Just a little bump. I was correct when I said that this would be my go - to light. I know a few people who have ordered one of these since playing with mine and this light has made a few of my other lights obsolete.
The simplicity of the charging is amazing.
The UI for the power modes at first is odd but now I know it I wish other lights had the same.
The throw for the size is epic. The photos show that it can reach out a fair way but they dont quite do the light justice.
The magnetic charging keychain is great. It’s tiny but so useful.
I know that I was provided this light to do a review but this review isn’t tainted by the fact I got it at a reduced price. It really is great.
reminder of where you can get it - thanks BANGGOOD
Also, if I’m going to do more reviews of lights what else would you look for in a review? I’ve just ordered a lux meter so I can test all of my lights against each other.
Last night I was playing with a new toy a - lux meter and I wanted to answer the question of how the light performs on different cells. I tested it with a number of 18650’s to check ceiling bounce and there was a few moments where the light flickered a bit, I was in a dark room and at the time I was making notes and the light was my only source of light so it was quite obvious to the eye that it was flickering.
The strange whistling noise I mentioned when I first got it was present but no more than normal. Maybe it seemed louder because I was in a small room on my own in a quiet house. So, on with the testing and the light decides to completely cut out after ~5seconds of use. I swap the battery over and it lights up for ~1second and goes off completely. Odd?! I take the battery out and smell something. I poke the spring on the tailcap and its red hot, hot enough to burn my skin which blistered up instantly and left white patches. Not so fun.
I put the light back together and nothing. The light is dead and I’ve got the lovely smell of burnt electronics.
One thing to note is that the lights onboard power indicator still works. I press the power on the bottom and the light goes green.
I’m tempted to run a battery down and see if it charges it but at the same time I dont like the idea of using something I know is faulty to charge an 18650 cell. Something about that sounds dangerous.
So here is the thing, I got the light to do a review, will they swap it out? Will they say tough luck? Who knows.
Whatever happens will make up my mind on this light. I think I was one of the first people on the forums with one in my hands so maybe I had a early model that was faulty. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky but I’ll let you guys know the outcome.
I’m also taking the chance to do a capacity test on the supplied battery. I didn’t get a chance to do it before so i’m leaving it on the Opus charger to see how it scores later.
I just received my XT12GT this week, and have played a bit with it - beautiful light - maybe more light than I need, as I am mostly an in-town kinda guy and rarely get out where it’s truly dark. But, MAN, it makes a beautiful beam!
I am subbing this thread to see if the cause of chrisc’s XT12GT is ever arrived at.
chrisc - I hope you get that light working, or a replacement, but mostly, I hope, for the rest of us new XT12GT owners, that the problems you had are a unique, on-off and not indicative of general quality and life-expectancy of this light!
If that is the case I’d have thought the protected cell would have simply stopped. To be honest I’ve never deliberately shorted out a protected cell to see what happens but I’d expect it’d stop this from happening.
I doubt I’m going to hear anything for a couple of weeks considering it’s Chinese New Year at the moment so I’ll just lob the light in the corner and give up on it.
Either way, I see banggood are posting in the forum and are active so that throws my idea out of the window.
I’ve just emailed Klarus directly too to see what they say.
It shouldnt matter if I paid MSRP / RRP / Trade / Discount / Free etc the light should still work as per any other light that they sell. Its a bit rubbish that I was one of the first who posted pictures/beamshots with one in hand and mine has gone pop. If I wasn’t one of the first to get one I’d say that build quality must be questionable but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.
I still think my light might have been defective from day 1 when I noticed the whistle of the driver it seemed odd but saying that I noticed my TN36 hums a bit on turbo.
Another thing I noted was that there is a lot of obvious PWM when you video it. I’m trying to get someone else to confirm if they see the same but when I had my camera on video mode and I went through the modes the PWM flicker was very noticeable.
Got my xt12gt a few days ago and am some what disappointed. I’m seeing pwm on the lower modes as well. Only on high and turbo is there no observable pwm. I have a ec4gt and the hotspot on that is definitely brighter and tighter than the xt12gt. I also have a Thorfire TK4A (neutral white) and visually the ceiling bounce is noticeably brighter on the TK4A. To be fair though the TK4A is brighter than most of my other 1000ish lumen lights. The TK4A is probably doing 1200-1300. I’ve got two Thorfire C8s and the PF04 and I gotta say I’m super impressed with the build quality of the lights. Thorfire lights aren’t feature rich but boy do you have the essentials down.
Any way I digress. I put a 30Q in the xt12gt and that doesn’t seem to make a difference. I also noticed a bit of flickering on turbo after leaving the light on for a few minutes. I think this is the boost driver trying to adjust the current draw as the voltage drops. On the positive side it does hold it’s brightness on turbo pretty well, even 20 minutes in. But I suppose this isn’t too hard since it’s only putting out like 1100-1200 lumens. I’ve love to see someone with a lux meter do an accurate test. After 10 minutes on turbo the light is only slightly warm.
The built in charger stop at 4.20v so that’s good. After this and the reports of the G20 and G30 under performing the stated specs I don’t think I’ll be buying another Klarus light. Multiply their specs buy 70% and that’s more likely the type of light you’ll be getting.
That’s weird, in my unit the output starts to drop immediately after turn on and then does a pretty good job at regulating the temperature. If anything the temperature regulation is too severe it never gets noticeably hot. Maybe there is a NTC resistor on the MCPCB and there is someway to isolate just a bit to make it run brighter…
I don’t have a lumens spehere but it measured roughly 50% more in ceiling bounce tests against my other ANSI 1,000 lumens light, including the Utorch UT02 which lots of people reported 1,000lm as well.
Mine is an absolute killer…lightweight, a powerhouse, and beyond-par quality…no PWM on any modes. 1,444 lumens @ the 30-second mark using the stock battery. It didn’t come charged, though. It came fully undercharged Handles heat well and feels great to use and hold. Love it!
No PWM at all? Wow I know of a number of people who have checked and said there is quite obvious PWM when you view it with a camera. Obviously this isn’t a problem for general use but it certainly was there.
As a note, Klarus told me that Banggood need to sort it out. They said if I told them who was not responding they would take it up with them as a matter of priority. As luck happens I had a response from Banggood this morning asking a few questions so they’re not ignoring me just yet
On bounce tests mine was performing at 235 lux vs 117 of a thorfire C8s (claimed to be around 1000 lumens), the EA41 came in at 109 lux and a TN31 at 136. To me this flashlight put out a shed load of light.
The XT12 GT wont have a NTC on the MCPCB like the XT11GT
if you put a XHP35 HI E4 inside be aware that the markings on the star dont match the LED contacts,
because it is soldered in reverse polarity shame to the guy designing the MCPCB
I didnt find any NTC on the driver so its using the one in the MCU,
this is bad, bacause I would like to mod it to run with a bit hotter body temperature,
like my Nitecore P12 which got very constant 60°C on the head of the light
Lights that have a NTC on the star have a very clean and flat PID, because there is almost no delay in temperature change
Thanks for your input Lexel, I thought that as well, while the regulation maintains the temperature at low levels, the output is all over the place. The ups and downs are too severe and the steps are visually noticeable, unlike the smooth PID of zebralights.
Anyways for the size of this light I’m not disappointed, but still not good enough for my go-to light. The search continues…
I’m interested in the P12 now that you mention it, the turbo mode is a slow drop like the MH20GT or PID style?
It seems like I’m getting a replacement sent to me. I’ve said that if I do not need to send my one back I’ll ship the broken one to Lexel for them to do a tear down on it if they wish.
If not I’ll probably try and do a tear down on it myself and I might end up with 2 working lights - unlikely though.
