I am trying to make sense of LED flashlight pricing and features. Some flashlights that sound to me similar, as far as light output, can cost 10 times as much as others. Some cheaper lights claim 1800 lumens while more expensive lights say 500 lumens. Can someone explicate this for me?
I have noticed a trend over the years in flashlights in general (not just LED’s), There are always cheap flashlights out there claiming ridiculous candle power. Perhaps lumens is now the preferred term.
I have also noticed cheap is cheap, and almost always seems and feels cheap and has the feeling that you were told what you wanted to hear to buy it regardless of the actual output, and you went away with a smile on your face because you believed it to be true.
LED lighting is in a major upheaval right now. Prices are coming down and/or lumens are going up. Also there are some cheaply made products out there.
Also remember that a lumen is a measurement of visible light. The color of the light could be anywhere in the rainbow plus the focusing of that light could be all over the place.
I have a 600 lumen bicycle light that puts out a good beam pattern and a nice white to bluish light. It cost about $100 three years ago and lasts a couple of hours on a full charge. Today I can get a similar light for slightly less money that puts out 700 lumens and last for about an hour longer.
some less expensive lights might use multiple low power LEDS. they might not focus or spread the light well.
a better quality light might use a single higher power LED which would cost more to use in a light.
Some differences include water intrusion resistance, quality materials and finishes, type of reflector, quality and efficiency of electronics just to mention a few. In general you get what you pay for. I have a cheap light in my utility room that I dropped on concrete from about 3’. It quit working while I have better lights that I could throw against a wall and they’d still work fine.
Marketers can claim lots of output without having to back it up. Relative brightness is difficult to judge by eye and is affected by beam type. It it a flood type of light that you’d use to find something in a dark closet, or a tight beam you might use to read an address on a house from 150 feet away?
I’d suggest a visit to candlepowerforums.com for more than you’d ever want to know.
no not there. that’s a black hole. i mean a light hole.
yeah you’re right about the amount of information.
I wanted to add that there are differences in led efficiency and tint between different batches by the same manufacturer. Cool white, neutral white, and warm white are choices to be made in a quality light. Some lights are direct driven by the battery and will get dimmer with use while others use electronic circuits to boost voltage and maintain brightness until the cells are pretty well used up.
The battery type used is another factor. AAA, AA, C, D? Primary cells or rechargeable? Nickel Metal Hydride or Lithium Ion?
FTFY:
| Can someone illuminate this for me?
Maybe the LED Illuminati forum might shed some light?
Candle power forums is where they gather as soon as it get dark!
Hmmmm. Do they burn the midnight oil?
Seriously, I bought a couple of cheapie Harbor Freight LED flashlights for use in my vehicles. They work as intended. Costco recently had Duracell LED flashlights on sale, a three-pack of 250 lumens and a double-pack of 500 lumens. I picked up one of each. What a difference compared to the old D-cell Ray-o-vac incandescent flashlights.
It often comes down to price vs. benefits. Nothing wrong with a cheap light if it does the job at hand. A Harbor Freight light might be the best one if all you need to do is find dropped keys! But if I’m in the woods looking for a lost senior citizen, I want my Nightcore Tiny Monster!
As I understand it, candlepower measures the brightest spot. Lumens measures the total illumination. A laser pointer would have very high candlepower compared to its lumens. A naked incandescent bulb would be the opposite. In most cases, lumens is more useful.
har har
I second - or third - CandlePowerForums.
As with any hobby or gadget, there are folks who have way too much on their hand AND are pretty smart, AND dedicate a lot of time and smarts to their chosen toys.
CPF has a couple of guys who do serious picture and video reviews of dozens and dozens of lights from companies you (and I) had never heard of.
LED technology is moving very quickly; The totally awesome 225 lumen Surefire C3 I got 4 years ago was about the brightest thing you could carry. Today, Harbor Freight junk can almost beat it.
Now, I carry a Surefire E2D Defender daily that’s 5 or 500 lumens, and they have an honest 1,000 lumen light that you can carry around.
There are cheaper lights, and CPF can help you find what is right for you, but IMHO, Surefire’s product line and customer service can’t be beat. I’ve easily got 2 dozen of them, and they never fail to perform. I’ve lost a couple, but I’m sure they’re working well for their new owner!
That said, if you have an older Surefire 2 or 3 cell light, Amazon carries some bargain-priced LED upgrade bulb assemblies that are great. Your old 60 lumen 6P -very nice when it came out - can now be a 650 lumen monster! Check it out!
One day I’m going to cave and buy another LED torch. I know that almost everything can vary between cheap and expensive models: the precision of parts, meaning things don’t fit together so well and your batteries rattle. Burrs left on the metal. The type of alloy. Even anodisation has different grades. Proper heat sinking so your light doesn’t overheat and lasts longer. Cheap lights may use a low-power, overdriven LED. (Removed) Hey, are we allowed to post links to other forums here?
Darn, I think I just turned myself off that $5 300 lumen light on Amazon.
It’s easy to make a bright LED light. What’s more difficult is to control the output to ensure good battery life. The cheaper high-power LED lights have less-efficient heat dispersal so the load on the battery can be much higher and they’ll run out of juice much more quickly.
For a EDC I picked up a Fenix E15, a bit over 2 inches long and twice as bright as my ancient D cell maglight. I have given away several as gifts, makes a good purse light. The lithium battery has a long shelf life so should work when you need it. Specs for the light geeks: 170/80/11 lumens, twisty, 59.6mm x 19.7mm, 23-gram weight (excluding batteries), single cr123a 
There’s an ANSI standard (FL1) out there for flashlights.
The way I understand it, the lumens measurement is the TOTAL amount of light emitted by the flashlight in all directions, while the peak intensity is the brightness of the brightest part of the beam.
So you may find something like a 250 lumen light with a relatively low peak intensity, and a 150 lumen light with a higher peak intensity. What this tells you is that the 250 lumen light is more diffuse and a wider beam, while the 150 lumen light is much more focused and narrow.
Wattage doesn’t really matter, since it’s a measurement of power consumption. I’d look at some combination of the lumens, peak intensity and run time to get an idea of a light’s efficiency.
Personally, I’d be wary of a non FL1 flashlight- you don’t know how their measurements have been taken, and are likely stacked such that their light comes out looking better than it otherwise would.
https://www.coastportland.com/articles/ansi-fl1-flashlight-standards-explained/
http://www.streamlight.com/Documents/ansi/ansi-pres.pdf
http://www.inovalight.com/ANSIstandard/
I’d also look very carefully at what batteries the lights use. A lot of the higher lumen lights are using CR123A lithium batteries because they’re higher voltage, but they’re a lot more expensive than garden-variety AA, C or D cells.