If someone happens to love the usb charging and have an S30R III, its battery (ORB-186C35, 3500 mAh) works well and has protection. It doesn’t sacrifice any lumens either. The S2R battery (ORB-186C32, 3200 mAh) on the other hand trips at 5 amps and doesn’t work on turbo on the H2R.
Still, just ditch the charging system and use a good regular cell…
This charging system is ridiculously dangerous.
I’m not skittish about Li-ion batteries. I casually recommend unprotected cells (do not short, over-discharge or eat unprotected cells), use laptop pulls in series lights (test for similar capacity and resistance if you do that, and don’t try to push the runtime) and usually try to educate and reassure people who have concerns about battery safety.
This light comes with an unprotected battery and exposes live contacts with a magnet behind them. Olight has built a 2300 lumen pipe bomb, and they should put a diode in the bloody tailcap before they blow somebody’s leg off. That’s what Armytek does. With the tailcap loosened for charging, voltage is detectable on the outside of the light, but no current will flow. I measured 0.0μA.
Wow, the charging port is scary on this. No way would I buy a light with this bad of a safety issue. Like Zak said, a pipe bomb waiting to happen…
Magnets attract “ferrous dust” (small bits of iron and steel) and all it would take is some of this gathering on the tail cap and you use the magnet to stick the light to a metal surface, countdown begins……
Great, comprehensive review Makkua, thanks for the time and effort on this, too bad Olight has such a huge flaw in the light.
Edit for word. I do so love your reviews Makkua, awesome information in them.
I really hope the batteries that were shipped with my light were some sort of preproduction models without protection.
I discharged them down to 2 volts and the low voltage protection they claim in the wrapper didn’t activate. Also, I haven’t seen any protection circuits that activate at currents higher than 20 amps (that’s as high as my dc load goes). I really don’t want to short the tailcap with the battery inside to be sure though.
Another indicator of them being unprotected is the weight. They weigh in at 48 and 49 grams while other protected Olight batteries weigh 50-51 grams.
I connected a 2 amp load to the tailcap and it was able to drive it. So current is definitely flowing from there.
So why the fuck did they not include a simple diode in the tail to protect from shorts?
Just compensate the 0.3V on charger and its fine, you have to reduce 0.8V from USB the one or other way anyway to charge the cell
Or the battery is unprotected but the charging port got a PCB of some sort
$90 pipe bomb at that. I don’t need a 2000 lumen burn mark on my forehead either. Will stick with the $30 reliable H03
Armytek does make a very similar light with a much safer charging system and no proprietary batteries. Driver efficiency and max output are a little lower, but neither is very important in actual use.
Thank you maukka. Another great and in depth review. :+1:
Yes, Olight calling that WW, a NW, is a head scratcher for sure. You are not alone either. All of the reviews I have seen on this light, are getting the same WW results, on the NW version. :sunglasses:
Now I can sleep at night again.
Old design magnetic tailcap, like S10RII was better.
You can use any 16340 and the light was able to charge it, and no live contact…
But I think the design was pricier for them because the charging circuit had to be integrated to the light.
Update: according to Olight’s engineers there’s over current protection on the battery at 27 amps. So shorting the tailcap contacts will not damage the battery or the light.
If they went through the trouble to put a [short] current limiting circuit, why would you set it at 27A? A lot of cells will still get dangerously hot and can still vent if ran continuously at that current. Seems silly.
And one more THANK YOU to maukka for your AWESOME reviews!! It's unfortunate that it took this long for light tests/reviews to start actually characterizing the LIGHT (beyond lumens/lux) and not just the physical torch/flashlight. Maybe this will get more momentum into the high CRI market. These days you don't need a CW top bin emitter to get practical flux numbers. 90CRI Nichias in a 3.5mm footprint are capable of 900 lumens with only moderate over-driving (~3.5A). I know that we all love our 2000 lumen headlamps, but lets be honest; how much do you actually get to use that? Until Lumens/W take a HUGE jump, there's a harsh limitation to heat dissipation in our compact lights. And in my experience, about 1200 lumens is a max for a practical and usable 'High' in an EDC/headlamp. Anything higher only makes sense as a momentary function. Just my $0.02.
THANKS!
i really like your detailed reviews!
Since the protection is in the bundled battery, which is a high current one, and only Olight proprietary cells can be shorted via the tailcap contacts, I see no problem. Other 18650 Olights compatible with the H2R charging system I have tested have had their OCP at much lower levels: if I remember correctly 5 A for the 3200 mAh (came with S2R) and 11 A for the 3500 mAh (S30R III).
Now, who has a clamp meter, an H2R and balls of steel? I want to know if a dead short using a thick wire actually trips protection on that battery. It doesn’t have low-voltage protection (WTF?), so I’m not sure I believe them about this.
Question is, how can this be IPX8? if submerged and also maybe in heavy rain will this short?
Olight H2R torture test
THank you, because despite the price i like the light to be honest (WW tint), ......but now it seems i'm not able to understand something in the whole story. :confused
I received mines today in neutral white. Mine is definitely neutral white. If I had to guess, maybe around 4600 to 4700k. It’s just slightly warmer than my EC4SW’s (MT-G2) and much cooler than my Manker E14 II with 4000K Nichia 219C. I was actually looking forward to the warmer temp that I saw in this review and another review, but in the end I’m very happy with the temp and tint.