Review: Fenix TK41

That light is pretty awesome. I can't believe how cool it stays after tailstanding on high! Would love to see the pill and internal heatsinking on this bad boy.

Very nice review Foy, as usual! Thanks a lot! We now have a Fenix review on the frontpage. Looks like a real beauty. Drop that price down to $30 and I'm all over it. :p That'll be the day!

Thank you sb, I appreciate it.

Foy

Interesting question too. I personally would never spend $100+ on a flashlight, but then again I am an incorrigible tightwad. Nevertheless, I do find these reviews of premium lights to be VERY interesting, and even more so when it comes from an enthusiast of budget lights. I think the comparisons are very useful. This Fenix is a real beauty, but I think the comparison beamshots show that the budget $22 - $40 XM-L models, while noticeably less bright, definitely hold their own against this premium product.

Again, thanks for the review Foy!

And one niggle: Why couldn't they make the Fenix TK41 label line up axially with the two switch buttons? That would drive me crazy every time I look at it.

Ah, and a big thanks to trooplewis for kindly loning out your light for review!

That has to be one of the most positive negatives about anything.

"What I don't like about it"

"It isn't mine" :)

Do we see one of these in your future?

:)

No, not in my immediate future anyway. I'm not above spending a little if I happen to have it at the time (which isn't very often any more) but my days of pricey torches are probably behind me for the most part. That's why I jumped at troop's offer to review it. The "Budget" part of BLF seems to suit me economically quite well.

decliningincomeFoy

Can you talk about the benefits/negatives compared to the TK35? From what I gather, it's a great thrower, physically intimidating and uses more common AA batteries, but is less compact, doesn't have a clicky and more unwieldy.

In Short..

Pros

  • Very throwy - as good as a catapult V3
  • Side switch - comfortable grip for a torch of this size
  • Really good tailstanding
Cons
  • More throwy, but somewhat less suited for illumination of short-mid distance (doesn't have a very usable corona, tight hotspot
Subjective
  • Aesthetics - I prefer the look of the TK35, TK41 is practical and nice to hold
  • Uses AA - depends on what you normally use, NiMH or LiIon
  • UI is the same between the two - great UI IMO
  • Beam tint is typical XM-L not excessively cool, but still a cool white.

Its interesting that the the new TK60 is $10 cheaper than the TK41. The head and electronics look to be the same. The output is the same (technically the tk60 is speced virtually imperceptibly better) Perhaps its the result of not having to engineer the battery carrier? The Tk60 is huge with 4 d cells but you do get more run time. I wonder how well it would run with AA nimhs in d cell adapters. Do D cell nimhs handle high current draw better than AA's or is the only difference capacity? If you want a huge light, the Tk60 is an alternative to the TK41. Curious to see how the Tk70 comes out. It esentially takes the tk60 body and mates a jumbo head on it with 3xXM-L.

I think AAs are the better engineered battery because they are used more often. Even though 4xAA uses less volume than 1 D cell, you can get a similar capacity (about 8800mA from 4xAA Turnigy LSDs) while a D cell can be up to 10000mA but not guaranteed.

I believe if you can get your hands on 4x AA parallel adapters or even make your own, it should be pretty straightforward. 4xAA is bigger than a D cell alone, without any carrier frames, and the TK41 has a bit of battery carrier wobble while it was in the body, so there should be enough room for slightly bigger carriers too. Unless they used a narrower internal dimension on the TK60.

Hi Foy, did you try measuring the standby/parasitic drain of this TK41 (assuming you still have this with you :))?

I read somewhere the previous TK40 had a higher than average drain of ~400uA and would be completely flat in ~1.1year without lockout. Not a good choice for an emergency light.

A guy on CPF had the same concern, but measured the TK 41 and got this;

TK41 the parasitic drain is 0.053 mA or 53 micro amps which is hardly anything , the TK40 was 0.400 mA

FIRST THANKS FOR THE GREAT REVIEW , I STUMBLED ON THS SIGHT IN A DEBATE OVER THE TK35 OR TK41 STILL ON THE FENCE .....ALREADY OWN ABOUT HALF OF THE FENIX LINE WITCH INCLUDES 2 TK45'S BUT IM READY FOR THE NEXT HEAVY HITTER ......P.S. IT'S HARD TO BELIVE THAT PEOPLE HAVE THE AUDACITY TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD BUDGET AFTER ALL OF THE WORK YOU PUT INTO THESE REVIEWS, I FIND THEM VERY HELPFUL SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH

That is one great review right there done by a classy guy that tells it like it is. That's why I love the guy. Laughing

The TK41 from what I have seen watching videos is probably one of the better XM-L throwers out there and that's going against Catapult V3, Olight M3X or Crelant 7G5. It's got a super tight hotspot that is super bright as well. It's definately built to be a thrower and it does that indeed.

I didn't see any current draw listed so here are what I read with my new TK41.

Lo - 22ma

Med - 188ma

Hi - 678ma

Turbo - 2379ma

The voltage across the battery pack was 5.41v at those readings. I mention this because at 5.14v across the pack current had climbed to 2655ma.

This should give everybody enough information to guesstimate runtimes. Keep in mind that current is split between two different banks of batteries so each battery is only delivering half of that current.

So what would you guesstimate runtimes to be on Alkalines/Eneloops?

I find it pretty interesting that on "high" the Tk41 only pulls .68A

The light output on high seems to be about equivalent to an XM-L P60 on high, which is typically pulling 2.0A or more. AMazing what a good reflector can do.

For emergency use, you can unscrew the tailcap a bit.. and have 0 parasitic drain.

Fresh off the charger Eneloops have about 1825-1850mah capacity at that draw. They would also have higher voltage so initial current would be somewhat lower. If we figured 2600ma draw as an average that would pull 1300mah from each battery giving you right around 1.5 hours of runtime on Turbo and 5.4 hours on high.

Alkalines are another animal all together. You would only have full brightness for the first 5 minutes or so and then it would be on a steady decline. Without doing runtime test it would be hard to say.

I'm not sure what batteries Fenix was using to get 2hrs 10mins on turbo but even is we figured our current draw to average 2400ma which seems unlikely with my readings you would still need true 2600mah batteries to do it. At that current draw (1.2amps for each battery) I haven't seen them.

Still one of my favorite lights.