If you have been led to believe that your brand new flashlight with its purported 1000 lumens offering is a super bright tactical flashlight, you will be disappointed when you see its performance. Without a doubt, 1000 plus lumens is a lot when it comes to brightness but your flashlight may not come anywhere near that lumen output.
Brightex Technologies recently had their own flashlights as well as 3 other flashlights which are sold with the 1000+ lumen claim tested by the Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL). The 1000 lumen flashlights all had the T6 LED, while the two products from Brightex had U2 LEDs.
The results from the independent, non-profit organization proved that the lumen output of the T6 flashlights stands at a dismal average of around 325 lumens. That is a whopping 675 lumens off the mark.
Brightex flashlights, both of which used U2 LEDs, were found to be brighter with a lumen output range of 600-700 lm. Incidentally, the company never claimed to offer more than this. The results of the tests can be found on the website of Brightex.
Remember that the flashlights tested were among the more popular products in their category, yet the claims made by their manufacturers fell flat when tested by an independent body. The very first thing that you need to understand is that no single LED bulb currently available offers 1000 lm brightness for a portable, battery operated device.
Even the U2 bin LEDs, which come with an advanced switch technology and are neck and shoulder above the T6 in terms of performance, don’t offer that kind of brightness, and we are talking about American made products here.
If a Chinese make LED has been passed off as an original T6 in your flashlight you will only get a fraction of the 325 lumens that the US made T6 LED offers. Moreover, three other factors will also impact the light output of the flashlight.
A quality circuit driver can add as much as 20% to the performance of the LED. Similarly, the right reflector and lens can each add 10% to the light output. So, if these factors have not been optimized, you can deduct another 30-40% from the lumen output of the LED. In effect, you will be left with less than 100 lumens in light output.
So, unless your 1000 plus lumen flashlight has UL test results to back the claims of its performance, chances are that what you have there is not a super bright tactical flashlight!
Brightex flashlights have been tested by UL labs and the Brightex XR-700 with its XM L2 U2 LED along with its superior circuit driver has a proven light output of 700 lumens! Moreover, other leading companies have also been tested by Brightex at UL labs and their real output was only around 325 lumens even though they claimed to have around 1000 - 1200 lumens! So if you are looking for the
Brightest Flashlight I would suggest going for the Brightex XR-700
tactical light.
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