[review] Sofirn SP32A v2

Pale gold looks nice…

Mine has the ugly tint shift too. But not too bad when outside. Good news is, nothing is glued and an emitter swap will be 10 minute job.

Thanks for the review Lightbringer!

Did you happen to get any tailcap current measurements?

Nature of the beast, I suspect. Wonder how a ’351D would look in it, or do the TIR thing.

Arrrgh, more color funkiness. Top looks quite dark, bottom lighter, pix on AX look really light as to be almost indistinguishable from silver. Seems I can’t take beamshots to save my life, either, as colors get all mangled.

Unless it’s a hideous internal-organ pink, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna like it, though!

Gaaah! I didn’t even think of undoing the front! All my recent lights have been glued shut.

I’m looking at the reflector and wondering just how much a difference in depth between it and a TIR. :heart_eyes:

I have 3, 2 gold and 1 silver. TIR lens would be awesome but an orange peel reflector would be a great option concidering the typical 1” tube lights are not great at throwing. I would think it would smooth out the beam quite a bit. Just a thought.

No worries.

And naw, all my meters always underread the current on the unfused “10A” circuit. Now, if I had a clamp-meter…

It’d blend the beam somewhat, but only in that part that’s reflected (more yellow). What just shoots straight out the front (more blue) would be unaffected.

At least a TIR seems to blend the whole beam a bit more thoroughly. I’m just curious about the heat rating of PMMA vs running the LED full-tilt.

And figure milled’n’polished Al reflectors have to co$t more than cheap PMMA TIRs. Glass, of course, if you wanna go whole hog, but even PMMA should be doable… unless the heat would be too much. But then again, the centering ring, etc., would be in the same situation, and that’s pressed right atop the mcpcb.

That’s why I wonder why everyone and his grandmother opts for reflectors in new lights.

Oh, and here’s an idea… SP10 with a lit sideswitch!! Killer!

I have a clamp meter. I can try to get readings in a few minutes. This thing is really well regulated and my lumen measurements line up closely to specs

It is quite dramatic what a TIR does compared to the OP reflector. I have one each of the Skilhunt H03 and H03R and the H03 is a lot better at dispersing the light evenly. I don’t even use the H03R anymore.

Amp measurements, taken with a Sanyo GA at 4.13V:

  • Standby: 0.01 mA
  • Low: 0.008 A (8 mA)
  • Med1: 0.083 A (83 mA)
  • Med2: 0.242 A
  • High: 0.920 A
  • Turbo: 2.86 A

Not bad, tnx!

Using my “shine light thru small portable fan blade” method, I do not detect PWM on the SP32A v2.0 (using this method, the SP32A v1 shows PWM on any mode other than Turbo). So no detectable PWM whether in the groups mode or the ramping mode. I wished the lowest brightness would be around 1 (or 2) lumens. As for now, 5 lumens seems a bit bright to qualify as “Moon”. The SP32A v1, in ramping mode, has probably 1-2 lumens in lowest brightness.

Ramping speed: compared to v1 (new batch), it seems the SP32A (newer batch “v1.1”) ramps slightly faster from low to high (about 3.5-4 seconds). The SP32A v2.0 ramp speed seems to be about 4.5-5.0seconds from low-to-high, at least on the unit I got.

Got my lights yesterday…. champagne and silver colour.

my champagne colour had a mark :confounded:

havent play around much but if the ramping is more than 4 seconds then it’s slow for my taste. Im so use to ramping 3 seconds Narsil firmware.

It’s a nice light and i love it for the price.

Does the v1.1 have the pause in the middle?

Yeah, I counted to “5 chimpanzee” for the v2, so that sounds about right.

Yes the v1 old & new batch have the very short pause in the middle.

I made videos before showing the ramping behavior, though I don’t think my camera was able to capture the very short pause in the middle.

SP32A v1 old batch

SP32A v1 new batch

One more nicety, it’s rated up to 6V, not just 4.2V. So the pair of CR123As I got with a NexTorch? It’d take forever to burn ’em off in my Jet-II, which is my “emergency/backup light” in my bag, so I just fed them to my v2, and it works beautifully. Tres kewl! (That’s French…)

This is one nice puppy!

so they change the driver from DD driver to Buck driver, interesting

Mine has made it through the ISC and is supposed to be delivered Monday, at least if the USPS doesn’t put it in the wrong bin and send it 100 miles in the wrong direction like my last package from Asia.

Good to know about the voltage range; maybe I can finally replace the 2D Mag in the car that succumbed to alkaleak damage.