[Short Review] Olight Seeker 2 Pro - 21700, 3 x XPL, Silicone grip, 3,200 lumens

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

after more than 5 months of hiding in the void (Warrior X Desert Tan notwithstanding), Olight has finally come out to play again... they are announcing a few new models for the NRA shows, and this review will be focus on the Seeker 2 Pro, a 21700 battery powered household/outdoor/vehicle flashlight that inherit some design elements they've done with the Olight X9R. (psst, the other 2 are hunting and weapon light...)

The specifications:

What's in the box:

honestly, I would rather they gives us a higher quality holster than the L-Dock. The L-Dock has a set condition for installation, you must make sure the distant of the L-Dock magnetic top is less than 1.2 meter from the nearest USB power source (minimum 1A) because that's the length of the MCC 1A cable. Of course, you could always use a longer (5 meter?) USB extender cable.

The 2 main differentiating factors...

... 3 x XPL (HD?) LED, my sample is less than 6000K CCT and projects a nice pure white beam.


... and the 21700-size battery, the first 21700 size flashlight from Olight.

of course, it's a proprietary dual-polarity design from Olight...

the actual measurement is larger than 21700, I measured diameter of 21.2mm and a length of 75.2mm, so it's essentially a 21750-size battery. Your normal size 21700 may not work in this Seeker 2 Pro due to the length and it needs to have button top (nipple-top to be precise) to make contact. take a look at the top of the battery here...

this is a design from S1R Baton II ORB-16C05-10C battery... officially, this design elements is there to prevent potential shorts... but I think it serves more purpose than that... you need to go back to Olight to get your spare 21700 battery and you cannot charge this proprietary battery in normal cradle charger, none of my Xtar and NiteCore chargers can fit the battery in the cradle... and that brings us to a very sticky point for me about this Seeker 2 Pro, it takes ~5.5 hours to fully charge the battery from empty, 5.5 hours!!! Come-on Olight, you have had 3A rapid charger with R50 Pro LE Docking station, and most of the USB world already moved on to above 2A charging, and yet, in 2019, this is the charging speed we get from Olight engineering team?

Let's take a few more look at the Seeker 2 Pro...


finger-milled grooves, made from some kind of silicone material. pretty grippy.


Indicator lights, the left is for brightness, and the right is for battery status. the Moon and Low mode share the same brightness indicator. useful for initial checking of battery status, and after that, useless unless you change mode or switch OFF and ON again. No other way to activate the indicator except initial Turn-On or switch mode. Due to this, a marketing gimmick at best, unless they gives us a way reactivate the indicator lights.

Below are size comparisons to other lights:

size is very comfortable to hold, especially with the silicone grooves.

and here we have the UI Diagram.

It's the trial and tested, familiar Olight side switch UI.

following is my measured output:

The usual disclaimer: I do not claim the above measured lumens as authoritative nor an indication of over/under-stating the number given by manufacturer. It's calibrated against some known light output (e.g. SureFire, Elzetta, etc.) so take it with a grain of salt and just as a relative reading.

Next comes the runtime:

Pretty good runtime considering most of the runtime spent in the 1,300-ish lumens. That 5000mAh does shines in Seeker 2 Pro.

Zoomming in to the first few minutes:

and you can see it doesn't get the full 2 minutes in 3,200-ish lumens as claimed, but ~1.5 minutes.

Also, repeatedly double-clicking to go to Turbo after step-down will land you between 2,500 to 3,000-ish lumens and not the 3,400-ish lumens we get when the battery is freshly charged...


... and speaking of fully charged battery, the included MCC 1A (pictured above) charging cable is not able to fully charge the included battery to 4.20V but ~4.11-4.15V depending on your multi-meter calibrations. However, using S1R Baton II MCC (the slimmed down Magnetic Charging Cable), I get a light that is fully charged. This testing has been carried out multiple cycles and every time is the same results. So, the MCC cable are NOT the same despite Olight saying otherwise.

The good thing about not fully charging the battery is the battery should (in theory) last longer, unlike Olight's R50 Seeker Pro LE where the initial release of the charging Dock overcharges (actually it trickle charge) the battery as long as you leave the light at the charging Dock (the non-LE version of MCC cable doesn't do this) and break the protection at the battery and renders the cell to read 0V. So if you want to squeeze the last drop of juice you can get, use the S1R Baton II Slimmed MCC charger, else, use the Seeker 2 Pro included MCC 1A cable.

In conclusion

This is a good household and Bag-carry flashlight, I especially like the long runtime in the thousand-ish lumens and pure white tint. Now, is this a flashlight that's worth getting? Well... let's just say that you should watch out for the latest promotion from your favourite Olight retailer and locked in the promotion price if you really need a new toy from Olight.



2

Thanks for the review!!! I enjoyed reading it

I like the light but I wouldn’t buy it because I don’t want proprietary cells, and 5lm can’t be called moonlight

I don’t know why they release some lights with magnetic charging that works with any cell (m2r, warrior X) and other times they release it with this strange proprietary cells that can’t be charged outside the flashlight

3

Exactly, I do not know when was moon mode being redefine at 5 lumens because moon mode for me has always been sub-lumen brightness.

4

Perfect, a 3535 emitter triple. Easy to get rid of those cw XP-L HDs, or how’s the bezel, usually Olight doesn’t glue them?

5

I can’t imagine buying this over the Wuben TO50R HC once that’s actually available to purchase somewhere, even at full price. Proprietary batteries are not acceptable in 2019.

6

Thanks for the review. Really detailed.

7

I see new development for flashlight : the led indicator status (wow). New sillicon grip. 21700 is just about perfect if consider size, capacity mah and high discharge current :+1:

8

You are right. It's not glue, easily unscrew.


I wish this were true, but it's a choice manufacturers made in the name of protecting consumers from "inferior" quality cells...
...but I'm secretly agreeing with you...


Thank you for the kind words.

9

Thanks for the review! The sustained output looks great. Only pity is the use of proprietary cell, I’d rather not have the magnetic charge function and have it accept regular 21700 cells.

So it is possible to do an emitter swap without much work?

10

Thanks for the kind words, but I’m sorry I can’t give you much confirmation in this area as I sucks at modding. We will have to wait for our more experience modder like maukka and/or many others in this forum to chip-in. :innocent:

11

is the bezel press fit or screwed?
get LH351D in there with NW and CRI

12

Agreed - wonder if it’s press-fit like the S-series. Throw some dogfarts in there and you’ve got a fantastic flooder. It’s not even showing on the AU store, so can’t even get an idea on how much it’d cost to start trying; not that I really want to open up a ~$200AUD light if it’s out of my pocket ;p

But yes, ouch, 5lm moonlight…

13

Exactly what I was thinking.

14

Oops, missed that.

Yep, LH351D for ultimate flooder.

15

Thanks for the review :+1:
Does anybody know who makes this optic? I’ve been looking all around for an optic to replace this but can’t find any. It seems to be 26.5mm with a distance between LED centers of 11mm.
I’m trying to do an emitter swap, but on one of my Seekers the head inner diameter seems a little low - it’s all very tight in there and I might not be able to get the white centering helper out of there without damage. As it’s needed to hold the optic in place I’d need a new centering thingy or a different optic entirely.

Any leads would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

16

Just picked up the orange version of this light and wanted to mention that unlike my 16340 and 18650 powered Olights, the magnetic tail on this light is much too weak to be used for anything other than holding the magnetic charger. You won’t be hanging this light on any metal objects for hands-free use.

17

I have 3 Seeker2 Pro’s(2Blk&1Orange), and 1 blue Seeker2, and a Klarus 21700 button top model 21GT-50 works in all of them. They just won’t charge it.

I have a button top 21700 Samsung 50E, and an Acebeam IMR21700NP-510 coming from Battery Junction.

I’ll let you know how they work in them, as well.

18

I bought the Seeker 2 Pro orange version from the BF sale. It is an amazing light. Very well built and beam from the optic is very Olight like. The tint is actually really nice. 5700K is afternoon sun and the tint is slightly rosy making it one of the nicest Olight CW tint I’ve seen. These are the measurements I took with the Texas Ace Lumen Tube calibrated with Maukka lights.
Turbo: 3387 lumens, CCT 5742K, DUV –0.0021, CRI 70.6, R9 –17.2, R12 45.2, Rf 64, Rg 99
High Mode: 1169 lumens, 5518K, DUV 0.0004, CRI 70.6

I also bought the Seeker 2 (non pro) which uses the Osram emitters instead of XP-L HI. The hotspot is smaller and the output is slightly lower at 3060 lumens. However it is a good bit more CW and not as rosy. I didn’t take any photometric measurement before I gifted it but I’m pretty sure tint is about 6500K and DUV is surely positive side. The Seeker 2 Pro tint looks far more pleasing and natural.

19

I know this thread is a little old, but for future readers: “Yes, this works great.”

I swapped in a set of LH351D LEDs on my Seeker 2 Pro. I went with high CRI 3000k warm white (bin code SPHWHTL3DA0GF4VPP6). The well-known “DA0GF4RTS6” SKU is 5000k, and would still be dimmer than the XP-L2, which I knew going in. The “DA0GF4VPP6” at 3000k is in the same quality range but there’s maybe a 15% hit to output going to the warm white dome vs. the 5000k Samsung chips, according to the datasheet. The reflow was fairly trivial, though there is really not a whole lot of length on the wires to re-attach them once the MCPCB is back in the light. The solder on there is lead-free and the metal PCB really, really eats up heat given that it has to be reassembled in contact with the body of the light – needs a good iron. I considered the SST-20 in a warm white, but have one in a 4000k EagTac D3A and it’s a bit too much throw for my taste in this light.

In terms of sizing and alignment with the lens, the LH351Ds are really a 1:1 replacement for the XP-L2s. The beam is beautiful, floody but still with a decent broad hotspot since this is mostly controlled by the stock TIR lens. It might be a tiny bit less defined at the edges. I looked into other lenses, but best I can tell it’s custom – there aren’t a whole lot of 26.5 mm diameter triples out there. Also, the white alignment / backing piece has pins that hold the PCB into the flashlight, so it would take a bit of hacking to keep the same mechanical design with a generic optic.

For me, the 3000k is perfect, sort of late afternoon sunlight. There is a noticeable dropoff in output, but honestly it’s still plenty bright for any reasonable use. Comparing to another OLight (the H2R Nova in NW), it’s similar in output, I’d say the modded Seeker 2 Pro is still a bit brighter. So, probably in the 2000–2500 lumens range – it’s difficult to be sure given the difference in colour temperatures. The colouring is night and day vs. the H2R. Way warmer and more pleasant, but also the CRI difference is huge – reds really pop.

If I had a line on TIR with a broader spill I’d probably go that way, as I’m a sucker for floody optics… but as a general purpose task light this is in a really good spot. Standard complaints about the OLight batteries aside, this is really a grail for me on ergonomics and the pleasant / useful output with the swapped emitters.

20

Nice review.

So you have to buy Olight batteries and you can’t charge them in standard desktop chargers? Not to mention, I cant use Olight batteries in my other lights?

That’s a rabbit hole to be avoided.