Received the Sofirn SP10B a few days ago and wanted to share my findings, and run a giveaway for a couple lights courtesy of Sofirn.
They can be purchase at Amazon and at Amazon.UK. (non-affiliate link)
Discount codes:
(Black) 10% off code 54R4YCM9
(Red)10% off code 5VZ6XSX8
(Blue)10% off code V2GHV5GX
Giveaway is posted on the second post of this thread.
The SP10B is a SP10A with some UI refinements best I can tell. With a generic box, it comes with the standard things like a clip, spare o-rings, lanyard and a fairly well written manual, and a choice of three colors.
Nice anodizing, square threads, and beefy o-rings. Nice clicky steel side button, solid with not much slop. Sofirn claims IPX8, but I didn’t do a water dunk test. But will say, the o-rings are in the right places, and would be a good idea to grease them.
SP10B utilizes a neutral white XP-G2 emitter behind an orange peel reflector. Nothing is glued so it can be easily modified. I may re-flow a Nichia 219C on mine.
The light is a touch under 3.5 inches (88cm) long, and .75inch (1.9cm) in diameter at the head. Here it is next to the 18650 Sofirn SP31. It’s basically a shrunk down SP32. (the one with no tail cap button)
The UI: To turn the light on, is sort of “long” press. What I mean by “sort of” is, it’s like a .2 or .3 second press. More like a longer or slow click. So, long click to turn it on, subsequent clicks through the modes. To get to high or “turbo”, double quick clicks from any mode. The two stage strobe is 3 quick clicks.
Turbo (high) can be accessed directly from off by double clicking. Same with strobe.
The light does have a lockout mode which is 4 quick clicks. However, I found it fiddly if not difficult to get it in and out of lockout. Much easier to give the tail cap a slight twist. The light does have memory even after being locked and unlocked with the tail cap.
The beam is very slightly ringy with a slight bit of tint shift, but nothing bad or noticeable outdoors, or indoors for that matter. I think this could benefit with a light diffuser film on the lens.
My camera is normally sensitive to PWM, didn’t detect it here. https://youtu.be/Q7SCPdl17bc
The specs Sofirn lists are:
14500 battery - Moon 2lm, Low 60lm, Medium 234 lm, High (turbo) 573 lm. Roughly half that using an AA alkaline or NiMH.
I ran some runtimes (using Zak Wilson’s ceiling bounce app) with an Efest 650mAh 14500 .
Also ran a runtime with a 2000mAh NiMH.
Wanted to see where the step-down would occur if any. Appears to step-down from High (turbo) to medium after about 3.4 minutes. Then would go on until the battery would drain to 2.8v where the low voltage warning will start to blink. (LVW only with 14500 none with AA)
This test was on Medium (224 lm). The light gradually ramped down. I stopped the test after 1:45 minutes, it was still at around 25 lumens. The battery voltage was at 2.9v at this point.
Here is a test with a 2000mAh NiMH. Starting 1.44v. Appears to do roughly the same thing as the 14500, except it regulates through the Medium mode after a stepdown from 3 minutes on high. The medium mode lasted about 87 minutes, goes out of regulation, then ramps down to low where the light shuts off in about 18 minutes.
I think the initial drop was me messing with the app trying to zero it.
Over all, I like this SP10B. It’s a good bang for the buck and wouldn’t be concerned if I lost one. Also a good safe light to give to non flashlight savvy people using NiMH rechargeables.