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

I think that AEDe has a more in-depth understanding of the Meteors driver than most here do. Its obviously rather complicated compared to most drivers here.

In the turbo mode the Meteors driver provides constant brightness (>=90%) until the batteries are empty if the light is kept cool. All the diagrams posted here regarding this show this. I have also done this measurement myself and got the same result.

Emisar lights use FET drivers and so the D18 does too. This does not make them better than the boost driver in the Meteor. They are just different and certainly cheaper to develop and produce. Many people here on the forums care about the max output. Hank wants to sell lots of lights, so…

But of course, one developer pitted against another… each with a far different viewpoint on what constitutes correct. They will each gain a following, that’s how it works.

But what is the use of a flashlight that can’t be picked up and operated by just anyone? Any emergency scenario where the kids, the wife, a neighbor, a firefighter or police officer gets handed the light and they can’t work it. No time to figure it out, throw it down and grab the light that works.

There is a following of the coffee that comes from coffee beans eaten by an elephant and then collected from it’s dung. That doesn’t mean it’s a main stream coffee (no pun intended).

Ok, so the Meteor is capable of maintaining constant current in Siberia or during the worst cold snap to ever hit Chicago, but that doesn’t help me here in Texas where the nights can be 100º at midnight. In most scenario’s, the Meteor cannot maintain constant current because it Does in fact get to hot to run at sustained high levels. Quickly.

Like all opinions, I can only express mine based on the facts where I perceive them. But I paid good money for the Meteor M43 and where I live, it simply doesn’t work well. Thus, the driver components got scraped off into the trash bin and I rebuilt the light so it’s usable for me. With an FET driver and then with Anduril when it became available. And then with Samsung LH351D’s when those became available. Mine makes 11,000 lumens, gets really hot, again it still can’t sustain serious outputs for any real length of time due to lack of thermal dispersion.

I will be experimenting with the D18 when it makes it across the pond, will fit it with LH351D W6 emitters and see what she can do. :wink:

The funny thing is, that we are discussing the first 30s of operation here. After that both lights dim quickly and the Meteor might be slightly brighter because it has more mass.

Like usual, all of the big output lights have to step down or fry themselves. We’re making more power than a handheld flashlight can consistently handle.

I looked at my M43 again due to all this talk, I didn’ t put an FET in it… I put 4 in! A master and 3 slaves running LH351D W6 emitters… it makes 13,500 lumens at start on 30Q cells in my now calibrated light box. :wink:

So, it’s looking really interesting as to just what the D18 may be capable of. :smiley:

The D18 has more emitters, so it will be brighter at turn on ;).

… in a no-holds-barred cage match … to the death!

Round Three! Fight!

I think we already know what to expect though. It should be a very bright burst at first, but it’ll get extremely hot and step down quickly to around 2000 or 3000 lumens. The main questions are whether LH351D will fit into these optics, how bright that initial burst might be, and how nice the beam will look. You might have to slice the domes or something before it’ll even come close to fitting.

Actually I did not want to argue. D18 is great and m43 is great flashlight too. Each has many advantages, they are just different device with different features. In some case m43 are more suitable is other D18 .

They fit the E07 just fine and i’ve not seen a TIR that they didn’t look acceptable in. Granted they are super floody but I doubt there is any concern of them fitting or the beam not looking good (if you prefer flood)

The D18’s optics have a significantly smaller inner void than the E07’s optic. The LH351D has a significantly larger dome than the SST-20. So it might fit… but it might not.

XP-L HI works, but it’s flat.

If I measure the pixels in my photos, it looks like the optic probably can’t fit an emitter which uses the full width of the XP pad… and the LH351D uses the full width.

But since no one has tested it yet, it’s still possible that it might just barely fit. I recall the XP-L HD would barely fit into Carclo optics… but it would end up permanently stuck and even a slight bump would cause de-doming. So I’m guessing this might be like that. It can probably be forced on, but it may never come off again.

I see what you mean. I figured since the entire TIR size was larger that it would likely not have a smaller opening but I guess it is possible that is the case.

Has anyone in America received theirs yet? I’m looking at tracking and the light is in the country but USPS doesn’t have a delivery estimate yet.

Well, yeah, those arguments can be valid, might should be valid, but of course it will depend on what I do to get there. :wink: I may add a finned spacer and give it a couple of pounds of thermal mass to work with. Might even go copper. Might use those optics, might not. I may just machine a larger head to screw into the bezel threads and use 20mm 15º optics over all 18 LH351D emitters. :smiley: Or 24 emitters, or however it may work out. Who knows? I kinda tend to do these things on the fly, so even I don’t know where it’s going til it’s gone. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you AEDe.

Please explain. Even the newest version of the M43 (approx 8000 lumens) does not make even close to the same amount of lumens as the D18. I cannot find any definition of ansi lumens that would make the M43 outperform the D18.

Even for an 8000 lumen light the M43 is underwhelming, and after reading lots of similar posts I’m far from the only one that feels this way. It does a nice ceiling bounce, but is lacking in real world use. It’s just so floody that it doesn’t throw very far or light up any one thing very much…but it sure does light up a large area! Any of my lights with more lumens (and lots with less lumens but more of a hot spot) seem much brighter and can see a lot further than the M43.

I don’t foresee any measurement, theoretical or otherwise, that is actually going translate to the M43 outperforming the D18 in the real world. I would absolutely love to be shown otherwise. At the moment my M43 has been demoted to my nightstand with a diffuser, due to its nice moonlight mode for reading and long runtime on low. It deserves more, but like others have mentioned, its UI and size are not worth putting up with for me.

ANSI lumens are measured at 30s.

The ANSI lumen figures are certainly not very useful for comparing these two flashlights, both of which are not designed to operated at turbo for very long…. It’s really a silly technicality to point out… And it’s really a useless metric because you could design a flashlight that sustains a brightness level long enough to get a higher rating but immediately has to severely step down right after 30 seconds…

Also I don’t know much about how the thermal step down works but if you started on say 8k lumens on the d18 would it even get a lower ANSI lumen figure than the m43? Is that a stupid question?

It was a joke)
M43 and D18 have about the same mass. So if we start D18 at ~8-9Klm it could show more ANSI lm than D18 at turbo and Meteor at turbo.

Except there is no copper touching aluminum, it’s gold touching aluminum.

My old M43 had issue in that place. After washing it stopped to turn on(it shows power warnig indication) at turbo with fully charged new hidrain 18650. Than I had disassemble it and had seen oxidation between copper board and host. After cleaning it works fine.