80,000 hours LED on AA battery

[Aaron Murakami]

Aimpoint is a leading manufacturer of red dot sights for firearms.

They have a circuit called "Advanced Circuit Efficiency Technology" or ACET for short that claims to be able to efficiently light an LED on a AA battery for 50,000 to 80,000 hours.

The led is lit, reflects on a lens and bounces out to your eye as you look through the sight. They pioneered the red dot technology that is pretty much becoming the standard sighting method over iron sights.

I tried to find a patent or some diagram of that light circuit - anyone know anything about this? I can't even find a patent number so maybe it is just potted and kept proprietary - I don't know.

[wrtner]

I'm not too confident about this. The assignee company is from Sweden:
4,330,706. You could glance at 4,804,858 which is amusing because it
seems to seek to vary the LED according to ambiant brightness.

[Aaron Murakami]

Thanks Wrtner,

That seems to be an old patent - they probably have it developed quite a bit since then but the concept there does make sense.

The brighter the ambient light, the brighter the dot in the sight to be able to see it and the darker it is, the dimmer the light can be to be able to see it.

Even with that kind of concept, I don't see 50k+ hours of running time. They got to have some kind of evolution from this that is really significant if true.

Besides "Advanced Circuit Efficiency Technology", they also have the regular "Circuit Efficiency Technology", which is also supposed to have incredible efficiency.

I see the newer 1988 patent you posted - I saw reference to both of these last night but assumed this technology had to be much newer than that...maybe not.

[longhorn]

Aaron

Can't help you much on an 80,000 hour LED, but this is interesting along the same lines in the form of a project in the direction of search for longevity in an LED device.

Easier Flashlight Mod Increases Run Time 3.6X

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy...-36X/?ALLSTEPS

For a few bucks you can have an emergency battery powered flashlight that will last for weeks.

The article states:

Update 11-10-12.

I started a test to see how long the batteries would last running 24 hours a day. The test started on the morning of 10-26-12. I was expecting a 200 hour run time. After 15 days (360 hours). The flashlight still puts out a usable amount of light. I can still read with it without any problem. I also got the opinion of a fellow flashlight enthusiast who thinks the flashlight is still useful for its intended purpose which is for the user to be able to easily see their way around the house in the dark and be able to easily read. The flashlight is noticeably dimmer than it was at the beginning of the test so I would conclude that this is a 360 hour flashlight. It has exceeded my expectations because the run time has been increased 5.5x. If I was using this flashlight 6 hours a day the test would have taken 60 days to get to this point.

Good luck in your quest!

Really am enjoying your book "The Quantum Key"!

Sincerely

[James McDonald]

Hi Aaron --

This looks like Esaki Tunnel Diode technology is being used to allow the battery life to be
increased. This might be what they are calling the ACET. Esaki Tunnel Diodes have a negative
resistance effect. See information below. I have two documents on this.

Can I email them to you?


"Esaki diodes was named after Leo Esaki, who in 1973 received the Nobel Prize in Physics for
discovering the electron tunneling effect used in these diodes. Esaki reported the first paper on
tunnel diodes in Physical Review in 1958."

-- James McDonald