Review : Amutorch JM70 xp-l hi , single cell VFM thrower

Any chance to see the charging circuit? Is it integral part of the driver or a separate board?

Yeah
The anodize looks cheap…I would of guess HAII as well.

Lucky I didn’t pull the trigger on this light. Just too many question marks on my mine when I saw the photos on banggood.com

the anodizing reminds me of Ultrafire lights although a bit nicer and smoother. Machining is good but not sure why they include an extra front glass though.

Well………….got mine yesterday.

Pro:

  1. Anodizing looks good
  2. Led is perfectly centered
  3. Lens has a blueish hue so I guess there’s some kind of coating on it
  4. Charging port seems to work (charged 26650 in my Liitokala charger)
  5. Packaging was very sturdy, light was very well protected
  6. Nice beam and spill tint, nice NW, I like that.

Con:

  1. The reflector seems odd; there seem to be a lot of fine machining markings and it seems “hazy” for a lack of better words to describe it.
  2. Bezelring is light blue, don’t like that and would rather have a SS bezelring or a black aluminum one.
  3. Red driver with no on/off from the electronic switch
  4. Double click for (nicely bright) turbo is hard to engage; you sometimes just scroll through the normal modes
  5. How the hell do you get the switch out of there ???

Pro & Con:

  1. It doesn’t weigh a lot. Nice for carrying but I would have liked it to have more mass.

Conclusion: great midsize thrower for the money, so, as already stated, good VFM.

I made some pics to compare the reflector with my Acebeam T20 (roughly same size) and I compared both lights on turbo…………The Amutorch seems to have a slightly brighter hotspot.
Hopefully this week I’ll be able to do some measurements @ Djozz so I will post that then, but sofar it’s looking good.

To compare it to the already hyped Thrunite Catapult V6: roughly the same throw at half the price, nice.

Cheers,
Nico

[pic1](<a) href=“http://abload.de/image.php?img=p1011652mediummbslf.jpg”\>

[pic2](<a) href=“http://abload.de/image.php?img=p1011651mediumh4s8g.jpg”\>

[pic3](<a) href=“http://abload.de/image.php?img=p1011650mediummls80.jpg”\>

[pic4](<a) href=“http://abload.de/image.php?img=p1011647mediumxys5c.jpg”\>

[pic5](<a) href=“http://abload.de/image.php?img=p1011646mediumnfoaq.jpg”\>

I have to make a correction on my “review” post.

The charging port on mine does *NOT *work.
If the light is on and you plug the USB cable in your PC the light turns off - so I assumed it started charging.
But it doesn’t, nothing happens. I had it plugged in for half an hour, checked the battery and nope, nothing.

Maybe I’m doing something wrong here but the manual is completely and only in Klingon so I just don’t know.

O well, I might me changing the driver anyway so…….

Cheers,
Nico

So, as promised I measured the throw (today) and guess what? It’s not bad at all.
I measured 230+ Kcd with an almost fully charged Efest IMR 26650/3500.

In other words: more then what the Thrunite Scorpion V6 does at half the price.

I don’t have the latest and best 6000mAh cells, so with those it would be a little better stil.
Also, I haven’t modded it at all yet. 230+ Kcd stock is nice, very nice.
If a little tweeking can get it to around 250Kcd I’ll be quite happy.

Next I will bridge both springs and replace the wires from the driver to the led and post the results.

Cheers,
Nico

That sounds great. I’m really impressed. Thanks…

Good review George, thank you!! :+1:

I’ve got the second version of this light.
I posted my thoughts elsewhere, but this is a better place, so I moved them.

The first impression it made is the second worst of all my lights. Second after $1 plastic junk.

  • anodization doesn’t look nice (but I can’t tell if it’s sturdy or not)
  • light came dirty with some grease
  • switch cover is heavily scratched, as if it was heavily used in the item it was recycled from
  • bezel - colour looks bad, not like on pictures
  • bezel - has 4 black areas as if it was held by something during dyeing
  • dusty reflector
  • fuzzy reflector…and in some places has larger orange-peel-like imperfections.
  • LED off centre and not just a bit

Positives? OK, there are some too.

  • magnetic connector works well
  • the light is fairly lightweight and a bit smaller than I expected
  • threads are well lubricated (though the lube stinks badly)

Pics:
Black marks on the bezel, dust, off-centre emitter. The black marks actually look worse than the picture shows.

More dust:

Just another head photo which shows emitter position nicely. And more dust.

I failed to photo the orange-peel arease with my phone, but here’s a single ding in the reflector:

Switch cover. This photo exaggerates tiny dings. What really looks bad is scratched areas in the centre and near the rim. The switch is glossy, but in these places it’s matte, so that’s pretty visible.

Ring around the button doesn’t look like it was meant to be here from the start.
On the bottom you can see it’s dirty with something. I think it’s grease.

I didn’t manage to try it in action yet.

This feels unreal…
I just tested charging.
Put inside a partially charged cell, 3.98 V.
Plug in, indicator LED turns on. The magnetic connector is superb!
Remove after 1 hour, it charged the cell to 3.98 V.

Maybe something went wrong, try again for 15 minutes.
Result? 3.98 V.

It seems to be vety consistent at least…. :person_facepalming: . :wink:

That sux…… :frowning:

Did you switch on the tail cap switch? It breaks the contact and battery is not charging even if the indicator light is on.

P.S. my blue bezel has the same black marks as yours, but I seem lucky with well centered led and good reflector.

If only it had a 4000-4500k LED inside instead of a 6500k one.

Would have been dope to give to a police officer of mine with a magnetic connector.

Stupid me :person_facepalming:
Will try again when I’m back home.

Well, to add to my posts: the bezelring on my light is a very pale blue as well, it has 4 of these black markings as well, and the switch cover looks as scratched as the others………….but these are minor issues.

A major issue is that the charging on mine doesn’t seem to work either.
I will try again with the manual switch “on” and post result.

Tip for led not centered: they probably screwed the head on without looking if it was done properly (hence the dirt on the reflector and the rease on the lens).

  1. screw the bezelring off and remove everything.
  2. blow the dust of the reflector with compressed air (I use a can of compressed air)
  3. if not available you can use demineralized water to clean the reflector. Do NOT touch it under any circumstances
  4. clean the lens (I use warm water with a litte dishwashing detergent)
  5. put everything together but do not screw the bezelring on tight, leave some room so the reflector can move a bit
  6. gently tap the light in the direction you want the reflector to move over the led positioning ring
  7. when in place correctly, gently screw the bezelring on tight

So far, and especially for the price, I’m quite happy with this light.

Cheers
Nico

Anyone try to unscrew the tail switch or take the driver out to do some mods .

Nope.
Monday I’m @ Djozz’ and we will bridge both springs (so the “tailcap” switch will have to come out) and maybe replace driver wires.

Some good news though!
I put in a cell with 4,04V, turned the light on and used the onboard charger.
The charging port light on the light went red and went dead after some time.
Took the cell out, measured it and……4,18V.
Nice.

Grtz
Nico

So……………focus couldn’t be improved, the reflector is not the best ever but it will do.
Both springs bridged and measured with Djozz’ Mobilux (my elcheapo LX1330B always exaggerates CW around 9-10%) and now we got a dependable 240Kcd.
Not bad as I paid slightly over €30,00.

I suspect the XP-L HI in the light is not the latest version so I might upgrade to V3 (I like the 3C binning a lot) at a later point.

Cheers,
Nico

JM70

Utorch UT02

Measured at 10 meter distance.

@Hardusvd70 is that stock light without any mod?