Halogen v LED

[Bookmon]

Recently posted a thread looking to replace my trusty dive torch from the 80s. Great replies. I even bought an LED based on them. But, still not happy. In the adage "You can't keep a good librarian down", I began an even more earnest search.
I found the Toshiba, 4 D cell, halogen light; same platform as my old trusty. Get on Ebay or Amazon
While spending research time, I also found my fave small, halogen, 4 C cells, backup, BCD pocket light at Divers Supply. I ordered two of both thinking they should last me to the end of my diving days. (Age 62)
In my opinion, thar 4 D cell is much stronger, focused beam, light source compared to affordable LED
Of course, each to their own. Just adding choices and educational enlightenment

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[g1138]

That's an impressive 4000 lumen dive light. What LED light were you comparing that to?

 

[eelnoraa]

Wait, are you saying you get 4000 lumen with 4C power single bulb halogen?? Sound unrealistic to me. I think it is off by a factor of 100

 

[DogDiver]

The halogen lights are now museum relics.

 

[BoltSnap]

Halogen lights are pretty much a dead technology now. It is a waste of time and money to buy a halogen dive light these days.

 

[Damselfish]

You get so much more light from a LED than halogen with the same batteries. Or the same light without needing heavy & expensive C/Ds. I can't imagine buying halogen now. The old ones can make handy dryboxes though...

 

[tbone1004]

@g1138 4000 lux not lumen. 4000 lux isn't that hard to get. Most of the backup lights out there are good for about 12k lux.

@Bookmon all that actually matters is that you're happy with the light.
That said, from a purely numbers perspective.
The light uses a 4w halogen bulb that is capable of a maximum of 100 lumen based on Halogens maximum efficiency of about 25lumen/watt, Likely closer to 20 or so.
The LED emitters in something like the light below get around 600 lumen, due to 100lumen/watt efficiency of the LED emitters. Granted they pull about 1.5x the power, but you get 6x the light, so there's that.
DGX 600 BUTTON Handheld Light Kit

They don't quote beam angles, but since lux is the measurement of light output in a 1sqm area at some distance away, we can extrapolate that the beam angle isn't doing a whole lot since the 4000 lux that the Toshiba puts out is a lot less than 12000 that the DGX light listed above will pump out.
The toshiba will go a lot longer between battery changes though since it will have about 100wh of battery capacity in 4x d-cells so it should go for 20-25 hours vs the DGX which is a bit less than an hour on a good battery, but then again it's also considerably smaller.

Now, I'm also not sure which cheap LED lights you looked at and depending on the light, it is quite possible that you were looking at some of the inexpensive ones that have a very wide beam angle *the DGX is around 8, but a lot of the cheap ones are 13 or wider* and in that case you may be making too broad of a generalization. Since you're in Alabama, if you ever have any interest in diving the springs, I would highly recommend you swing over to Cave Adventurers and talk to Edd, John, or Thomas. Ask if you can take some of their loaner backup lights out for a spin and you may be pleasantly surprised.

 

[eelnoraa]

Lux is a very easy properly to measure. It can be estimate as simple as by pointing a light meter used by photographer. And lux is without meaning if measured distance isn't mentioned

20k-25k lux is a typical 21W HID center spot lux at 1m distance. A Cree xml LED in canister battery powered form factor is typically 3000-4000 lux at 1m. If you measure dgx600 1x18650 at 1m, you will probably get 1000-2000 lux. HID has a lot higher lux value which is why it punch better.

As for lumen for halogen bulb, Surefire brand P60 bulb, probably represents the best handheld incandescent bulb technology out there, produces about 60lumen when power by 2x CR123 lithium cell in series (6V) at 1.1A drawn. That is 10lumen/W. A typical 4D halogen light like maglite, get you about half the lumen of surefire p60.

 

[KevinNM]

Modern high performance LED lights are close to the performance of a better HID light, with longer run times and much longer bulb lifetimes. Both of these are not cheap. You'll see a decent number of used high-wattage HID lights for sale at reasonable prices these days, apparently as their owners buy new LED lights.