Aputure / Amaran LED Light Info

Here is some technical info I’ve collected about the excellent and affordable LED lights from Aputure / Amaran. I spent some time with the Amaran P60c RGBWW LED Panel and the Aputure LS-60x point source light.

Amaran P60c RGB LED panel

Also see my guide to disassembling the Amaran P60c LED Panel. It’s a bit hard to open, so maybe my pain can be your gain!

Power Testing

  • Specs say voltage range via DC input is 12.5 – 16.8 V, but the tested low-voltage cutoff is 11.3 V.
  • Battery metering is not available via DC input (only NP-F batteries, see below)
  • Power adapter supplies 15 V
  • Specs say input power: 78 W max (Output: 60W)
  • Specs say operating current: 4.5 A
  • Tested @ 3200k, 100% brightness: 4.7 A @ 15.2 V (71.5 W)

D-Tap Battery Runtime via DC Input:

With a 98 Wh V-lock battery (Hypercore Neo 9 mini) I got these runtimes at 3200k, 100% brightness

Runtime Remaining time (actual)
Remaining time on batt LCD
Remaining % on batt LCD
batt Voltage
 
0 1:10 1:21 100%   start
:15 :55 1:00 80%    
:30 :40 :45 60% 14.35 v  
      50% 14.15 v  
:45 :25 :30 45% 13.8 v  
      35% 13.55 v  
      25% 13 v  
      20% 12.25 v  
1:00 :10 :10 15% 11.75 v  
1:10 0 :05 10%

11.3 v

turned off

NP-F Power Input:

Battery metering isn’t available when powering through the DC input, and I want to avoid NP-F batteries because 1) They are a pain to manage, and 2) I want to keep the weight of the batteries lower on the light stand. So I investigated injecting external (D-Tap) power into the NP-F mounts instead:

  • The NP-F input has a much higher low-voltage cut off: 12.7 v (compared to 11.3 for the DC input jack) This makes is basically useless for me.
  • The battery plates are wired in series, but there’s a center tap for cell monitoring (like the balance connector on RC batteries). The light won’t work if you leave the center taps disconnected. I tried several voltage divider techniques and settled on the one below. (Resistor values are derived from a 500k potentiometer, but a similar ratio (.0724) could be made from fixed resistors, as long as the total resistance is pretty high to avoid power loss. Untested example: 33k / 470k)

Power Connectors

Mounting:

The P60c has no yoke. It has 1/4-20 mounts with an included umbrella mount for tilting. This seems totally unsafe. I asked Aputure and they said they don’t plan on making a yoke.

Aputure LS-60x bi-color point-source light

Power Testing

  • My lights shipped with Firmware 1.7 in 2023
  • Specs say max draw: 80 W (6.5A)
  • Tested @ 3200k: 5.1A @ 15.1V (77W)
  • Specs say 6-19 V input voltage (Voltages < 13 v require active NP-F adapter which sends signal to limit power.)
  • Power cable is different than the P60x. The extra pins interact with the active NP-F plate (to put the light into low-power mode if only 1 battery is connected.)
  • Unlike P60c, this light is designed for battery powering through the power connector, so the onboard battery meter works with D-Tap batteries. BUT, the tested low-voltage cutoff is 13 V (which leaves a lot of unused energy in the battery!) I asked Aputure and they said the cutoff should be 12.5v and they don’t plan on changing anything via firmware.
  • My 94 Wh D-Tap battery only lasted 45 minutes @ 100% brightness before cutoff
  • Power adapter supplies 18.75 (19) V
    LS 60x power pinout (power cable end)