Olight S1 Mini High CRI and Utorch S1 Mini NW, now w N219b and E21A

Update from Paradise
single E21A 2000k in a Utorch S1 Mini

you can buy the board here

and the LED here

and keep your eye on this link, if you want an N219b 9080

a little bird told me that the final batch have shipped to Bali, coming soon to a modder near you

and, let me give a plug for Clemence, the man has skills, contact him for modded Armytek lights, here is his store:

Wow, great thread! The UTorch tint is so much improved! I really like the look and features of that light, not so much the original yellow color. Love all of the examples you’ve provided with the different lights and their color representation.

Yes, the stock NW Utorch tint looked awful on white paper, but it worked very well even in stock form

fwiw, they are on sale atm for $20
I am resisting buying more

You don’t say? Do you have a link, I couldn’t find one for that price.

cool white 19.99, NW 23.99
https://www.gearbest.com/utorch-s1-mini-\_gear/

Oh Jeez…. Nope, nope, nope I have two versions of the olight mini s and Imma be strong and ONLY buy the maratac brass AAA! That’ll total six aaa’s inside of a month. Stupid freaking flashlight rabbit hole.

It could be worse…
I dreamed replacing a nano Sim card in your phone was a model for emitters in flashlights.
Imagine having to buy all your favorite lights again to swap around your collection of little 9080 E21A chips….or whatever.

You’re right, it could be worse! :slight_smile: Thanks!

Lol
Dont buy a Utorch S1 Mini, they have a problem with a loose ground wire
I have not heard of that issue w the Klarus model, which also has a more reasonable medium mode, that lasts twice as long

or, wait a bit, and I might have an S1 Mini for sale… it has been on Vacation in Bali for the past 2 months, should be home soon… I has had a 9080 LED swap, and the ground wire has been repaired, so it wont be 19.99… start saving your pennies…

brilliant!
I could see Clemence coming out with a whole new line of preloaded Chip products, maybe they could be made to fit my iPhone… with ramping brightness using the volume buttons… LOL

[quote=jon_slider]

Thanks for the info about the groundwire. I pretty much fell in love with the massdrop Tool over the last few days, so I have the brass version as well as the regular copper with 219b coming. No more lights till next month! Maybe she’ll be back from vaca by then. OMG I wish I’d never found this forum. :slight_smile:

Just a heads up that the Utorch S1 Mini is on sale for 20 bucks… if I did not have 3 already, I would buy more.

Thanks to the aspheric lens, I think it is a really fun novelty light, for the price, even if I have to jiggle the white wire once in a while. It is a really fun beam for a close range indoor light and has one of the nicest, lowest moonmodes Ive tried…

I dont love the UI or the CRI, but then, no light is perfect, at least it has no PWM… :wink:

Thanks for the heads up. Too bad the UI kills it for me. Wish it was click for on/off and goes from Low to High instead of High to Low.

I also wish the UI was like Olight, but Olight is not Nichia moddable.

fwiw, the mode sequence is Low to High, not High to Low…

the light clicks on to last mode used, then each click advances to the next higher level, low, med, high, low, med, high.

there is also hold for moonlight from off. moonlight btw is not memorized, so if moon was last mode used when the light is turned off, by holding the switch, not clicking, then the next click from off will give Low.

It is indeed a cheap Novelty light. Dont expect too much for $20. otoh, if you have never tried an aspheric lens, and even though it is plastic instead of Sapphire, you can get some idea what owners of the McGizmo Sundrop are enjoying, in terms of a smooth wide flood beam. No conventional reflector light has a beam anything like an aspheric. Neither is better, both is fun.

I just received 2 modded Utorch from Bali.
Clemence did an amazing job of LED swapping and lens frosting. The light on the right is a Rose Gold Olight S Mini for reference.

Check out the beauty of the beam Clemence created by frosting the lens on the Utorch S1 Mini.

sw45 w frosted lens (edges of beam are a smoothly diffused gradient, more like a McGizmo Mule):

contrast the beam from the stock aspheric, here with the 2000k E21A (edge of the beam is a sharp cutoff, more like a McGizmo Sundrop)

I like choices, both lens styles are good for different things. I prefer the sharp cutoff when the light is stationary, because I use it to illuminate things on a table in front of me at arms reach. otoh, the diffused beam is better when moving, creates less tunnel vision effect because the increase of brighness is gradual from edge to center.

Aspherics are a very unique type of beam, the outer perimeter is stronger than the middle, but the beam is very even accross the middle 90% of the beam. With the diffused beam, the edges are slightly less bright than the center. With a conventional reflector the edge is also less bright than the hotspot, but the differences are much less gradual…

Hotspots are good for situations where we want the beam to reach out for some distance, without spilling too much light into the foreground. An aspheric is exactly the opposite. It will light an object in my hands, in the center of my field of vision, better than it will light things further away, so an aspheric is basically useless for walking the dog, but fantastic imho, for a worklight.

Notice:
I caution people to be aware that Utorch S1 Mini have a reliability issue regarding the white wire. I cannot unconditionally recommend the light itself. otoh, I would buy Clemences LEDs again, and again, they are just awesome!

clear lens so I can see the gorgeous E21a, frosted lenses on a pair of SW45 9080

look closely at the two sw45, there is tint variation, the one on the right is more pink (relatively speaking)

left beam clear lens, middle beam frosted sw45 that is the middle light in the pic above (iow, the middle light looks less pink in the shot above, but still looks plenty pink in the shot below… tint looks different depending on the tint of other lights in the photo. Imo the tint of the middle light above, is more realistic. While I like the pink in Nichias, the SW45 on the right above is a bit excessive… really splitting snob hairs here… ignore if you dont understand

Comparing two variations of the N219b 4500k 9080, the two Utorch lights on the right. The left light is a 2000k E21A

you can see one is more violet than the other… wait till you see what my iPhone sees when they are isolated:
(both are “identical” LEDs, this is normal variation)

now watch this (the light on the right in the photo that follows, is the middle light in the 3 beams shot above):

when I saw this next shot I was like, what?:

just goes to show how tricky beamshots can be, and how the tint colors change based on what else is in the picture… These pics were taken during the evening, the ambient light is a 3000k Incandescent.

Now lets look at 3 different N219b 4500k 9080 leds, the following photos taken during daylight hours, which implies the camera white balance is different than the pics in the post above

the 3 4500k LEDs, from left to right in pic above,
comparing to a 2000k E21A, the light on left:

comparing to a 2000k E21A, the light in middle:

comparing to a 2000k E21A, the light on right:

how about them Violets!:slight_smile:

Wow you put a lot of effort into doing this comparison! Thanks for sharing!

thank you for very much for taking the time to post kind words
it means a lot to me

New unreliability update for the Utorch S1 Mini
the red light charge indicator stopped working on the provided 16340,

however the battery is still charging even when the red light is off…

about 5 minutes later the red light started working again:

Im waiting to see if the green light still works…

fwiw, this Utorch S1 Mini with N219b 4500k 9080, continues to have intermittent failure to access Turbo. I usually fix it by removing the lens and sliding the board around. But lately I have been testing simply pressing harder on the lens, with my finger, and that seems to help it find Turbo again.

Utorch S1 Mini are still on sale at gearbest for under $20, but I honestly cannot recommend them, due to the grounding unreliability.

I hope to try a Klarus Mi1c with Aspheric lens next. Hopefully none of the grounding problems will be present in that assembly.

Im still loving the Aspheric Lens.

The Utorch that Clemence put the 2000k E21A into is my favorite, and there is No reliability problem, because he completely disassembled the light, and soldered the loose ground wire to the pill housing, And replaced the board with a hand lapped board of his own, that makes better contact on the grounding shelf.

The weak link in the Utorch design is still that the LED board is only held down by the pressure of the bezel via the plastic centering ring, not screwed in place. But, so far Clemences E21A mod has had zero failures to cycle through turbo.

Im loving the Orange Ball of Balinese Sunfire that Clemence stuffed into this Utorch. He went miles beyond the call of duty and basically redesigned the Utorch grounding pathway… the man deserves a medal, for taking on my mod project.

oh
the green light just came on:


charging still works, it stopped at 4.14 v…

does anybody want to sell me a Klarus Mi1c Aluminum?:slight_smile: