Olight M2R NW+CW review with measurements (18650, XHP35, USB charging)

I shaved the dome on the CW sample. I don’t think it’s worth it. The spill is more neutral, throw increases about 24%, but the greenish corona is wider and a stronger green. At least the perfectly neutral hotspot didn’t change to the worse, just a little warmer, about 200K.

Tint shift within the beam.

Stock domed XHP35 HD CW:

Shaved dome:

I’m waiting for a real XHP35 HI from Kaidomain and will report back when it arrives.

Updated the M2R with a XHP35 HI 5000K CRI80 from kaidomain. Well, it was listed as CRI80, but turned out to be CRI70, boo. So buyer beware. Other than that, the beam is now very nice!

Also measured the beam with the new servo platform at 1 degree steps. These were all done with the Mid1 mode.

Here’s the M2R neutral white with the stock XHP35 HD.

M2R cool white with the shaved dome XHP35 HD

M2R with the factory domeless XHP35 HI 5000K

As can be seen, the tint shift is considerably smaller. Especially the green shift on the corona is reduced. Also the cool white on the spill edge is much better in control.

Here’s a quad 219B sw40 for comparison. In practice, you can’t even really see the shift since it’s linear and tracks the black body line nicely.

Here’s the tint shift as deltaxy graphed versus beam angle

!https://i.imgur.com/XM4e1mw.png !:https://i.imgur.com/XM4e1mw.png

This one illustrates clearly how much less the tint varies in different areas of the beam. Since the S41S is practically perfect in real life, its linear curve reveals that it’s the sudden big changes that matters, not the maximum shift.

Thanks for another great review.

Nice update of the equipment with the servo! Very insightful!

After using the HI M2R for a while now, I can’t believe Olight didn’t equip it stock. It’s got a more intense hotspot while still offering a good amount of usable spill. And without the dirty tint shift artifacts. Sounds very tactical to me.

The M2R was just released in copper. LED is cool white only and I have no idea where to buy it outside of the US.

Thanks maukka!

I am thinking about doing the emitter swap as well. I don’t know a couple of things though (it’s my first swap, I can do soldering though):

  1. How do I remove the PCB which seems to be glued onto the shelf? Brute force? Or is there a trick to that? And how to attach it again?
  2. Which XHP35 Hi do i want and where do I get it? Sourcing is a problem, as I live in Europe. I think I want either 5700K or 6000K, as bright as possible, not shifting too much into green as I really HATE green tints. I recently tested the Acebeam T36 and I loved it’s tint, no green tint or color shifts whatsoever.

Any ideas for an XHP35 Hi that I could get and where I could get it from?

Okay, I finally did the emitter swap. I swapped the stock cold white emitter to a 5700K XHP35-Hi emitter (this one: XHP35A-H0-0000-0D0BD457E ordered via arrow.com).

I only have a very vague estimate of the increase in throw as all I have to measure is my smartphone, but Lux/throw-increase in the hotspot was about 64. Total output decreased about 12.5 in a ceiling bounce (probably a little more as ceiling bounce favors throwier lights). Output decrease roughly decrease with manufacturer specs of highest output HI vs HD XHP35. This means, the light is now very roughly a 1300 Lumen light.
Again, this is mostly guesswork but the numbers seem to roughly add up.

About the output: The mod was very worth it. The beam is now pretty much perfect. No horrible green to blue to yellow tint anymore. Very usable spill. I too agree with maukka. This should be the standard emitter choice by Olight.

Hi all,

Since this is my first post on BLF, hello to everyone!

I'm a long time member of CPF, happy to join BLF now since I own quite a few so-called budget lights, with a special interest in tiny lights.

Thanks a lot Maukka for this fantastic review.

Since I'm considering buying a M2R but don't like cool and low CRI emitters, I wonder how easy it is to swap the LED.

@kanton, how did you manage to remove the PCB and swap the LED?

A detailed explanation would be most welcome for my first ever LED swap on a not-so-budget light, thanks in advance.

On my M2R all I had to do was unscrewing the blue bezzle ring in the front and drop out the lens and the reflector (it is not glued in it just was very tight the first time I opened it). I then unsoldered the PCB and removed it (on mine it was not screwed in place or anything, the pressure of the reflector holds it in place. And out goes the PCB. You then remove the heat paste on the PC, heat the PCB until the LED comes free and then put on the new one. I used a heat gun for this (and mounted the PCB very gently in a vice), though i heard some people simply put it on the stovetop to heat it from below. To me that process was the scariest part. To put it back in, you simply reverse the steps. Soldering the PCB back in is pretty fiddly. Don’t forget to apply heat paste.

Hower this was on the original M2R. I don’t know how the new M2R Pro is build.

Thanks kanton for your quick and detailed reply.

M2R Pro is even more emitter swap friendly than M2R cause it doesn’t have third ground wire obstructing MCPCB removal and installation.

Everything else is the same

Since my plan is to upgrade a M2R (not Pro): does this third ground wire need to be unsoldered?

No need. Just be gentile removing MCPCB and you’ll be fine

I am not sure what you mean by third ground wire, but I found a gallery online: https://imgur.com/gallery/bdGd1 - mine pretty much looks like this (on mine there was a little white plastic ring around the LED which centers the reflector - be careful not to lose that one if your light has one of those). There are two reddit threads on M2R emitter swap as far as I have seen, you might want to check those out too.

There 2 red and 1 black wire. Long red is ground.

Interesting. Mine doesn’t have that - mine looks like in the album I posted.

I guess different country, different product.

Note XHP35 4500K 90CRI in this one

Thanks for the advice folks!

In fact I don't have the M2R yet : I prefer neutral white lights, but the M2R NW is impossible to find so I'll have to resign myself to ordering the CW. But before ordering it I wanted to make sure I would be able to perform an emitter swap.

Thanks for the reddit threads, in one of them I read the following record: "I tried it and bricked mine. You can't get replacement MCPCBs, so practise lots on cheap flashlights until you are confident you can perform a reflow correctly, before risking your expensive flashlight. I learned the hard way!". Wise advice, so I'm a bit worried, since I carried out an emitter swap only once, about 10 years ago, and I don't have a budget light at hand to practise.

Mine doesn’t have it too. It came from Australia.
Only black and red wire, and a screw to hold the board in place when rotating the bezel (and eventually the reflector).

Hi all,

I took the opportunity of a discount (+ free i1R 2 EOS) to buy this light from the French Olightstore.

I fully agree with Maukka's criticizing the color transition between center and edges of the beam, which will justify an emitter swap if I decide to keep the light.

I might return it because of the tail switch. I find it too difficult to operate with the thumb, first because it is flush with the tail (and even slightly recessed in its center), and because it is somewhat hard to press. I can't manage to keep it half-pressed to get a stable Turbo in the tactical mode: pressing too hard goes to Strobe (which I may want to use but not always), too little pressure makes the light flicker. And maintaining Strobe for more than a few seconds is equally difficult.

I've tried to put a small round magnet on the center button, this makes it easier to operate as it now protrudes a bit, but #1 the light is less stable in tailstand mode, and #2 it is still difficult to maintain the correct pressure between unwanted Strobe and flickery Turbo.

Your thoughts and suggestions on this issue of mine?