In light of Surefire's Titan Pro (or whatever it's called ) pushing a claimed 300 lumens from an AAA there has been some skepticism. At least I've been skeptical because 1.2v is only a third of the voltage needed for optimally operating most LEDs. In other words, that battery would be working very hard. Well Zebralight has been known to be optimistic in the past but this latest email teaser (subscribed to their newsletter) had me believing driver tech has changed for the better. If this is the case the bottleneck will be battery technology. Most off the shelf XML2 lights with an 18650 can get close to 1,000 lumens which is a soft-cap for the LED. Ie: the curve of lumens for amperage is on a quick decline. Still, the aspect of EDC lights on conventional cells pushing massive amount of light is within our grasp despite your brand of choice is very exciting! I still think Surefire is a bit optimistic and I won't be a fanboy of theirs overnight but we will see.
535 for how long before it drops to considerably less? A minute? The Thrunite Neutron 2A V2 will do 408 lumens in single AA battery mode however the drop off is very fast.
Some quick & rough calculations would put that over 6 watts (!) But eneloops can take pretty heavy current draw ... Only 300 lumens not looking so impressive now, huh ? LOL.
500+ lumens on 1.2v is insane even if for a minute. I don't know when the thermal cut will kick in for the light or when the Eneloop will be forced to step-down due to capacity. I've never really looked into Thrunite due to the F&F/QC mentions here and there. Performance wise they have always been impressive though. The Mopar of the flashlight world perhaps . You are very right though. Regulation wise where Ni-Mh tech won't touch Lithium is regulation due to voltage. Peak numbers vs a very flat and usable curve. Perhaps I was bamboozled by marketing. Even if they ran the XM-L2 at 2A it would be 1c for the Eneloop AA. True though, question is how long it can hold that output. My guess is 535 to an AA is about 300 to an AAA. A very short fuse but what a fun one to light.
On CPF, @HKJ pulled 10A from a 1900mAh eneloop AA ... it lasted about 8 min It heated the cell up > +22°C, too (!)
True but even if it had a 2min (or so) turbo that dropped the output to 60% the heat and battery life would be decent. Heat in mechanical/electronics is a killer. As a metaphor to racing engines I recall dropping the RPM's by 1,500 multiplies engine life multiple times. The strain at 9k is just massive compared to 7.5k...FAR more than 20%. You can see this by running a 3a+ light on a IMR16340 vs a IMR18650 both in output and runtime. It's not linear since the little cell is getting the crud beat out of it.
Looks awesome. If they bring out an H version I'll have to get it just for the new better clip design.
I'm used to deleting instead of "leaving conversations". Just figured it out . 15 mins of clicking later... lol
One of the few companies, if not the only company that actually releases neutral and on the first run. Props to Zebralight! Armtek may as well. Another great company!
I'm kind of wondering this, as well. The light Ben has mentioned is actually capable of 800 plus lumens on a single 14500 battery (a lithium ion battery that looks almost just like an alkaline, but has nearly three times the voltage - which the Neutron can take (It's rated to 5 volts). I'm actually about to pick up on of these Neutrons, per someone's recommendation. Even if it were capable of only a few minutes at this level (before step-down), the output would be pretty incredible.
A visit to the Zebralight website doesn't appear to make it look like it does. According to the website, the operating voltage range for the SC5 is 0.7 - 2.0 volts, which leaves the 3.7-4.2 volt lithium ion 14500 out of the running :|
