Thrunite contacted me about reviewing the Atactical A1 flashlight. I received the light in exchange for a review. From my understanding Atactical is either a new budget division of Thrunite or it is now the name for the value line.
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Factory Specs:
• LED: CREE XP-G2 LED with a lifespan of 20+ years of run time.
• Runs on: Atactical li-ion 18650 battery (3.7V/2600mAh).
• Working voltage: 2.7V-4.2V
• Output & Runtime (Tested with Atactical li-ion 3.6V/2600mAh)
Strobe(550 lumens /4 hrs),
Turbo(550 lumens/3.3 hrs),
High(200 lumens /5.5 hrs),
Medium(63 lumens /19 hrs),
Low(10 lumens /5.5 days).
• Peak beam intensity: 10520 cd (max.)
• Max beam distance: 205 meters (max.)
• Waterproof to IPX-7 Standard (1 meters).
• Impact resistant: 1.5 meters.
• Dimensions: 136mm*25.4mm
• Weight: 86g (excluding battery).
• Accessories: USB Rechargeable Li-ion 18650 battery*1, Cable*1,Spare O-ring*2, Pocket Clip*1
Operation
• Turn ON/OFF
Press the tail switch to turn the light on/off.
• Change Modes
When the light is on, one click the side switch within 2 seconds to cycle through low, medium, high, Turbo and SOS.
The mode will be Low if the clicking is over 2 seconds. When the light is ON, Long Press to access Strobe.
• Memory Function
The light will turn on in the last mode accessed, SOS and strobe will turn on in the Turbo mode.
• Low Voltage Indication
The light will blink twice if the battery is low.
What is it?
The Atactical A1 is essentially a copy or clone of the Thrunite TC12 / TN12 with fewer features and a lack of a turbo mode that they are producing at a rock bottom budget price. Current price is $20 for this guy, which is very affordable given the level of quality you are getting in this light. it is not a rechargeable flashlight but does come with a 2600mah usb rechargeable battery.
Youtube Review:
Pics:
Battery:
I tested the battery in my Opus and found it to have 2450mah capacity at 1A. Tested it in my new EDB M03 dummy load at 3A and ended up with a result of 2409. A little bit lower than the advertised mah, but most likely that amount is due to error. I also tested the USB charging function and it charged to around 4.15V each time. Once again, this is with a terrible home depot meter and is likely not the most accurate. I’d say the battery is usable, but nothing great.
Note: I did not use the included battery for ANY runtime of lumen tests. The test battery was an unprotect ncr18650b.
Performance:
To make things easier I split up my lumen measurement charts. As you can see from here that my reading exceeded the advertised values for this light.
Lux measurements of the A1 along with the high mode of the TN12 and TC12. it wasn’t fair to compare the turbo mode , so I compared the high mode of the 2 Thrunites.
Here is a look at the first handful of minutes of runtime of the A1. You can see form this chart that the light runs at 100% for 3 minutes and then does a slow step down to about 60%. I tested the lumens of the stepdown and found it to be around 450 lumens.
I converted the lux over to % to show how much the brightness drops compared to 100% seeing as we have 3 different types of lights here. The step down skews this data a bit, but does show you the relative outputs minus the difference in lumens.
Runtimes: (performed with NCR18650b unprotected)
A1 - 234 minutes (light blinks - end voltage 3.2v)
TC12 - 150 Min (high mode test)
TN12 - 230 min (high mode test)
Size Comparison:
Beam Shots:
Convoy S2+ Vs Atactical A1
Thrunite TC12 Vs Atactical A1
Olight S30 III Baton Vs Atactical A1
I’m not seeing PWM with my eyes or with my digital camera. However, if you watch the youtube review there is some evidence of PWM that shows up on that camera when I wave the flashlight.
User interface:
It’s as simple as it gets. Tail switch to turn on, body switch to change modes. It will go from moon-low-med-high-sos in the normal rotation. It does have memory, however will not memorize strobe or sos. To access strobe just long press the body switch with the light on. Tail switch turns the light off again. Lightly pressing the tail switch will activate in momentary on.
Conclusion:
I’ll let you jump to your own conclusions about this guy. I think for $20 this is a great light if you just don’t need a 1000 lumen turbo mode. It has everything you expect of a decent flashlight such as LVP, memory, and no PWM, and is built on a known and reputable platform. As far as this flashlight being modded, it does appear that the driver is glued into the head. I didn’t try to remove it because I still had testing to do. So is this a suitable host? Possibly. As far as just plain old lux this does outperform the high modes of the TC12 and TN12, although not by much. But at the same time I think that if this light had a thorough cleaning and spring bypass you could extend this up to around 800 lumens and add a few minutes of runtime. The light does get pretty hot during the 3 minutes prior to step down, but nothing you can’t handle with a bare hand. The flashlight has a forward tailswitch and uses momentary on.
This is alot of value for $20 as far as I’m concerned, and has the possibility to be an inexpensive host for modding. I think the XP-G2 is a decent choice and easily throws 100 yards. One really big positive is that the tint of the light is much better to the usual greenish tint that you get standard from Thrunite these days.
Once I’m completed fully with the light I’m going to try to remove the driver and do some bypasses and see what happens with this bad boy. But I think this light has some potential to be a budget friendly choice on par with the Convoy S2 and the Thorfire VG15
