Review: Noctigon KR4 (18650, 4xE21A 5000K, CRI96)

Mr. Maukka, thank you for very detail review with lot of information!

Do you think e21a is your favourite led? How does it compare with sst20 95cri?

The kr4 driver looks different from normal driver, do you know if it is similar to loneoceans gxf22 driver? GXF22 - Very Low Resistance FET & Constant Current Driver with Fuzzy Logic + Microphone I don’t think I saw it in any other flashlight yet. It will be nice for kr4 to have fet mode as well, but maybe not for e21 version.

I’ve had this one in cyan for a month or so, very happy with it!

i just received this in an 8LED mule configuration, and it is fantastic.

The KR4 driver is a separate design not by me. However, the KR4 looks like a really nice product and I'd love to have a go at making a driver for it..

Personally, I do quite like the Noctigon line of products. They seem to be well designed with good quality manufacturing and assembly, together with good product support. Thanks Maukka for your detailed review.

I personally find Emisar/Noctigon design quite nice. Hank lights combine practicality with appealing look. I think that the only thing that I don’t like in Emisars is glue. In my expirience glued driver will be most likely destroyed during disassembley attempt.

My KR4 with SST-20 3000k CRI 95 arrived yesterday.

What an awesome light. I absolutely LOVE the wide/soft floody beam and the 3000k tint 95 CRI is gorgeous - exactly what I want for an around the house light!

I added it to my flickering LED candles in the bedroom last night, with the KR4 doing a ceiling bounce in Candlelight mode - the warm flickering light matched the flickering LED candles beautifully - creating an awesome romantic ambience.

I like the light and the output of the four SST-20 3000k emitters so much that I just ordered a D4v2 and D4Sv2, both with SST-20 3000k 95 CRI lights from Hank.

These are easily my favorite around the house lights now. Hank Wang .... your lights absolutely ROCK! And same for you ToyKeeper with your Anduril creation. Thank you both.

KR4 E21A version available,

Interesting.

I just checked the KR4 E21A store page and in the description there it says that it comes with a Carclo 10623. This would adress maukka's initial criticism concerning the 10622 clear optic.

Can anyone confirm that it's delivered with the frosted 10623 now?

edit: Nevermind, Hank confirmed it over here.

Is there any timeframe announced for the mule version of KR4 with E21A, already?

I’m considering a KR4, interested in the E21A emitter as well.

Not available on website yet but Hank may sell directly if they’re ready?

Just wanted to share the happy news, that the KR4 E21A is now available in 2000K and 2700K.

Thanks Maukka for this – once more – amazing review.

The Noctigon KR4 is also available with a Nichia 219C (4000K, 90CRI). Any idea of how it compares with the E21A?

Only with E21A does the Noctigon KR4 come with the driver with no PWM, at least that is how I interpreted Maukka’s review.

Maybe a little ambiguous. I am not sure why with E21A the KR4 would have noPWM and the other emitters would have PWM with a different FET driver altogether, but that’s how I read it.

The KR4 and D4v2.5 (CC driver installed by request) using XP-L HI/SST-20/etc. only have PWM between 5A/max CC and turbo.

The E21A versions have the FET disabled although it may be physically present on the driver itself, and do not use any PWM. The type and/or wiring of that FET on the 3535 LED versions is different from previous Emisar/Noctigon lights and other common 7135+FET designs.

That settles that. Thank you BurningPlayd0h.

Thanks nocturne and BurningPlayd0h for your replies, but I don't care much about PWM, my question was more tintwise.

The E21A version is rated at 1200lm, whereas the 219C is 3000lm, which makes quite a difference. Not that I am in the "lumen race", tint and beam shape are more important to me, so how do these two LEDs compare in terms of color and hotspot vs spill?

Whether you care about PWM or not, it is useful information to know that the KR4 effectively uses two different drivers, at least the implementation is drastically different, and, in fact, one is likely more efficient than the other, and it isn’t necessarily the brighter of the two that is more efficient, because the emitters also play a role and have their own efficiency aspects.

I can’t answer your question directly as I have not seen either emitter’s output, but I do know that 3000Lm is only 40% brighter that 1200Lm, and anything less than 300% brighter is going to only be negligibly brighter, even if you can tell the difference in brightness, because for a light to appear twice as bright as another to human eyes, it needs to actually be 3 times brighter.

If the best tint is your goal, I can only help a little, and only by deduction and transitive law say the Nichia E21A tint is superior to the tint of Nichia 219C, generally speaking. To explain this, from what I have read here at BLF, the gold standard of tint among the tint mafia is the 219B 4500K, and this is apparently superior to any version of the 219C, again, tint wise and generally speaking. Yet the tint of E21A somehow competes with the tint of 219B. So if X is competitive with Y, and Y is better than Z, then X is better than Z, iow the transitive law applies.

I also suspect that if beam shape is another goal, then you should be made aware that a single emitter will have superior beam characteristics to triple emitters, and triple emitters will have superior beam characteristics to quad emitters. It might make more sense to compare single emitter beam characteristics, but become vastly more complex comparing 4 of one emitter to 4 of another, or it might not make sense to suggest that if one emitter has better beam characteristics than another, that anything at all can be said accurately about 4 of one emitter compared to 4 of another. I could be mistaken, but I think the beam characteristics in a quad are going to depend more on the optic than the emitters themselves.

I know none of this is what you want to hear, so I’ll just tell you what I think you really want to hear: if you put weight on brightness over tint, then get the XP-L HI V3 3A 5000K, because it is actually not a bad compromise in tint for the 4300Lm you’ll get out of it. I think maybe your attraction to Nichia 219C may have to do with an assumption (that I have seen at least a dozen times already) that the 219C tint is good because the 219B tint is good, and this simply doesn’t follow. Most tint snobs here, from what I have read and have had explained to me, aren’t all that impressed with the 219C.

That said, I personally am curious about the 219C, and from the beam shots I’ve seen, I think it is very attractive, and I intend to acquire a light with 219C no matter what the finely tuned tint tastes are of those that best know tint, and I’ll certainly choose it with a constant current driver over one burdened with PWM. Over just a handful of years considering the opinions of those that know drivers best I have gleaned that constant current drivers are more efficient than drivers with PWM, so this will help mitigate the fact that the emitters with the best tint are the least efficient emitters. Plus, it is hard not to notice that PWM kind of sucks.

I hope this helps.

I just got a KR4 and also a D4v2 with Nichia E21A (selected different color temperature for each). I notice they do not have PWM on all levels.

I’m wondering about the “D4v2.5” you mentioned “CC driver by request” = what does this mean?

Does it mean that if ordering the D4v2 with say XPL-Hi LED, then it will use the normal FET +1 driver and will have PWM on all levels except the “1” (0.35A) and Turbo.

But if I want the “CC driver” with an D4v2 (or KR4) with XPL-Hi, then I have to specifically ask Hank to install the CC driver, which will have NoPWM up to 5A and have PWM only when using higher levels (uses FET)?