Well, both are flagship light of each brand. Zebralight S6330 was selling at $199 without discount. It has lower price from time to time when there was discount. Imalent MS12 is selling at $606 without discount and $390 with discount. There are people who bought lights at full price believe it or not. From price point of view, MS12 is about 2x-3x more expensive than S6330.
Also, S6330 was released 5-6 years ago and already had this thermal regulation technology in it. I don’t see why Imalent MS12 could not have this feature especially it is heat generation monster that its temperature is a risk factor. Sure Imalent will save some cost without R&D on this thermal regulation, but Imalent should provide alternative solution for example making use of fan(s) more robustly, and not just put a fan in there that doesn’t show obvious airflow and call it active cooling feature.
I think it is not a fluke. 1st test was full charge that has more power, that is why the fan kicked in at 2 minutes, which is 1 minute earlier than second test.
To say that both are “Flagship” models is kind of meaningless. It’s like comparing the flagship Mercedes car to the flagship Yugo car. They are very different companies.
There could be many reasons why Imalent doesn’t use a more advanced thermal regulation technology. Perhaps their engineers are not familiar enough to design them? Maybe they don’t think it’s required? Who knows.
I don’t remember the test being at 2 different voltages. Is this the case?
Hmmm, a tenth of a volt can make a difference if you’re using a FET driver, but I don’t think the MS12 is using a FET. I’m not sure what type of driver it’s using, maybe a big boost driver?
3rd test at full voltage yielded hot measurements again this was this morning when it was very cold too. 84c head, 56c side of button. Turbo stepped in at 3 minutes though, but the light was very cold at turn on.
I’ll have to do a 4th 10 minute run time test at lower voltage again lol.
The fan does seem to hold the temp once it’s stepped down but it’s at temps that’s too hot to hold without gloves. It might be best running it on the lower modes first before sustaining turbo.
Flashaholics, thanks for testing it out again. Was this 84c at 10th minute or shorter time? I think it is reasonable fan started later than first test since it is colder to start from.
I started measuring from about 6 mins, 81c to 84c over 3-4 mins etc, heat doesn’t go up that fast once the stepdown occurs. I don’t know if the fan is keeping it stable at 15,000 or the sheer flashlight size.
If we look at Matt’s video review that he tested at just 15000lm, temperature was still increasing after 20min where it reached 70c, also output was dropping gradually to about 11000lumens in the test, I think it’s mostly due to output drop and sheer size of mass, the fan does not help much.
By the way, do you feel obvious hot air flow during your test?
So they build a light that blinds you with the spill reflecting on the ground, and then they forget to research how you implement a fan…
The bit of airflow outward gets immediately sucked back in by the inlets, apparently…
Ya, i think this one can really cook, 80+ degree celcius external temperature can really cook something. Wonder what would be the internal temperature. :question:
I was thinking this morning could it be the fan spinning too fast compared to prototype. Don’t know why Imalent engineers can accept this kind of active cooling with minimal airflow?
hm where does all those hundreds of watts heat go then? makes no sense…. If hot air just is trapped inside that light will not function well in the long run. That much heat must vent and go out and not stay trapped, its like a furnace in there…
Like i said there is a reason olight and now acebeam ditched the internal fans, i doubt imalent have made anything groundbreaking with that fan? it doesnt sound so atleast too me…
Heat can be transferred from one place to another by three methods: conduction in solids, convection of fluids (liquids or gases), and radiation through anything that will allow radiation to pass.
So now it has conduction from mcpcb to light head, and radiation from light head to surrounding, but not much convection due to ineffective fan design.
Basically all non-active cool flashlights don’t have much convection unless user blow an external fan on the flashlights. MS12 supposed to make use of convection to transfer heat away with air.
Right, all flashlights use convection (unless they are in a vacuum), but it’s relatively weak. Using a fan is called forced convection. It greatly speeds up or helps the heat transfer.
Even though other MS12 users show air entering one side and exiting the other, it’s not a straight forward flow. The fan style they are using just seems odd. I’ve never seen that style of fan used like this before. The only thing close was the FB1 below.
In fact, here are all the airflow patterns on the active cooled lights I know of.
The prototype Olight X9.
I’m guessing on this Microfire due to lack of data.
The protoype X70. It had 3 fans so it looked like it had 3 dividers using 120° of the diameter. So it had 3 inlets and 3 outlets.
The new version of the X70 has the external fan and “looks” like it has air blowing across the exterior.
I am still guessing on the MS12 design. Their fan style and layout is very odd. I’m guessing they are using a divider to get the air to go in one side and out the other, but it’s not working very well.
Looks like Imalent successfully design a mini convection oven, in wrong product though :person_facepalming: .
