obsolete now. Lets build the sun with a bunch of XREs. No problem heat sinking it, the almost absolute zero of space should make it realy bright. Then we will see advertisements about the new Q4 binned XRE uberlight. New LED, more effecient than the Sun!


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## DM51 (Jan 29, 2007)

BentHeadTX said:


> Lets build the sun with a bunch of XREs. No problem heat sinking it, the almost absolute zero of space should make it realy bright.


Sounds like a good mod. Is this now a pre-order thread?


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## Casual Flashlight User (Jan 30, 2007)

Is there a low setting?






CFU


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## Nereus (Jan 30, 2007)

Casual Flashlight User said:


> Is there a low setting?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, that's called moon mode.

-N


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## chesterqw (Jan 30, 2007)

i will wait for someone to do this, a metal aluminum sphere filled with cree xr-e and with a hole drilled in a center for liquid cooling!!!(liquid nitrogen?)


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## TorchBoy (Jan 30, 2007)

dgc said:


> Have a look at Wikipedia: ~3.75×10^28 lm


So that's 37,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. Which means PSM's 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 was pretty almost the right order of magnitude. Where'd that figure come from PSM?


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## DM51 (Jan 30, 2007)

Sun v.2 arrived this morning, and already there are major problems. Maybe PSM’s figures on output were a little low, but that’s not all. Runtime stinks, even on a mega-pack of AW’s new protected fusion 18000000650s. Got people calling in asking whether it’s an eclipse every time we change batteries. Plus the environmentalists say the temperature is all wrong, what about the global cooling problem, and the suncream manufacturers complaining the UV component is too weak and it will be bad for business. And you wouldn’t believe the grief we’re getting in the jeers section from the incan boys, saying they preferred Sun v.1, this is a poor quality knock-off, etc etc.


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## JanCPF (Jan 30, 2007)

Yep, and the new v.2 came in a cheapo clam shell packing that is now pretty much melted away. And get this: The new version is without keychain attachment


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## Nereus (Jan 30, 2007)

There are quite severe heat issues involved here... Has anyone built a good heatsink for that?

-N


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## Aepoc (Jan 31, 2007)

Thermalright makes some good sinks for computers... I'll bet somebody can modify one of those for the job. Use one with some liquid cooled heat pipes.


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## wwglen (Jan 31, 2007)

You know it IS rechargable...

Have to be careful though because the recharge cycle has been known to go off in a 

***Big Bang***

wwglen


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## Raptor# (Jan 31, 2007)

Right! It doesn't has a off button and if you overdischarge it... Seriously, what was the manufacter thinking?!? :thinking: 

But maybe we're just getting it all wrong and its the signal that its falling out of regulation and the batterie has to be changed. 
We'll see about that when it's due...  anyone still got the instructions that came with it? Ah, never mind... we don't need no stinkin' instructions! :naughty:


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## nemul (Jan 31, 2007)

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


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## DM51 (Jan 31, 2007)

Just got a call from someone who says he’s from Roswell, wherever that is, asking if this new Sun v.2 has a strobe setting. If not, he says can we fit one so we can use it on strobe if the aliens show up again, to fool them into thinking it’s a pulsar so they’ll leave us alone. What do you think, guys, should we have a strobe setting or not?


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## Nereus (Feb 1, 2007)

DM51 said:


> Just got a call from someone who says he’s from Roswell, wherever that is, asking if this new Sun v.2 has a strobe setting. If not, he says can we fit one so we can use it on strobe if the aliens show up again, to fool them into thinking it’s a pulsar so they’ll leave us alone. What do you think, guys, should we have a strobe setting or not?



Doesn't it already have a strobe mode? The duty cycle seems to be 12 hours on an average. However, the duty cycle of strobe changes depending on where you live. Here in Finland it is at the moment 20 hours off, only 4 hours on. In south pole that's constant on, north pole it is constant off. I can not understand how on earth (pun not intended) manufacturer can deliver so different product to different markets. Especially I am sorry for the fact that they delivered so badly defective sun to Finland. Isn't that discriminating? I think the manufacturer should follow Lumileds practice and start to bin the suns. The forward voltage of sun should also be included to binning.

Furthermore, there is colour variation too. At the very end of each duty cycle the color temperature decreases rapidly. Or is this just very poor pulse width modulation??? If so, I think manufacturer should use current or voltage regulation with the sun v3, not PWM. The PWM is also very crappy. I connected the sun v1 to my oscilloscope and noticed that PWM is very far from square wave. There are very long and visible turn on/turn off transients in every duty cycle. There is also visible peak in the middle of each duty cycle. Doesn't the manufacturer's R&D know how to run PWM circuit mosfet gates??? Does anyone have direct contact to the manufacturer R&D? Does anyone know if the manufacturer reads CPF? There might be good advice here.

Furthermore, the UI needs updating. For example, you can not turn the 12 hour strobe mode off. The dimming feature is also nice but again the UI sucks. I have tried to control the level of dimming but haven't succeeded so far: sometimes it dims in an uncontrolled way in the middle of day when it is supposed to be on! Considering the fact that we finns were delivered already defective and poorly PWMed product we wan't to get full advantage of those short on moments!

And I think we need SOS mode and burst mode too.

-N


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## Quickbeam (Mar 2, 2007)

Well, I just received a Sun 2.0 for review. Fits nicely in the supercooled jeans pocket. Please observe all warnings on package. Heat is a slight issue, as is UV/cosmic ray output.

Sorry for the photo, the digicam lens melted just after this shot...







EV set at -500

Here's a photo at normal exposure:












Slight CCD overload...

Enjoy!


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## Fizz753 (Mar 3, 2007)

Quickbeam said:


> Well, I just received a Sun 2.0 for review. Fits nicely in the supercooled jeans pocket. Please observe all warnings on package. Heat is a slight issue, as is UV/cosmic ray output.
> 
> Enjoy!




Just a quick question. Where have you been buying the batteries for yours?


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## maglite (Mar 26, 2007)

can it stand on its base for candle mode?


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## Dollar Bill (Jul 3, 2013)

PoliceScannerMan said:


> 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. :rock:



Trying to compare this with light sources here on earth. Is this measurement at the surface, or near the surface of the Sun, or is it at the surface of the earth after passing through the atmosphere?

For instance, the Sun does not seem to be trillions, or googles of light when we view it from the earth. I would guess it would be a lot less than 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. Relatively dark glasses would allow us to view it without danger of retinal damage.

Since the Sun is basically an ongoing nuclear reaction, I wonder how it would compare with a nuclear device (we used to call them bombs) that seems to put out a LOT more light when detonated here.

BTW I am really enjoying the humor in this thread! Bill


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## TronPlayer (Jul 3, 2013)

Why am I still reading this thread.


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## TEEJ (Jul 3, 2013)

I disagree about the throw, I think the Sun's throw is pretty good, especially considering that its pretty far away, and by the time the beam finally gets to earth, we can see as if its day light out!

I'm not normally a fan of disposable lights, but this one I think at least will last long enough for me. 

I did want to correct some of the UI issues though, its not strobing, its still on, your view is merely being blocked periodically. 

The moonlight modes require you to reflect the light off the moon, a serious limitation as you need a line of sight from the sun, to the moon, to your target. Luckily, the beam is at least very floody, so aiming is not that hard.

The beam does have some artifacts, but if you look at the illuminated objects instead of at the sun itself, you will not see them. If you do look for too long at the sun itself, you may not see anything after a while anyway.


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## badtziscool (Jul 3, 2013)

The sun is so yesterday's tech. What about the output of the quasar ULAS J1120+0641. Estimated at 6.3×1013​ times brighter than the sun.


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## TEEJ (Jul 3, 2013)

badtziscool said:


> The sun is so yesterday's tech. What about the output of the quasar ULAS J1120+0641. Estimated at 6.3×1013​ times brighter than the sun.



Yeah, but it doesn't come with a clip....and it has less run time.


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## StarHalo (Jul 3, 2013)

6.84 octillion.


And if you want bright cosmic objects, look into pulsars. Our sun is 865,000 miles in diameter and only lights the majority of the solar system, which is ten light hours across. The Crab Nebula pulsar is only ten miles in diameter and lights a dust cloud 23 _light years_ across.


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## ledmitter_nli (Jul 19, 2013)

How many lumens typical on a 1X1 meter square during a clear midday?


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## 880arm (Jul 19, 2013)

ledmitter_nli said:


> How many lumens typical on a 1X1 meter square during a clear midday?



Were you talking about emitter lumens? Same as on a cloudy day!


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## ledmitter_nli (Jul 19, 2013)

880arm said:


> Were you talking about emitter lumens? Same as on a cloudy day!



If an imaginary boundry box tunnel (1 meter X 1 meter X 150 million km) extended all the way from the sun to the earth and shined on a 1 meter x 1 meter white wall, how many lumens would you estimate are shining on that wall?


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## Mark620 (Jul 24, 2013)

TorchBoy said:


> So that's 37,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 lumens. Which means PSM's 6,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 was pretty almost the right order of magnitude. Where'd that figure come from PSM?



about 1/6 Th ? very close actually...


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## CMAG (Jul 24, 2013)

So this thread got me thinking. Would the lux at 1/4 mile of say the new deft or a maxabeam be much higher in space?


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## StarHalo (Jul 24, 2013)

CMAG said:


> So this thread got me thinking. Would the lux at 1/4 mile of say the new deft or a maxabeam be much higher in space?



Yes, no air or particulates. And LEDs get brighter as temps drop into inhumane levels.


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## StarHalo (Jul 9, 2019)

StarHalo said:


> And if you want bright cosmic objects, look into pulsars. Our sun is 865,000 miles in diameter and only lights the majority of the solar system, which is ten light hours across. The Crab Nebula pulsar is only ten miles in diameter and lights a dust cloud 23 _light years_ across.



A just-published three-year study from a gamma ray array in Tibet captured output from the Crab Nebula in which *individual photons* had the *kinetic energy of a flying bumblebee* - the most powerful light ever seen on planet Earth.


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## 5S8Zh5 (Oct 24, 2019)

Recommended Light Levels (Illuminance) for Outdoor and Indoor Venues

Below slide is from:

Satchin Panda, Ph.D. on Time-Restricted Feeding and Its Effects on Obesity, Muscle Mass & Heart Health... around 20:45 of the video.


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## boo5ted (Oct 24, 2019)

Aepoc said:


> How many lumens does the sun produce?





Easy, all of them. :nana:


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## bykfixer (Oct 24, 2019)




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## StarHalo (Oct 24, 2019)

boo5ted said:


> Easy, all of them. :nana:



Our sun is modestly below average in output compared to other stars; the aforementioned Crab Nebula Pulsar is ~100,000 times brighter in its current state, however when it went off in 1054 AD, it was bright enough to be visible in the daytime sky for 23 days.


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## InvisibleFrodo (Oct 25, 2019)

StarHalo said:


> A just-published three-year study from a gamma ray array in Tibet captured output from the Crab Nebula in which *individual photons* had the *kinetic energy of a flying bumblebee* - the most powerful light ever seen on planet Earth.



Hate to say this, but all individual light photons have the same amount of energy, regardless of source or distance.


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