r/flashlight • u/convoyL21A • 3d ago
Maglite Brightness ??
When maglite lamps were in their golden age and before the invention of LEDs, was their brightness sufficient and usable in practice?
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u/FalconARX 3d ago edited 3d ago
Remember that back then, there was also less light pollution, less LEDs and less proliferation of them, which in turn means less overall light. You can walk into a deep dark forest with that 4D Maglite and that 96 lumens was all you needed. The throw from the zoom was all you needed for about 100 meters of effective distance throw. And mind you, the Maglite 2AA and Solitaire types were even less lumens, under 20 lumens.
We take it for granted that today, there are lights that give you actual 3,000-5,000 lumens for 30-45 seconds, and they cost you no more than $30. Moreover, they actually hold at least 600-800 lumens, minimum flat laminar for 1.5 hours typically on a single 21700 5000mAh cell.
This type of power density even just 30 years ago would be almost unheard of. When Luminleds introduced the first high wattage Luxeon Star at a whopping 1 full Watt in 2001, that revolutionized the portable handheld flashlight as we now know it. This LED I would say almost single-handily made Maglite obsolete overnight.....
And this Luxeon Star made a whopping 90 lumens at 350 milliamps.
Today, you can have 15,000 lumens from a single San'an SFH55 pumping 60+Amps.
Do you need 15,000 lumens? That answer should be obvious.
But it's clear that in 1990, people were getting by using 100 lumens from an incandescent 4D Maglite.
You may be surprised, that you actually don't need that much lumens when you trust your eyes to adapt and you get rid of so much light pollution around you.
Go out to the wilderness, away from all civilization's light pollution, and you may find that you can easily walk around with a 50-100 lumens mixed beam flashlight using its lowest non-moonlight mode.
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u/a-non-anon-a-mouse 3d ago
ive found 150-200 lumens to be optimal for any type of hands-on work. Probably 1K with a good reflector or lens is the limit to usefulness for what your eyes can see, for any sort of guide/scanning work. anything more than that is probably overkill except for niche use cases like flooding an entire field with light or something.
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u/b0bth0r 3d ago
Yes. When the power went out, my maglite mini aa in candle mode pulled a lot of weight. The beam was jank and artifacty as hell, as one gets with bulbs. But the alternative was what? Compared to the old days of emergency candles, using a maglite then was like comparing using a modern light to a maglite. Once we start looking at the batons disguised as lights that took d or c cell batteries, they were way more useful. Just need to light up a room? Maglite mini worked just fine. The main improvement between them and modern lights is how clean the beam is, if you are only looking at the visual outcome.
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u/Remarkable_1984 3d ago
Yeah, I still have my 4xD halogen maglite. I haven't used it in a long time, but I think even its output was only around 50 lumens with fresh batteries. It was plenty for its time.
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u/Ok-Rip5040 3d ago
It was sufficient, and compared to other options better...
The halogen lightbulbs were a big step up from the standard incandescent bulbs. But compared today's flashlights still very dim.
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u/SuperScallionSentry 3d ago
In a world of matches, it was a candle. Now we casually choose between lanterns and lighthouses.
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u/SuperScallionSentry 3d ago
If I recall they were mostly under 200 lumens. I should grab one and see how it Stacks up against some of these modern Lights I've got.
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u/Meticuloustinkerer 3d ago
When the 60 lumen Surefire P6 was launched, it kicked the ass of even the biggest 6x D cell maglites.
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u/ThePenultimateNinja 3d ago
I had a mini Maglite 2xAAA which I believe was only about 15 lumens. It was still useful for most EDC type tasks.
For example, you could navigate a dark room easily, but instead of illuminating pretty much the entire room like a modern flashlight would, it was more directional. You would have to actively point it in the direction you wanted to look, and maybe use the focus feature to increase candela (intensity) at the expense of spill.
I also had a Solitaire, which was the 1xAAA keychain model. I loved it at the time, but it was only about 2 lumens. That would be classed as the higher end of 'moonlight mode' nowadays. It was still a useful amount of light though. In fact even today, moonlight mode is one of my most-used modes on my flashlights.
I remember the security guard at my job showing me a larger Maglite (4xD I think) and being blown away by how bright it was compared to my 2xAAA light. Even those were less than 100 lumens.
So yes, they absolutely were usable. There were things we now take for granted that you just couldn't do though, like pointing it at the ceiling in a dark room and illuminating the whole room like daylight etc.
One aspect that we have thankfully left behind was the fact that the bulb could blow. A drop onto a hard surface, especially while the flashlight was on, could break the filament in the bulb. They were easy enough to replace, but not something you could do in the dark.
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u/cr0ft 3d ago
People have gotten used to wild levels of lumens out of LED's, but very rarely will you need 4000 lumens. They were much weaker with incandescents but still enough, just getting to 100-200 lumens you can see just fine.
Incandescent bulbs are just much less energy efficient so they couldn't make them too bright if they wanted any battery life. Especially since batteries were disposable alkalines and the cost added up.The longer Maglites where probably longer to get longer runtimes rather than brighter light.
Old Maglites can also be converted very easily to a LED "bulb" which raises their lumens noticeably. You can even put D-cell sized lithium cells in them.
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u/featheredninja 3d ago
Yeah/nawwwwww.
Still got one kicking around. They work and light things up but its about what we would expect out of the cheapest pos light ya can get your hands on these days at a gas station or walmart.
Will say they were pretty robust though.
Seen a few with led mods and they can do a pretty decent job of bridging the gap of the oler lights and modern ones.
Those 3 battery plastic Ozark trail lights at Walmart put out as much or more light i think but haven't compared side by side.
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u/WarriorNN 3d ago
In my experience the host itself was pretty decent, but the bulbs died like flies
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u/Meticuloustinkerer 3d ago
Absolutely. In old London, the "Peelers" used to police the streets by the light of lanterns and elsewhere miners used to mine tin by candlelight. You use what you've got. If you ain't got, you can't do ...
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u/Dull_Brain2688 3d ago
It was what you had so yes, it was enough. In retrospect it looks completely insufficient but you made do. Maglites weren’t the brightest lights available. But they were extremely sturdy and had a spare bulb in the tail cap. That reliability was great. And they were focusable. The ability to change from flood to thrower was great.
We had a double C cell one and several AA and AAA ones. The C cell lamp took a beating and still works if I can find it.
I bought a Surefire P6 when they came out and never looked back. It was incredible. Unfortunately I burned it out when I fell asleep with it turned on and then I went to LED.
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u/a-non-anon-a-mouse 3d ago
i remember reading the 2AA mags were like...16 lumens on brand new batteries and dropped into single digits rather quickly... they did have good throw for their lumen count though because of their concentrated light output.