I was provide this light by Tracy Wan of Sofirn, for the purpose of review. They light may be purchased on Amazon.
Manufacturer’s specifications:
Like Sun lighting up the backyard at Night!!!
The flashlight remains in pocket size but focus on tactical usage. Cree V6 Led makes the beam powerful and wide to view the target clearly 200 meters away. To activate the high brightness in backyard, your pet thinks the sun is coming up at night! 130.8mm length and 77.6 gram makes the torch portable as a do-everything-go-anywhere light. Furthermore, tactical tail switch and side switch enable fast and simplified operation, works great in camping, cycling, hiking, night walking, emergency, law enforcement, car or bike.
Specification:
Cree XPL2-V6 3D LED with a lifespan of 100,000 hours
Waterproof IPX-8 rated, underwater 2 meter / 6.5 feet for 30 minutes
Reliable durable aluminum material with premium Type III hard-anodized
Orange Peel reflector and lens made of toughened glass with anti-reflective coating Mine is SMO, would have preferred OP!
Smart low-voltage indication, 2 blinks per second lower than 2.8 volt
Reverse polarity protection, to protect from improper battery installation
Working Voltage: 2.8-8.4V
CCT Range: 4700K-5000K
Brightness:
Level: Firefly | Low | Mid | High | Strobe
Lumens: 1 | 43 | 354 | 957 | 957
Runtime: 173h | 40:28h | 6h | 1:11h | 36min
Instant-on firefly mode and the highest setting will induce blindness, so please shine it to eyes.
Package:
A Tactical Flashlight Torch with clip
A 2800mAh 18650 battery and USB charger
Two Spare O Rings
On to the light!
I really do like this light as a stock light. It has good hand feel, the side button is not the most easy to find. That would be my only real complaint with the design… The HA III finish is completely free from defects on my copy. The reflector and lens were also completely clean. There is more than enough knurling on the body to make it easy to hold on to and the tail switch is also easily accessible. I like the tail switch design, does not require some form of electronic lockout or mechanical lockout via a loose tail cap. The LED on my sample was very well centered as well.
What about the UI? I really like it, very basic with one surprise!
The tail switch controls power to this light. It also works as a momentary switch. It is a forward clicky style switch and it controls On/Off and momentary mode. The surprise? This light ramps, via the side switch, from FF>L>M>H>M>L>FF. I love the reverse mode ramping as opposed to the normal L>M>H>L>M>H of most lights. I also love that the firefly mode is not hidden from normal operations. To me, this makes this light a very good stock EDC. The light does have current mode memory, not next mode memory. The UI also includes a strobe and bike strobe. Strobe is turned on by a double click of the side switch and turned off by a single press returning you to the last mode used. The bike strobe is accessed by a long press of the side button and turned off by a single press of the side button returning you to the last mode used. The light must be powered on via the tail switch to access these modes. The tail switch may be half pressed to momentarily access the last mode used as well.
I forgot to mention the strobe and bike strobe modes are able to be memorized as well. If you power off the light in either mode, that will be considered the last mode used when powered back on. I like this feature, my youngest daughter does as well. She uses it around town on her bike, at my insistence. She is only 10!
Overall performance.
I have carried this light as an EDC for about 1 week, I try to do this with any light I review. This time allows me to form a fairly strong opinion of the light. The specs for the light indicate that high is around 957 lumens, my sample seems to do somewhat better than that based upon comparisons to other lights of known output. I would estimate 1050 to 1100 lumens at 30 seconds. The light draws 2.75 amps in high, measured with a clamp meter and a very short 12 awg wire loop. The light does have a step down from high to medium right at the 3 minute mark. By this time it is quite warm and likely should step down. At the 30 minute mark it steps down again to low. This step down is not heat related, I assume that it is by design to save battery power. I could not find any PWM with a still camera, video camera or by sight with motion. The step downs can be overridden by a press of the side switch, should you need the output. I did accidentally drop this light 8 feet to concrete from a ladder rack. I did nick the ano, but did not hurt the function of the light!
I was a little concerned about the supplied battery. I ran it through 2 complete normal test cycles on my Lii500 and it appears to perform fairly well. It is rated at 2800 mAh and both of my tests registered at 2550 mAh. This difference could be based upon a different termination voltage. My light did terminate operation at 2.7 Vdc after blinking 2 times per second for a good while. The current draw did not change with other protected and unprotected cells. The supplied battery charger did appear to work well, I ran 3 full charge cycles and all terminated between 4.18 and 4.19 Vdc. It appears to charge around 700 mAh, within manufacturers specs. This light worked well and also fitted well all of my 18650’s from the very long Keeppower protected high drain cells to the shortest unprotected Panasonic cells. With springs on the driver and tail switch, the battery is well supported.
This light is very bright for a stock light! The XP-L2 performs very well in the smooth reflector used in this light. The hot spot is very round and smooth. I did notice rings in the beam, this is not a surprise given the LED and reflector choice. I tend to think of high on this light as turbo and medium as a general high mode. Mode spacing is not perfect, but with 4 modes including a firefly mode… I can live with them.
The tint is wonderful! I love the tint versus output levels of the XP-L2 3D! It does indeed appear to be in the 4700K range and I prefer 4700 to 3750K.
Beamshot on high at 10 feet:
Beamshot on medium at 10 feet:
Beamshot on low at 10 feet:
Beamshot on high at dusk:
Pros:
Good user interface, no accidental strobe activations + current mode memory.
Good hand feel for a larger 18650 tube light with tail and side switch.
Great finish.
Great output.
Cons:
Maybe mode spacing…
Maybe smooth versus orange peel reflector to smooth out the rings in the beam.
Overall, this is a great little light stock. I would not hesitate to give it to someone as an EDC, if they have experience with 18650’s or other lithium ion batteries. It will also run with a pair of CR123A lithium primaries if the user is not a lithium ion user. Technically this light could be used with a pair of 18350’s, but I did not test nor would I use that combination.
Thanks Matt
