Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - Battery life: Blinky mode vs steady mode

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wheeldeal
10-29-09, 02:17 AM
Does anyone know the battery life difference between blinky mode vs steady mode? Unlike most of you, I use my light in blinky mode (to be seen) since I live in a large city with enough street light to see the road. Anyone have a general idea how much of a difference in battery life in blinky mode vs steady mode would be?

I have an MTE P7 flashlight. From what I gather (from the forums), it has a 1hr run time on high mode. Any idea what the run time would be on blinky? Is there a hard set rule?

For your reference, I have this DX sku13060 8-mode flashlight. I always have it on the 3rd mode (which I call the epileptic seizure mode). I think it blinks around 5 - 10x per second. I never counted because it gives me a headache looking at it. Sometimes I have to turn it off because I get dizzy when I'm riding too long with it on. (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13060)

znomit
10-29-09, 02:38 AM
I have an MTE P7 flashlight. From what I gather (from the forums), it has a 1hr run time on high mode. Any idea what the run time would be on blinky? Is there a hard set rule?


Have you tried looking here (http://www.online-stopwatch.com/)? :innocent:
ItsJustMe
10-29-09, 05:46 AM
The controller itself draws as close to zero power that it makes no difference. So, to calculate run time on blink mode, figure out what the duty cycle is on your specific blink mode. There are several ways to do that, but the most accurate would be to put a digital camera on a tripod in a dark room or outside at night, set it on a long exposure (1 second or more), then take a picture while the light is moving in front of it.

Then put the picture up on the screen and measure the relative distance that the light is on versus when it's off.

Assuming your normal run time is 1 hour, then...

If the blink mode is on 50% of the time, then your run time will be 2 hours. If it's on 25% of the time, then your run time will be 4 hours.

Of course, this assumes that your blink mode is in "high" when it's on. That's probably true but I don't know if it's always true.

davidad
10-29-09, 12:07 PM
I tried out my MTE P-7 and it ran for about 2 hours on strobe. If you need more run time this one goes about 5 hours on the same battery, a Trustfire 2500. http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16241
If you are not in a hurry the new Cree XP-G R-5 LED should be available soon with a 50% brighter output.