Another runtime experiment!

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Well I'm doing another one, as I was a little dissatisfied with my first experiment on account of the fact that I didn't know that eneloops aren't fully charged out of the box, like the packaging leads you to believe

Conventional wisdom (stolen from cpf ect) would have you believe that the E01 would beat the Arc P, but I wondering if there's a lot in it in overall runtime/quality of light in the real world

The Infinities are just a test to see for my self how long they actually run for on fully charged cells, the M's hardly been used (prefer the floodier regular Infinity Ultra) so there may be a slight difference in runtimes

So the torches were twisted on at 9am, so let's see how long they last

Which one of each type will run for the longest time?

[Gareth]

Cool.  Am I guessing what ones I think will last longest?

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Cool.  Am I guessing what ones I think will last longest?

Yep, in both cell types

I'll mod the original question to make it clearer

[Gareth]

It's well implied, but I'm not yet finished my first coffee and I didn't want to waste my votes.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

It's well implied, but I'm not yet finished my first coffee and I didn't want to waste my votes.

Well it's modded for all you coffee addicts too now

[gunga]

One thing to keep in mind, on low current drain like these lights, you will have a very long "tail" or moon mode using alkaline, and you will get much longer (dim) light than when using an eneloop...

[Benner]

Wish I had my infinity to test 

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

One thing to keep in mind, on low current drain like these lights, you will have a very long "tail" or moon mode using alkaline, and you will get much longer (dim) light than when using an eneloop...

That's my thinking too

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Well after 3.5 hours the Arc's dimmed by really quite a lot (I know is semi regulated, so I expected that) the E01's seem's to be still at it's original level, and the Infinities are too

[NutSAK]

So, you just couldn't hold off giving us the result before many of us had a chance to vote? 

Well, at least I voted correctly.  The E01 has proven itself to be the more efficient of the to AAA lights time and time again, with better regulation to boot, though the Arc may eventually win the "moonlight" run.  Fenix is well known to have efficient regulators.  The Infinites have the same circuitry in them, so they should be roughly equal in runtime.

A better experiment might be to pit an Infinity against an Infinity Ultra.  I have the advantage though, I already know that the Ultra would win the fight, regardless of the brighter output.

These lights are designed to run on Alkalines, so maybe they should be tested that way.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

That is true Terry, but I only own eneloops these days

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Well both the aaa lights are dead now.

The Arc P became basically unusable after 4.5 hours, and died after 5.15 of runtime.

The E01 was much, much better in that it retained full brightness (as much as I could tell anyway) until around 6.5 hours whereby it dropped into moon mode, for a further 1.5 hours So 8 hours runtime in total give or take a few minutes

Overall I'm very impressed by the E01

On a side note, I'm not thrilled at the way my Arc's put a small but deep dent in the base of my eneloop I might just run this light on primary's now, as I'm not sure how significant a structural weakness it's introduces to a rechargable that's going to be used more than once

[Sazabi]

Well both the aaa lights are dead now.

The Arc P became basically unusable after 4.5 hours, and died after 5.15 of runtime.

The E01 was much, much better in that it retained full brightness (as much as I could tell anyway) until around 6.5 hours whereby it dropped into moon mode, for a further 1.5 hours So 8 hours runtime in total give or take a few minutes

Overall I'm very impressed by the E01

On a side note, I'm not thrilled at the way my Arc's put a small but deep dent in the base of my eneloop I might just run this light on primary's now, as I'm not sure how significant a structural weakness it's introduces to a rechargable that's going to be used more than once

IIRC, the E01 gets better runtime out of alkalines than either lithiums or Eneloops; something like ten hours on regulation, then another slewload of hours on dimming moon mode.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Oh there definitely geared towards Alkies, but I only use rechargeable's (I'm a daemon greenie after all) + I'm always concerned about them leaking

[Sazabi]

Yeah, I nearly lost my E01 to alkaline expansion; it was at that point that I actively searched out for Eneloops.  Now that's all I use.  Granted, it also helps that the only things I have that use replaceable batteries are my three flashlights, though I do still use alkalines in my graphing calculator.

[NutSAK]

Now you know what I meant when I said the arc was a battery crusher in the pros/cons list in the Arc vs. E01 thread.

It's not possible for the e01 to damage a cell in this way, because the body has a stop for the head.  That stop also serves as the negative pathway, which allows Fenix to use anodized threads vs. the Arc's bare threads.  As a result, the e01 threads are more durable and dont have to be kept clean.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Interesting stuff Terry thanks

Well the Infinities are both running pretty dim now, and have for the past 90mins. Having said that, the M is distinctly brighter

[Sazabi]

I need to get an Infinity Ultra M sometime so it can eat my random leftover AA alkalines. :/

[NutSAK]

Interesting stuff Terry thanks

Well the Infinities are both running pretty dim now, and have for the past 90mins. Having said that, the M is distinctly brighter

That could just be due to slight variances/efficiencies of some of the circuit parts or even the cells.  If you think about it, even if one runs for 2 hours longer than the other, that is a very small % difference in the overall runtime, since these run for so long.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Ok so the results for the Infinites are as follows...

Infinity Ultra 19 hours, with the last hour being pretty much unusable.

Infinity Ultra M 22.5 hours, remaining bright enough to be genuinely useful for 20 of them, and unusable for only the last 40mins

[Gareth]

Good test mate.  I didn't know that the E01 was better suited to run on alkaline cells though so i was surprised that it's run time fell somewhat short of what I was expecting.  Still 6.5 hours of good light is nothing to sniff at.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Good test mate.  I didn't know that the E01 was better suited to run on alkaline cells though so i was surprised that it's run time fell somewhat short of what I was expecting.  Still 6.5 hours of good light is nothing to sniff at.

Even the 90 minutes on moon mode would of been enough to navigate through a dark room or woods easily. And I think you could accomplish most hands on tasks with the light provided

[NutSAK]

Ok so the results for the Infinites are as follows...

Infinity Ultra 19 hours, with the last hour being pretty much unusable.

Infinity Ultra M 22.5 hours, remaining bright enough to be genuinely useful for 20 of them, and unusable for only the last 40mins

So, I guess my question would be...  Is the extra runtime worth the loss of the spill?

One other thing I failed to mention earlier, is that Gerber has been known to upgrade the emitter spec'd in the IU without mentioning it on the packaging or any marketing material.  It could very well be that your M model has a newer Nichia DS emitter, while your regular IU has the older CS.  This tends to affect the efficiency (runtime) more than the initial brightness.

This is why the older non-ultra Infinity doesn't have better runtime even though it is a dimmer light.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Ok so the results for the Infinites are as follows...

Infinity Ultra 19 hours, with the last hour being pretty much unusable.

Infinity Ultra M 22.5 hours, remaining bright enough to be genuinely useful for 20 of them, and unusable for only the last 40mins

So, I guess my question would be...  Is the extra runtime worth the loss of the spill?

One other thing I failed to mention earlier, is that Gerber has been known to upgrade the emitter spec'd in the IU without mentioning it on the packaging or any marketing material.  It could very well be that your M model has a newer Nichia DS emitter, while your regular IU has the older CS.  This tends to affect the efficiency (runtime) more than the initial brightness.

This is why the older non-ultra Infinity doesn't have better runtime even though it is a dimmer light.

Yes an no

For an everyday work light, where I'd have access to batteries for when it started to dim, then no, I'd sooner carry the IU

If I was going somewhere where I couldn't guarantee fresh cell's, or I needed a consistently brighter light, then the M would get carried every time

[space cowboy]

Nice test Mike! I learned a few things I didn't know before. Looks like the Infinity is a better light than the E01 as far as spill & run time.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Nice test Mike! I learned a few things I didn't know before. Looks like the Infinity is a better light than the E01 as far as spill & run time.

Happy to help mate

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Just a quick update...

I 'found' a box of Energiser Alkaline batteries at work and decided to give them a go in one of my Gerber Infinities

After a whopping 74.5 hours! it was just too dim to be useful, so I stopped the test. But it gave usable, house navigable light for 73 hours!

Needless to say I'm totally impressed with this kind of performance

[Sazabi]

And now I'm reminded why I stocked up on Infinity Ultra-M's when I got the chance.

[Gareth]

That's pretty stunning.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Suddenly my collecting of Infinities has been justified