TK's Emisar D18 review -- 3x18650 photon grenade

I was gonna buy one until I started reading this thread. Now I think I’ll buy one in every flavor. Most informative thread on a Flashlight and it was all done in less than 100 posts. Thanks guys, especially you TK. your info was articulate explicit as well as entertaining

Perhaps I just got a bad M43. It doesn’t perform how other people say theirs perform. This is how mine behaved in a water-cooled runtime test at full power. The brightest it got was about 5000 lm.

I measured standby current on mine too. At boot time, without pressing anything, standby drain was about 96 uA. But if I press the button to turn the light on and off, the button changes from red to green, and then it uses about 67 uA.

On a D18, standby current measured at 30 uA. It could be lower by not enabling BOD, but then it would be hard to get out of momentary mode. It needs at least some parasitic drain to make it possible to reboot the MCU by loosening the battery tube.

For a FET driver, it’s normal advice to clean the contacts, bypass the springs, make sure the batteries are full, use new high-amp cells, etc. So I do. But it seems like strange advice for a boost driver. Isn’t a boost driver designed to deliver consistent output even without these things? It is meant to perform the same even if the cells aren’t quite full or even if the contacts aren’t completely clean.

That’s why I use a ZebraLight as a calibration reference light — it emits the same amount of light regardless of what battery it has or how recently I cleaned it. But I don’t use a Meteor for this purpose, because its output is highly variable and chaotic. I never know how much light it’s going to make.

:person_facepalming:

I think you’re conflating concepts in order to make a point which isn’t strong enough to make otherwise. If complicated was truly better, we would be living in a steampunk world full of Rube-Goldberg machines.

I recognize that it is common to think of “simple” as primitive, basic, dumb, or unable to do much… and to think of “complicated” as powerful, advanced, and capable. But that doesn’t accurately represent how things work out in practice. Simple things are often more useful, while more complicated designs generally have more problems.

A lot of tech follows the same pattern as it becomes more mature:

  • Phase 1: primitive (simple + basic)
  • Phase 2: developing (complicated + basic)
  • Phase 3: fancy (complicated + advanced)
  • Phase 4: mature (simple + advanced)

It can be tempting to view phase 3 as the end of this process. That’s where things look the most impressive, with all sorts of fiddly bits to make it look sophisticated. It’s the steampunk aesthetic. And I like steampunk… I decorated my living room that way. It’s fun.

But although phase 3 is powerful, it often solves the wrong problems. Complicated things may be easy to do, but people don’t actually need to do those things very often. The things people need are often inconvenient in a phase-3 product. For example, ever hand someone a ZebraLight and then they ask “how do I make it a little bit brighter?” It’s weirdly complicated to do that simple task on a ZebraLight. It can take like 20 clicks to go up one level.

I agree lets put Anduril on a boost driver. Wait was this not supposed to be the conclusion? I disagree, lets put Anduril on a boost driver.

And when you have memory issues complicated by 20 years of physical complications simple is the only way to go. Complicated is frustrating and either doesn’t get used, gets replaced, or goes in the trash.

I have nothing against Narsil, everyone usually loves it. For me, I can’t remember it’s nature. Hence, I don’t use it. Anduril has nice zones, and even I can remember how to access them all. So I use Anduril for that simple reason. It works, I can remember it, and the light that’s equipped with it is impressive as all get out. My 11 yr old has a D1S with Anduril and loves it. Sometimes he forgets how to operate lockout, or that he has to unlock it, but he navigates it well.

I don’t typically use Guppydrv for similar reasons. Richards new Boost driver offers the ability to lock the configuration menu so once the preferred UI is set up, lock it and forget it. :slight_smile: And Neven’s LD-4A is also difficult for me to remember, I have to find and study the manual to make a change. It offers a password lockout to keep from messing things up. (I don’t use that, would forget the password)

I mod a lot of lights. A LOT of lights, sometimes 2 or 3 a day (occasionally even 4 or 5!). I want a cheap functional driver I can build and rely on without it giving my lack of memory cause for frustration. I have the components to build the FET+1 drivers and have done so for years now, at around $5 a driver. I could never have afforded to buy complicated buck or boost drivers for the 600 plus lights I’ve built! Nor could I have remembered how they all worked afterwards. lol Simple is a blessing for me, that’s really all there is to it. :wink:

You should read the manual.
Driver estimate internal resistance of circuit. If valtage drop more than 0.5V at start than driver restrict power. (With good contact it means about <50mOm per 18650)
You could turn on warning about this.12 fast click and hold. Light will blink 2 times in case of restriction.

And one more thing about stabilization can be found at manual. After voltage drop to 3V driver again began to restrict current to hold valtage 3V.

Btw could you make water cooled test for D18 please?

All that 7135 and fet drivers are some kind of steampunk) primitive dump way to control current that not need many skills. Buck /boost are elegant way but required knowledge.

All those tricks for FET drivers holds true for boost drivers. It’s essential to keep the voltage as high as possible when under load.

First of all, thank you for your great reviews and information ToyKeeper. I highly appreciate all of your input of time and effort into everything you do for this community. (That goes for all reviewers.)

I have a question about the above statement you made. Due to the different optics and other variables that go into the equation, would a D18 with (XP-L HI 5000K) emitters in it, out throw a D18 (SST-20 5000K) model? I am looking for the best throw and tint if possible.

The only other soda can sized light I have is the Olight X7 which the box claims it is 24,500 Candela with 313 meters of throw 9,000 lumens.

How would the Olight X7 and the D18 compare using the (SST-20 5000K) emitters and the D18 with (XP-L HI 5000K) emitters? I know I am asking very basic questions, but my expertise does not lie in mathematical conversions when it comes to flashlight math.

The SST-20 5000k will out throw the XP-L HI model by quite a bit.

The manual says nothing about that. At least, not the manual linked from Noctigon’s M43 page. Perhaps the translator forgot to mention it?

https://intl-outdoor.com/noctigon-418650-meteor-m43-p-864.html

In any case, manuals are great… but test results are better. The manual says it has constant current output… but test results show it does not actually achieve steady output. It’s very sensitive to changes in voltage, even on low modes which should be easy for the driver to handle.

That sounds like a good idea in theory, but it doesn’t seem to actually work. Again, maybe I just got a bad Meteor. But I have the LG high-amp cells recommended on the Meteor’s product page. They’re freshly charged. The light has freshly cleaned contacts. I put them into the M43 and hold the button for maximum turbo. I get about 4800 lm.

Then I take those cells out of the Meteor and place three of them into a D18. I get over 10,000 lumens. 200% as much light from 75% as many cells.

FET drivers are sensitive to many things like cell type, charge state, and contact resistance. But as far as I can tell, the M43 is also sensitive to those things… perhaps even more so. Its highest-power mode is so fickle that I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it to run within 2000 lumens of its spec. It appears to be running in low-power mode even with the exact cells it is designed for.

Maybe I just got a bad Meteor.

If I were more motivated, I’d do like a couple other people have done and replace the driver. It’s a really cute and well-designed host which is enjoyable to use. Hank really did a good job with it. But I haven’t modded it, so it’s still completely stock.

Yes, this is standard low-voltage protection. Almost all lights have this now.

No, there is no point. With a FET, that tests the batteries… not the driver.

If you want to see the shape of the water-cooled turbo discharge curve, look up your cells on HKJ’s battery comparison site. It’s the same curve, and HKJ has all the data meticulously documented.

Thank you for registering your opinion. If there is an error in the data, feel free to make corrections below:


How do you feel about linear drivers in flashlights?

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AEDe

I agree. I’m not sure AEDe agrees though:

He also posted that the D18 is not an upgrade from the M43 because the D18 requires high-drain cells. This would imply that the M43 does not require them. And he included graphs, to make the point that the voltage need not be as high as possible and the cells need not be as high-amp as possible. But then he talked about the importance of keeping the contacts clean, which seems to imply the opposite.

So… mixed messages. It’s a little confusing.

Continuing the discussion about it doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere, but it does at least keep this thread on the front page and help promote Emisar’s new light. Discussing the M43 here also helps teach the search engines that people looking for “M43” might be interested in “D18” instead. :+1:

So it will out throw the Olight X7 I am guessing ?

Olight X7 specs, according to maukka’s review: 36.5 kcd / 8940 lm = 4.1 cd/lm

D18 5000K specs, from Intl-Outdoor: 65 kcd / 14000 lm = 4.6 cd/lm

The D18 lux (cd, kcd) is higher, so it should throw farther. Additionally, the D18’s beam shape (cd/lm) is slightly more throwy, so it should be slightly more practical for seeing into the distance.

Neither light is particularly throwy. If you want to see farther, try an Emisar D1S. It gets 130 kcd / 1300 lm, or about 100 cd/lm. It also weighs much less than either of these larger lights, runs longer at turbo, and costs less. It’s much more practical if throw is what you’re looking for.

So what if the M43 can make its max performance on lesser batteries…it’s max performance pales in comparison to the D18’s max performance. :smiley:

A maglite can make its max performance on crappy D cells, so anything that requires 18650 cells to achieve maximum performance isn’t an upgrade! :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you. I have an Olight M3XS-UT it is rated at 250,000 Kcd and 1,200 lumens 1000 meters throw. However it is a larger light. It takes 3 or 4 CR123A’s or 2 18650 which makes it a little long and the head is about 2.5 inches I believe. I was just curious how the Emisar and the Olight stacked up. I think I will go for the Emisar. SST-20 5000k.

Exactly what I wanted to know! Thank you! Thank you!! :+1:

@Toykeeper

How much distance from the optics is required so that mixxed cct setup is not noticeable in the beam? Wondering specifically about close up use indoors. Is it fully blended at 1 ft away from light? Closer, further?

Thanks

It seems to blend in about 10 to 15 cm.

Thank you.

Thats a lot closer than I expected!

It is not true.discharge curve has stable current or power.
Fet driver has neither stable current nor stable power.

So what is not clear?
Is something really wrong with circuit than driver restrict pover. Usual 10A batteries has good enough resistans to hold turbo . About 25W/cell <10A
Ofcourse 10A cells provide less stabilized/nonstabilized rantime ratio but absolute turbo rantime is almost the same as using hidrain 3Ah cells.

The last question. Is contact betwin tail copper board and aluminium host cleaned too? (contact of two metals. best place for oxidation )

How do you feel about linear drivers in flashlights?

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Neutral

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Strong dislike

AEDe

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Linear driver is good for moonlights where efficiency of buck and led on constant current are low.

ANSI lm of M43 is almost twice D18 ANSI lm.)

TK, what’s the emitter you got in your M43? Nichia D220 219B?