I recently did a number of reviews and testing on various PR bulb based drop-ins for flashlights.
Links for the details are at the end, this is an overview.
As far as the MagLED, as it's module heats up, the output is going to drop, and your eyes should adjust. MagLite was wise enough to put thermal limiting in their design, and use an LED like the Luxeon/CREE/OSRAM which has been designed and constructed to deal with heat- in their case, they used the Luxeon.
The new TerraLUX modules have a number of issues. The circuitry is not very efficient, causing extra heat to be generated. The LED is driven hard, causing significant heat. The thermal transfer is also poor, but there is no thermal limiting. The LED inside is much more thermally sensitive then the others, using a Seoul P4, which has a number of it's own issues. It also dims due to heat, but picks up the additional characteristics of the the Seoul P4, where a significant number of them will shift color towards blue, which is caused by the design Seoul implemented in the LED- some of them CPF'ers have had turn quite blue. The phosphor used in the Seoul deteriorates initially, quite rapidly, and will shift towards blue permanently, and has this rapid 12% drop in output with time, rather quickly, but it appears to level out. Due to the module getting hotter than what is needed to turn water into steam, the electronics had issues during testing and burned up on two of them, the epoxy that holds the LED to the heatsink on two new modules failed, and it abuses the LED well beyond maximums stated on the datasheet.
The new TerraLUX modules just fine if you only need short bursts of light. I'd definitely steer away from it for any serious use, especially if you need to count on it.
I had a number of failures of the TerraLUX modules during my testing. Hopefully TerraLUX will go back and fix their new design, and introduce new devices. However, if you just need short bursts, and you don't need to count on the light, it is just fine.
If you need something to work, I'd most definitely have to choose the MagLED. The MagLED is far from an optimal solution, but it doesn't suffer from the multitude of shortcommings that the new TerraLUX do. The Sears drop-in simply failed above 4.7V input.
Most my pages have lots of photos/documentation, so they will take some time to load, be patient- go grab some water, make a head call or whatever.
TerraLUX testing:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/tle6exb.htm
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/terralux.htm
MagLED testing:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/magrev.htm
Craftsman/Sears LED drop-in testing, where it also blew up like the TerraLUX:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper...sman%20PR%20dropin.htm
Charts on the Seoul degrading with time at the end of the page, as well as other information showing various problems with the Seoul P4 LED:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/seoulmy.htm
Other LED related gadgets/information/reviews can be found here:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/led.htm
Links for the details are at the end, this is an overview.
As far as the MagLED, as it's module heats up, the output is going to drop, and your eyes should adjust. MagLite was wise enough to put thermal limiting in their design, and use an LED like the Luxeon/CREE/OSRAM which has been designed and constructed to deal with heat- in their case, they used the Luxeon.
The new TerraLUX modules have a number of issues. The circuitry is not very efficient, causing extra heat to be generated. The LED is driven hard, causing significant heat. The thermal transfer is also poor, but there is no thermal limiting. The LED inside is much more thermally sensitive then the others, using a Seoul P4, which has a number of it's own issues. It also dims due to heat, but picks up the additional characteristics of the the Seoul P4, where a significant number of them will shift color towards blue, which is caused by the design Seoul implemented in the LED- some of them CPF'ers have had turn quite blue. The phosphor used in the Seoul deteriorates initially, quite rapidly, and will shift towards blue permanently, and has this rapid 12% drop in output with time, rather quickly, but it appears to level out. Due to the module getting hotter than what is needed to turn water into steam, the electronics had issues during testing and burned up on two of them, the epoxy that holds the LED to the heatsink on two new modules failed, and it abuses the LED well beyond maximums stated on the datasheet.
The new TerraLUX modules just fine if you only need short bursts of light. I'd definitely steer away from it for any serious use, especially if you need to count on it.
I had a number of failures of the TerraLUX modules during my testing. Hopefully TerraLUX will go back and fix their new design, and introduce new devices. However, if you just need short bursts, and you don't need to count on the light, it is just fine.
If you need something to work, I'd most definitely have to choose the MagLED. The MagLED is far from an optimal solution, but it doesn't suffer from the multitude of shortcommings that the new TerraLUX do. The Sears drop-in simply failed above 4.7V input.
Most my pages have lots of photos/documentation, so they will take some time to load, be patient- go grab some water, make a head call or whatever.
TerraLUX testing:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/tle6exb.htm
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/terralux.htm
MagLED testing:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/magrev.htm
Craftsman/Sears LED drop-in testing, where it also blew up like the TerraLUX:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper...sman%20PR%20dropin.htm
Charts on the Seoul degrading with time at the end of the page, as well as other information showing various problems with the Seoul P4 LED:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/seoulmy.htm
Other LED related gadgets/information/reviews can be found here:
http://www.molalla.net/~leeper/led.htm