Well this is interesting...

A meter of red LEDs and a meter of yellow LEDs, identical specs, on identical batteries.

The red LEDs went out after 10 hours, the yellow LEDs are still going after 15 hours.

Wat.

Tried again with the LEDs on different batteries. Same result.

I wonder if the red LEDs are overheating and that makes them draw more and drain the battery faster?

@yantor3d AFAIK, different color LEDs are made of different materials and thus surely have different characteristics.
@antopatriarca Yeah... but in another 30 minutes, the yellow LEDs will have lasted twice as long as the red LEDs. So I am starting to suspect the battery...
@yantor3d Or maybe a faulty strip of red LED
@yantor3d Ooh ooh, I think I know why! Apparently, in order to make an LED that looks really red to the human eye, the frequency needs to be on the very edge of the visible spectrum, so it won’t activate your “green” cones (whose region of sensitivity overlaps with the “red” ones.) But your sensitivity to light at that frequency is much lower than in the center— so the LED needs to emit much more light to seem equally bright to the human eye.

@otherthings Fascinating! That would explain why the reds LEDs look dimmer, even at full power.

But, I just plugged red, yellow, and white LEDs into a power meter with a 12V power supply - here's what I found.

Red draws 3000mAh
Yellow draws 4000mAh
White draws 3500mAh

So wouldn't the red last the longest?

@yantor3d Haha, you've got me there -- I know next to nothing about electronics, but it sure sounds like you're right... maybe the batteries are to blame after all?

@otherthings Could be. Could be the LED controller in between the battery and the light.

The yellow light is still going - it might make 24 hours. Once it goes out, I'm going to recharge the batteries, swap the lights, and re-run the test.

@yantor3d This is one of many amazing tidbits I picked up from Paul Debevec's talk for the San Francisco #SIGGRAPH chapter on "The Full Spectrum of Virtual Production": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMpg29Vc0bU
The Full Spectrum of Virtual Production - SF ACM SIGGRAPH 2023

YouTube