Astrolux S43S review (4x 219C, 18350/18650)

What ti mean exactly less efficient maukka?In which era?My english didnt help me.Thanks

what in particular made you cancel?

Got a production sample of the Astrolux S43. Its tint is practically identical to the S43S reviewed here (CCT 100K higher and duv about 0.0010 points greener). Output on turbo is about 5% lower. 7135 output (90 lumens) and efficacy are also similar to the S43S, so there is no real change in performance.

While the S43S does have the awesome copper head, I do like the light construction of the S43.

Here is the first 1.5 minutes on turbo comparing the two. I used fresh new 30Q batteries, so the numbers aren’t directly comparable to the original review, which was done with cells cycled many times. These new ones have a lower internal resistance which explains the higher lumens on a FET light.

Also, since it’s not possible to adjust the stepdown temperature accurately in NarsilM, these are just with factory defaults.

Great beamshots the second location is perfect to show the difference between these lights.

Thanks for following up maukka. 50 second of turbo is a good reason to go Copper, I didn’t expect that long.

Bill got 3300 lumens and flashaholics reported in the same area and others were mentioned to be around 2500 at turn on. I don’t see anyone mentioned ANSI. What accounts for those differences do you know? Must be more than battery.

Two things, or perhaps 3:

1. Difference in LED bins. There can be as much as a 7% brightness difference between bins.

2. Spring compression/battery size. It can make a huge improvement in conductivity, especially since these are copper alloy springs. If a coil touches another one, there will be a non negligible compression bypass, meaning resistance will be lowered, and current will be upped. A button top can help with this due to the additionnal height.

3. Most importantly, maukka has a ANSI calibrated light setup. Most of us don’t, like flashaholics.

A lot of people have uncalibrated light measurement devices without a proper shape for accurate integration. Their results are still useful, but can be off by quite a bit. The amount of inaccuracy in most cases is unknown.

Flashaholics is known to report significantly higher numbers than reality, and uses a very odd measurement device so the readings can’t be scaled down by a consistent ratio to get accurate numbers.

Maukka has a calibrated integrating sphere, and reports some of the most accurate numbers available. When in doubt, trust maukka’s numbers.

I want a light with good thermal throttling.

My Emisar D4 is retarded - if I set the thermal limit so that it behaves well (neither gets too hot nor steps down excessively) in the medium lumen range then it burns my fingers if I accidentally ramp too high.
If I set the thermal sufficiently limit low so that turbo can be safely used, then the light behaves too conservatively the medium lumen range - stepping down too fast and too much.

I was hoping that due to:
a) the large(ish) mass of copper (and generally a light that seems way bigger than it needs to)
b) user-configurable ceiling (remove the possibility of accidentally going too high)
c) the fact that its 2018 and thermal throttling should improve over time due to lessons learned etc

that S43S would be right for me. But according to review, it is not. It gets hot enough to burn, then steps down to 95 lumen and never steps back up. Basically the worst of both worlds, somehow even worse than the D4.

uff…after the turbo limit it never goes back to the maximum? there are no circles?it can be used for maximum just once?

You can see the behaviour here:
https://i.imgur.com/zA5LUr7.png
From turbo it takes 50s to step down. Some people are saying this is great - for me this is very bad if it reaches burning temperatures during this period (which he reports it does).
From there it goes down rapidly, eventually settling at 95 lumen (after 2 min) and never goes back up.
From top of ramp it fares not much better, eventually settling on 95 lumen after 3 min.

Of course you can manually go back up (to turbo) but for me this is beside the point.

okok.thanks)

As varbos said, turbo is always available, it’s just direct drive so the output depends on the battery voltage under load. With a 30Q at 50% state of charge, it’s about 1600 lumens.

With high discharge batteries, the S43 and S43S will actually shut down from overheating. This happens shorty after they’ve stepped down to the ~95 lumen level.

What firmware is this in your D4? If stock try Anduril, it has a lot updates regarding thermal management.

I have been planning to try it someday. I think putting a ramp ceiling would help a lot. The problem currently is that towards the top of the ramp it is just too capable of rapidly generating huge amounts of thermal energy. So I need to configure a very low thermal limit…which then kicks in prematurely during normal mid-ramp usage.

Thermal mgt has never been a top priority for me, as many of you may know. Of course it's really about the amps&volts (i.e. watts/power), causing the heat problems. Two things that don't go together: EDC size pocket burning power and true thermal regulation control. Zebra claims a true PID, so in theory if they do it well, should be wayyy better thermally controlled. Dr Jones also developed a pretty good PID based algorithm for thermal control, but not sure if it's used in a high powered driver (high performance FET). Of course Zebra and Dr Jones are commercially selling lights and drivers/firmware, very much unlike me.

I'm sure Anduril would do better, but not sure how well in this particular light, and again, depends on what you want for max output vs. max temp, how automated/manual you want the control to be, etc. If Anduril still is using the built-in Attiny85 temp sensor, it's got some major limitations. For the S43S, copper makes a great heat absorber, taking the heat away from the LEDs, but that's also part of the problem with copper - the heat is retained and held longer.

Oh boy, I think I see why the S43S is so inefficient. Measure the lumens of the stock S43S setup on the 0.35 amp mode (from mode sets), max 7135, then remove the black bezel and lens, and re-measure lumens - it's ok, the plastic optics stays in place. Mine (219C version) goes from 102 lumens to about 132 lumens -- that's a 30% jump!!

Yikes! Then compare a D4 to the S43S head from head view, here's the differences:

  • D4 is wider overall
  • S43S LEDs are closer to each other
  • S43S optics have a wider cup then the D4's
  • The D4's optic cups are all inside the bezel, no clipping, while the S43S's cups are all clipped off, covered by the bezel's edge

Besides the above, would Astrolux use better optics and AR lens than Hank would? No I don't think so. Hank's optics are Carclo optics, high efficiency, what optic does Astrolux use? It's a non-standard size, they don't say, so who knows. Needless to say, I'm sure there's additional loses coming from the lens and optics. But the big drop is from the optics being overlapped by the bezel and partially blocking the cups.

Unfortunately since the optics are a smaller diameter than standard quads, there's no easy way to mod/upgrade the S43S, least I know of. If the height would work out, might be better using a triple board and optics - this should at least clear the bezel.

Well, the copper is at least purty , mostly - mine has some nasty discoloration on the top edge above the switch by the bezel .

That also means the potential lumen numbers are off by 30%!

Maybe the 2600 lumen numbers weren’t so inaccurate after all.

Some cheaper AR coatings cause losses too.

S43S optic is 1.70 mm thick while the Carclo is 0.89 mm thick. S43S has 2 thin posts that easily break (yes, I broke one trying to remove it), Carclo has 4 thick posts (never broke one). I dunno why I spend the money on these quad Astrolux's - I got a dead S42 in pieces, and now this one. The cheap price combined with shiny copper I guess, too tempting.

Well, went ahead and ordered the 18650 tubes and replacement optics... Ugh, for losing roughly 25% in output for no good reason at all, except a poor optics/bezel design. Maybe I can strip the ano off the bezel, dremel/sand down the bezel to remove the lip and epoxy down the optics, while tossing the lens altogether.

Well, I hope someone somewhere can tell Banggood/Astrolux their optic/bezel arrangement used in their S42, and now the latest S43S is greatly lacking. I guess they never got the message on the S42 before.

And heating up the head in the process.