I posed to question to Surefire Tech Support: Which is brighter, A M1 (IR LED w one battery) or a 9V M900 with an IR filter.  TO my supprise they said it was the M1, which is smaller, runs hours on a single DL123A, and doesn't get hot.  I was almost ready to go buy an IR filter when I asked the question.

I then wish somebody would try to build a IR LED spotlight with prehaps the M1 LED in the focal point of a turbo head or streamlight litebox reflector.

I dont know how they came to that conclusion.  Go ask around on some NV forums and you will hear everyone praise the ilght output of IR filtered lights and discuss how the IR LED has a useless range.  Go do some more research on your own from those who have used both and have no incentive to sell either.

What are you using the light for?

I use the light to cut sign w/ NVGs on.

I prefer the M1 over ANY visable light w/ IR filter.

The reason is that the light is "clean" and tightly focused.  If you get around any brush,  or trees a NON focused beam causes a lot of light to come back at me,  not all that great when the 7Bs are on.

YMMV

Biggame223

Out

An LED will give you CLEAN and truly invisible IR light, whereas a "filtered" beam can, to a point, be somewhat visible because the source is visible.

LEDs are pre-focused and do not drain batteries.

You are correct, an LED "head" with 7 or so individual LEDs will put-out a great deal of IR light VS a surefire w/ filter.

I have an IR Ilumnator, made by SureFire, appx 4 years old. It's the older style not the current "M-1"(?IIIR), but I believe the specs are the same, the body just isn't as "artsy".

It has an IR LED that throws light like a SureFire visible LED. It is focused, fairly sharply, with a small amount of unfcused light on the periphery.

I'm not sure about range, but it needs a surface to "bounce" off of the effectively illminate. In other words if you aim it at the sky it is tough to tell it is on. If you aim it at a fixed object it will be real visible.

Mine was showing up pretty good last night in the woods, appx 40 yards away. I have AN-PVS-7B's. I think results will vary, cheaper night vision just doesn't work as well.

As far as IR illum. vs IR filter. Both will be visible to some people's naked eyes. I can see my illuminator when it is on. so have other people. But the IR filter is likely to have som white light escaping, making it more visible. It is less effiecient to create white light then filter it to IR, than to create IR light. Also Surefire lights run hot. If you put a filter over the bezel, it will run hotter still. You may damage your equip. or have the battieries thermal shutdowon activate, if you use the light in constant on mode. Not to mention the IR LED gets like 8-12 hrs of use out of 1 battery.

I would have thought the IR filter output would be tighter than the IR LED since it has no reflector.  The filter shouldn't disturb the beam pattern, just reject the non IR wavelenghts.

I'm not sure how to answer that, except I have an IR illuminator, and a KL3 (?) LED replacement bezel. Both seem to have a focused beam, just like a conventional Surefire.

I'm also not sure how much light is left from an incandesant light after you filter out all the non-IR wavelenghts. Seems like it wastes a lot of the light being produced. I don't think a filter will change the focus, beam shape etc.

But a filter seems to be a good choice if you need to create IR light occasionally, and already have a SureFire light. A dedicated IR illuminator seems to be a better choice if you need to IR regularly, or for longer times during the use.

I don't know for sure, I'm just a multt-SureFire owner-operator.

I have the Surefire M-1 and it does put out a little tiny red glow - ever little but not perfectly dark.

The beam is a tight even illumination. The thing does not get hot at all. I haven't tested the life of the battery yet but it has to be better than the visible light and IR filter.

Paul,
Battery life is like 6-10 hours on a single cell.

Thanks plenty enough for me - many times that of a visible light with IR filter.