How many lumens is too much?

[KenIchikawa]

How many lumens is considered too much for a torch for it to be unfair/dangerous when considering a torch?

I've been looking around and there are claimed 500 lumens too strong or just right?

I mean I've got me a 7200 lumen LED array lying around but I think this might be excessive and cause lots of this.

[tackle]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

About 150 is probably a reasonable & safe lumen count (especially when strobing) & is adequate if the beam spread isn't too wide, much more than that starts to become questionable ?.
Don't forget a lot of the quoted figures for lamp output are highly exaggerated anyway.

[ElZer0]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

They norm state the chip data, not the output of the torch.
Tis a ol trick with lighting companies

[JCheeseright]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

'safe' isn't really an issue here, unless you're getting into the several thousand lumen (like 10,000+) range you can't cause any damage to someone's eyes. Think how bright the sun is... we deal with that EVERY DAY.

'Too bright' comes in when the backsplash from your light ends up negatively affecting YOUR vision, I've had that happen at 200lm in small rooms with white walls!

Surefire intellibeam lights use a little brightness control sensor to lower the output of the torch when the amount of light coming back hits a certain level.

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to put the sun into context, you're looking at about 100,000lm per square meter on the earth with unobstructed sunlight. Obviously looking directly at the sun is BAD, but getting anywhere near that brightness in a torch is pretty difficult.

[KenIchikawa]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

to put the sun into context, you're looking at about 100,000lm per square meter on the earth with unobstructed sunlight. Obviously looking directly at the sun is BAD, but getting anywhere near that brightness in a torch is pretty difficult.

Hmm

[tackle]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

Lol, it's not just about "actual" levels that could harm, it's about gamesmanship , to run a taclite that makes people look away, quite literally unbearable to look at, then the question of fair play is raised.
While in real steel applications its an acceptable risk to get the drop on an opponent in what could be a lethal situation, what we do is a game, maybe even a sport, but there is a line & some twat will always try to cross it.

[JCheeseright]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

Hmm

Go ahead, mount that on an airsoft gun.

[tackle]

Re: How many lumens is too much?

For emergency services applications that would be awesome