Review: 75W HID Xenon Flashlight - 7800mAh battery pack (Picture Heavy!)

LED Flashlights – General Info Other Battery Type Flashlights
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75W HID

Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

Battery: Battery Pack - 7800mAh
Switch: Tailcap
Modes:

Mode Group 1: High (75W) - Medium (55W) - Low (35W)
Mode Group 2: Strobe and SoS
Mode Group 3: High (75W) - Medium (55W)
Mode Group 4: High (75W)
Bulb Type: 75W HID (Cool White ~6000K) (Lens Filter for ~3500K)
Reflector: Aluminum, Smooth
Lens: Glass
Tailstands: No
Price: $135.00 Shipped
Provided by: Banggood

Pros:

  • It's Bright!
  • Ease of use ( No fumbling around charging 3+ 18650/26650 batteries )
  • Rather lightweight for how massive it appears
    • Even distribution of weight, center of mass is around the first section of knurling behind the head
  • Shoulder strap if needed
  • Carry case to keep various parts organized
  • Additional Lampshade warms the tint to ~3500k if a warmer tint is desired
  • Threads are very smooth
  • Machining is very smooth
  • Handles the heat very well.
  • Simple to disassemble to upgrade/replace parts
  • Battery pack has a backup lightsource (3x 5mm led's in case the pack is depleted too much to be able to use the HID)
  • Extremely useful flood/spot adjustment (See beamshots!)

Cons:

  • Takes time to warm up to full brightness (Inherent with HID technology)
  • Some cheap components
    • Plastic rings that secure the attachments for the shoulder strap arrived cracked
    • Reflector has a few divots/bubbles in the reflective finish and actual aluminum is dented in my sample


Function:

I measured 180kcd after warm-up at 7ft on high mode.


This 75W HID has 4 mode groups. To change mode groups simply press and hold the switch while in the off position. A quick flash indicates the mode group has been changed. A single short press will change modes with respect to the mode group the light is currently in. For example, while in Mode Group 3, a single short press from Off will change the mode to High, another short press will change to Medium, and a final short press will turn the light off.

Mode Group 1: High (75W) - Medium (55W) - Low (35W)

Mode Group 2: Strobe and SoS

Mode Group 3: High (75W) - Medium (55W)

Mode Group 4: High (75W)

Pictures:

Here is the case, C8 for scale.

Down to the bright room.

Contains all the goodies. :)

From Right to left, top to bottom: car charger, plug converter, additional lampshade, AC plug, wall charger, shoulder strap, 7800mAh battery pack, 75W HID Flashlight, Manual, Lens cleaning cloth.

A few pictures of the manual, and information on the label on the wall charger.

Shoulder Strap attached. I'm 5'10, the light rests a few inches above my waist when the strap is on my shoulder.

Backside of the battery pack, the volt meter seems to be pretty accurate and consistent based on a 10-15 tests at various levels of charge. It takes a few seconds to determine the level of charge when depleted a fair amount.

Front side of the battery pack. Leads on 'D' and '+' show the charge of the pack. On the bottom you can see the charging port. On the top right is the switch for the 3x 5mm led's.

Charge indicator in High (75W - Green), Medium (55W - Blue), Low (35W - Red)

When switched into the Flashy group the strobe/SoS utilize High for the flashes.

Here's the flashlight! :)

Breakdown:

Taking off the plastic rings that secure the shoulder strap hooks.

Here is the cracked part on one of the rings. One of the (few) weakpoints of this flashlight.

Here are the tailcap threads. Very smooth despite the odd sized one near the O-ring. The O-ring is just slightly too big and provides a little more resistance than needed when threading the tailcap on.

Down the tube. Some nicks on the battery tube.

Bezel and Reflector. The dent at the bottom of the reflector can be seen here (6 O'clock).

Reflector, a few of the defects in the finish can be seen here. The dent can also be seen here.

Underside of the reflector, and the bulb assembly removed.

Contact plate of the bulb assembly.

Down the head with the bulb assembly removed.

Bulb assembly reinstalled in the head.

Bezel threads on the head (Very smooth and plentiful).

Size Comparison:

BTU Shocker, Maglite 3D, 75W HID

Comparing the reflector/head size

Conclusion:

This 75W HID flashlight is a very nice flashlight with some serious output. It's size may be off-putting for some, it was for me until I actually got it in my hands. The evenly distributed weight makes it very comfortable to carry. The focusing feature is incredibly useful, allowing this massive light to rapidly switch between super thrower and super flooder.

A star was deducted because of the cheap plastic rings and dented reflector.

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Beam Shots:


H - M - L


~150 Yards

Spot

Flood


~50 Yards

Spot

Flood


Comparing 75W HID with the BTU Shocker (3x XML, 3x NCR18650 PD Unprotected [4.20v], DRY Driver - Turbo @ 4.5A)



For the following pictures:

Mouse Out is BTU Shocker on Turbo.

Mouse Over is 75W HID


~150 Yards

~50 Yards

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Will update with approximate run times asap.

Feel free to ask questions or request information. I’ll do my best to answer.

Annnd broken pics… :weary: will fix later today.

4

Nice review. I've been eyeballing this light (or something like it) for a good year or so. Love the comparison photo to the Maglite. Very impressive light. I don't care about beam artifacts and power needs, HID's are bad ass.

5

What a review. With all the pictures I had to wait until I got to a computer hooked to a more robust internet connection just to see them!

Are you afraid that it will spoil your enthusiasm for LED’s?

6

Last oouseovers don’t work properly (they’re also crashing my Firefox). This picture doesn’t exist:
http://i.imgur.com/H9ptO5O.jp

7

I have that HID flashlight as well but with 85W (doesn’t make much of a difference I suppose?) for a year already. It has incredible output but less practical for me - its “low” mode is still too bright! Bring it and switch it on at outside it can definitely make people think WTH is that!

But my modded BTU Shocker with dedomed XM-L2 already beat it in throw.

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Thank you,
I was going to mention the artifacts as a negative, but I spent a good 15-20 minutes outside with this crazy light and didn’t notice them unless I spun the light.
The artifacts are very noticeable indoors, but it’s so bright you wont be able to look at the beam for too long while indoors. :stuck_out_tongue:

This light fills the ‘crazy output, large flashlight’ niche. There’s still a lot more open slots to fill in my collection. :bigsmile:

I’m not quite sure what is causing that. Earlier a few pictures had “errors” and wouldn’t show up and it just seemed to magically fix itself.

Are the mousovers still not working for you? They are for me, on chrome though.

The mode spacing is a bit wonky for sure. I forgot to mention that.

I suspected as much, my BTU is stock with xml. I imagine just dedoming would allow the BTU to beat this 75W HID in throw.

A major benefit of this particular HID is that even while the head is in the position for focused throw you still get quite a bit of flood, and in a few moments it can be adjusted for straight up massive amounts of flood.

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Nope, last two mouseovers still don’t work on neither Firefox, nor Internet Explorer. IE can open separate pictures, FF says they they have errors.

EDIT. After many reloads I managed to open separate pictures with Firefox as well. Mouseout image loads now as well but mouseover doesn’t work - Firefox crashes…

10

Hmm.

For http://i.imgur.com/H9ptO5O.jp it seems to be cutting off the ‘g’ at the end for whatever reason… I rechecked the links in the post, but they seem to be correct.

Is the error with the mouseovers happening for anyone else?

11

That’s how they look in IE:

It’s getting better on FF - one of mouseovers worked 3 times before crashing.

12

I should have mentioned that my BTU Shocker is not just having dedomed LED, but also using DRY driver pumping 5.5A to each LED on Turbo mode. The LEDs are dedomed XM-L2 U2 1A on Noctigon. I never measured the throw number of my modded Shocker as it requires 10m or longer to measure accurately, but Tom E has started this Super Shocker mod and getting 4100 OTF lumens, 467kcd out of it. My skill may not be as good as Tom E but I am sure it has at least 350kcd.

13

Thanks for the nice review!

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For big bright lights, I’ll take a HID over an LED any time (given the current state of LED tech). I have a pair of Surefire Hellfighters (one new in the collection) and occasionally do SAR with the light that I actually use all the time. It’s only 30 watts (3000 lumens) but never fails to impress. The great thing about Hellfighters is that you can run them for a month without overheating and literally drive a up-armored HUMVEE over it without doing anything more than scratch it up. Many have survived IED’s. Anybody that thinks that all HID’s are delicate needs to rethink their position.

75/85 watts must be pretty darn bright but I have to ask - how long can you run it on high before it starts to melt? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of material for heat-sinking there. I looked into getting one of these a while back but never pulled the trigger. Nice light.

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I’ve run it inside for about 10 minutes and outside for about 25 min (20* f) The fins seem to do a very good job.

I’m currently charging it for run tests, I’ll check the hottest point every few minutes with my IR thermometer.

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Thanks. I would be curious about run times too. With a pair of Bren-Tronics BB-2590’s I can run the Hellfighter for just over 7 hours.