Interesting. I’ll add it to post #1.
It’s for people who need high output for long times. The MF01 for instance can do 12k lumen, but only for a few minutes. I can’t remember what it’s top sustained output is, maybe 3k to 4k lumen?
The top dog, I believe, at the moment is the giant Acebeam X65, which can do a sustained 6,000 lumen with no active cooling. That’s impressive, but it’s pricey at $574.
That’s currently the limit for non fan cooled sustained output.
For those folks that do search and rescue or police, you might need a brighter light that can work continuously and the higher cost is not a big issue. You pretty much have to go to active/fan cooling.
The Powertac X10K can do 10,000 lumen for 1.7 hours. That’s pretty impressive.
It’s not for the average person. It’s a small market, but it exists.
I just looked at the Acebeam Specs and it says it can do 120 minutes at 6000 lumens. DX80 specs say 13,000 lumens for 8 minutes and then stepping down to 7000 lumens for 120 mintues, so wouldn't the DX80 be rated higher the the X65?
Can the DX80 really do a sustained 7k lumen? I haven’t seen anyone test that yet.
I know that when Maukka tested the X65 it did about 6300 lumen with a fan circulating room temperature air and about 5300 lumen with no fan. Just still air.
If I can find some tests of the DX80’s sustained output I will post it here.
I'd be interested too. I was testing the DX80 in turbo today at -5C which is 23F and ran it for 90 second and it barely even got warm. Canadian temps do wonders for the this flashlight 
Okay, I talked to Maiden666 who did some really good tests on the Imalent DX80.
According to him, the DX80 can be turned on in Med-Hi mode for 6,000 lumen in a 25°C/77°F room with no fan and it will maintain that output until the batteries drain. This beats the Acebeam X65 that does 5,300 lumen under the same circumstances.
If we add a fan to circulate air around the DX80, it can maintain 7,000 lumen. You have to first turn it on at a higher level and then let it step down, though.
If we look at his chart, we can see that both Turbo and Hi will step down to 7,000 lumen. Turbo will maintain 7,000 with no fan for about 17 minutes then the temperature hits 65°C/149°F and Maiden666 turned on the fan. From Hi it lasted about 32 minutes before he turned on the fan. (the red and green triangles in the chart is where he turned on the fan)
I’m not sure what would happen if he had not turned on the fan. Maybe output would have dropped to 6,000 lumen?
On Maiden666 chart he is showing med-hi at around 6000 lumens but imalents specs show med-hi at 5000 lumens. Based on other flashlights I have, Maidens lumens would be correct as it appears Imalent understated their lower lumens output.
None of Imalents official specs look correct. In Maidens review, all power levels are compared to the factory specs and you can see the differences.
The specs not matching reality might be partly due to Imalent doing a 2nd revision of the light. I think Maidens first light broke and he had to wait to get a 2nd revision light. Iirc.
Based on the battery pack there appears to be a 3rd version now too, or maybe it was just a minor change in the production run.
I would figure search and rescue. A bright light that can continuously output really bright light is better than a bright light that can’t, may as well pave the way for bright lights with endurance.
What I think would be ultimately awesome is a bright flashlight that also has a power input connector to hook up to a battery bank. These flashlights that have tripod mounts are only useful until the battery runs dead. A bright light with a tripod mount, active cooling, and optional external battery bank hookup for continuous operation could seriously be handy.
I agree, but it does kill all the other lights when it comes to the combination of lumens + throw for as long as possible without stepping down. It also allows you too see further because there is no spill.
Changes to the design I would like:
- Replace the weird lens above the LED with a classic pre-collimator (spherical lens) to get a normal looking hotspot
- Enlargen the battery compartment for 26650s and 21700s
- Make it waterproof
- Replace the “stick” switch with a more robust looking one and replace the metal swetch guard with something more elegant
I do wonder though if their lights are really that much better or if they are just daring anough to offer the longer warranty. The flashy, “high-quality” packaging is certainly part of the higher price.
Thanks for the feedback, while there aren’t any plans for a storm replacement in progress I think some future lights probably will focus more on beam quality even if there is some sacrifice in performance (I get a little obsessed with maximum performance sometimes :smiling_imp: ). The later built ones actually do support 21700s but it’s not advertised because it’s not all of them (I think there is one 20700 still in stock). Yes future lights will have better water resistance, although it can be tricky in these unconventional designs due to the added complexity that must be balanced against the ability to produce them in house on such a small scale. I do love the toggle switches, they have such a nice feeling to them, tried to do a full sized one but they take up a ton of space and it’s nearly impossible to find one in the very odd configuration needed, also very hard to find nice guards for the smaller toggles. Still this size toggle is pretty durable.
Nope, not yet. That’s the same old page with no info on it from over a month ago. It’s also the same link I have in post #1.
I bet the X70 is going to be $700+
Possibly. The PowerTac is $720. It’s only 10k lumen, but made in USA.
Acebeam is made in China so that lowers the cost, but it’s also way more powerful. So I’m thinking at least $600 to $800. If it works well, it will probably sell well.
If the fan doesn't drain the battery too quickly, I'm sure they are going to do really well.
A tiny cooling fan draws a fraction of what an LED draws. So combined with many high current leds, the fan is not even going to be noticable to the batteries.
It should be interesting then what Acebeam and Astrolux have for us. I hope it's not going to be a gimmick such as a high lumens light with several mini fans and 1 minute longer run times on max than lights without cooling.
@50 seconds