I was wondering if anyone had upgraded any of their flashlights with one of the Teralux LED kits. I just ordered one for my Streamlight Stinger, but haven't received it yet. Their website says that it will produce around 220 lumens, which is about 4X what my stinger produces now.
I was hoping someone else has some experience with them that might be able to tell me if I wasted my money or not. With good luck, it'll be as bright as advertised. I just find 220 lumens to be too good to be true.
I worked with LED lighting for several years in R&D for a company. LED's are much brighter now then they were then so fewer are used in a device.
The main problem with LED's is the light source is extremely directional which means reflectors, used on bulb flashlights, are useless. Although the LED lights appear to be very bright looking into them the beam does not extend as far as a light with a reflector. The biggest advantage is life expectancy for the battery and LED's which will far exceed that of a conventional flashlight.
For in home use, LED lights will be functional, longer distance outside use they are not...yet, anyway.
Did you waste your money? That depends on where you plan to use it.
I have several of both types but use the LED for close-in work only.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks, it does help. I'm sure I'll find a use for it. The stinger I have now just isn't bright enough. If I don't like it for duty use, I'll just keep it for camping/tent light.
I can't add much info to this forum because jarhead already covered it, but like he said, LED are great for close up work, but not for longer distances. I use a LED hat light for close up work, and a larger MagLight for further away aplications.
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The price seems a little high to me. These items are manufactured in an "Asian" country so you can bet the $46 price holds one hefty mark-up for a one LED unit. I don't necessarily understand the need for a 'large heatsink' since LEDs are roughly 99% heat-free...they just don't get hot.
I have a motorcycle trailer for my touring rig that is all LED lights That I designed and fabricated. The whole trailer pulls about 300 milliamps of current and has a zero heat factor. That is about 1/3 of the current required for one 1172 incandescent buld...
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Hey, just got it in the mail!!! Played with it a bit last night, but the wife was already asleep and I don't know where her camera is, but I'll try to take some pics tonight when I use it for work.
And, it was extremely bright!!! I love it, esp for the money. The beam was actually quite "tight" for an LED. And the flashlight news didn't really give any more info than what the manufacturer claimed. Didn't have any independent test to it. I'll try to do a few for you guys though.
One more thing, can someone PM to tell me how to get the pics up as thumbnails. I tried in the test forum, but was only able to get it as a link.
Hey, just got it in the mail!!! Played with it a bit last night, but the wife was already asleep and I don't know where her camera is, but I'll try to take some pics tonight when I use it for work.
And, it was extremely bright!!! I love it, esp for the money. The beam was actually quite "tight" for an LED. And the flashlight news didn't really give any more info than what the manufacturer claimed. Didn't have any independent test to it. I'll try to do a few for you guys though.
One more thing, can someone PM to tell me how to get the pics up as thumbnails. I tried in the test forum, but was only able to get it as a link.
Hope you can get the pics going, I'd like to see the item and its functions.
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No functions. I have a Gladius light that has a strobe meant to disorient and confuse the bad guys, but this light is just that, only a light. And I've gotta get my wife to get the camera. I gave mine to my mom and I can't find my wife's. Not about to wake her up right now either.
Ok, if I do this right, here are the pictures of the comparisons. First off, the incandescent light is actually my Streamlight SL, not my Stinger; however, the brightness on the two were the same. My SL used to be brighter before I was issued an aftermarket battery, now it's on the same level as my Stinger pre-LED upgrade.
Of course the white light is my LED upgrade and the yellow is the incandescent. I tried to get a better pic of these, but my wife's digital camera kept wanting to leave the "shutter" open and expose the "film" longer automatically unless I did it as close range. And yes I know that there is not shutter or film on a digital camera, I just know more about regurlar cameras than the new fangled things.
Overall, the LED had a good strong solid beam that has a very good reach. The incandescent has more light outcast to the sides. The beams on the two have about equal reach. Keep in mind that this is my LED Streamlight Stinger vs. My Streamlight SL. My Stinger pre upgrade didn't have quite the same reach. Overall, the LED upgrade is a bit brighter and more useable light as is a white light. The beam is more solid and has more reach than pre-upgrade as well.
The good news, they make this same LED for most Mag Lights as well. I'd say yall need to give 'em a try. The battery life is about twice what it was before. Oh, and this is a "high-watt" LED, which burns brighter than the low watt ones and thus burns more battery power. But the power is still extended past what incandescent lights are.
Interesting pics and I'm impressed and somewhat surprised by the apparent light dispersion of the LED. It appears, by what you're saying, these units are run at maximum current which does reduce battery life some but also increases brightness of the LED. Running a max current will also reduce the life of the LED, however, since the life of a LED run at 90% is normally around 100,000 hours, The slight decrease in overall life will not be noticed...what's a thousand hours among friends?
Have you any idea of the beam length?
I noticed the pics were taken outdoors so was just wondering how far the beam went.
Dang, looks like LED's have improved much in the past few years. I'm glad you like it.
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Hey, my internet went out for a while, had some big storms come through. The LED beam reached out about as far as the incandescent, but the weird thing is, the LED beam seemed to just stop and drop of! The incandescent light would shine a bit further, but the light was mainly unusable. The LED upgrade I got actually improved the usable light beam length by a few yards. I would estimate the usable light beam to be around 75 feet. I would assume that the LED upgrades from Terra Lux (the ministar LED) for the larger mag lights and such would also increase the beam output, but for a Stinger, I couldn't be happier.
