Mateminco MT18S 4x 18650 18x SST-20 90+ CRI. My most used light at the moment

While they were sending me the MT07 to review, they offered to send me a final version of the MT18S (more commonly known on here as the Astrolux MF01S) as well since all I have is a prototype right now. Naturally I said sure as the MF01S is my most used light at the moment outside of my EDC.

I picked the Sand color. I have grown so very tired of black flashlights. The sand is quite good, it is a bit of a gold/bronze/sand combo and looks quite good. My prototype is purple and I also really like that. The other color I was considering was Red but sand won out.




Only real complaint with what comes in the box is that the wrist strap has a metal clip to attach to the light. This will of course scratch up the finish. I wish it was a thicker then normal cord instead.

Before this my most used light was my custom MT03/MT09R with 80CRI LED’s. The MF01S is a nice upgrade in CRI and tint from these and I find that more important for general use. Plus the fact it uses TIR optics instead of reflectors makes for a much nicer beam IMHO. Although the MT03 is still a better flooder and brighter and the MT09R throws further. The MF01S is better for general use in my case.

I got the SST-20 90+ CRI 4000k FD2 tint version, the best tint of the SST-20 you can realistically get. They are ok at low levels where they have a slight green hue but as soon as you ramp it up a bit more and the FET channel kicks in, they turn to a positively great tint that is ever so slightly rosy. The best tint I have excluding the 219B 9080.

I got this poster from a BLF member awhile back. I am not sure if he is offering these to the public so not going to mention his name but thanks a lot for this! If he is ok with posting his name I will be happy to do that.

This is a pretty good representation of the light at lower modes before the FET kicks in, it gets even better above this:

I measured ~8500 lumens with 30Q cells, higher drain cells should net you a bit more. Pretty good for 90+ CRI SST-20 LED’s. Well worth the tradeoff in lumens from the 70cri versions IMHO.

A quick throw test showed around 500m of throw and 65kcd

The internals are well made, it has a lot more fin surface area from the first gen MF01. It has a “body tube carrier” like the MT03/MT09R. It works well and the double springs seem to be up to the task.



Bypassing the springs will net you minor gains but not sure I will worry about it myself. The driver spring is already bypassed which is a nice bonus. The driver is an FET + 1 design running Toykeepers Anduril.

On the front it has a nice stainless steel bezel followed by a nice thick piece of AR coated glass. It is not glued so that is a big bonus.


It also have AUX LED’s under the optic. By default they are setup for unicorn rainbow, not my personal taste but some might like it. You can adjust the pots under the optic to disable some of the colors if you want (which I plan to do).



It of course also has a lighted switch. You can see the glow from the unicorn AUX LED’s as well here.

My light did not come with a manual as it was a factory sample but it should be very close to the MF07S:






In conclusion I am very happy with this light, it is my most used light for a reason. It’s well rounded performance and great tint. It is great for close range out to moderate ranges.

No real complaints to speak of except the unicorn AUX LED’s which are fixable with a screwdriver. Also wish it used a wrist strap without the metal clasp and instead used the more common cord to attach to the light.

I would highly recommend this light as a soda can size light for anytime you need a lot of light for random situations.

Thank you for sharing your impressions and results.

This flashlight is indeed right in the sweet spot. And for me, too, this is the most used flooder currently. I chose the silver one, because I love silver/clear anodization since Convoy introduced it.

I just ordered a flashlight of similar concept recently - I am glad, that ROT66 2nd generation omitted the separate battery carrier design and increased the emitter number to 12 - I also didn’t have a warm white flooder, so I took the chance and jumped in for a 2700K SST-20 95CRI.

Thanks for the review!

Just to confirm, you measured turbo, and it was 8500 lumens @ turn on with fully charged Samsung 30Q batteries?

Yeah, mostly charged 30Q, I ran some other tests before this and didn’t feel like waiting for them to recharge just to do that test again.

Obviously that is with the 90CRI LED’s, the 70cri would be significantly higher of course but I happily give up lumens for tint.

Did you double click twice for turbo? On many Anduril flashlights, top of the ramp is configured to be less than turbo, so you must double click again for turbo.

I would have expected more lumens, since Emisar D18 also has 18x SST-20 4000K emitters, one less battery (3 instead of 4), and can do roughly 10k lumens.

Yes, this was full turbo.

I also expected a bit more (although not much more, I was thinking a bit over ~9k lumens), I might try to find my VTC6 cells (Not sure what light they are in) and try it again with those. These 30Q’s have been well used.

The D18 does 10k real lumens with the 90CRI SST-20’s?

The lights are basically the same and they use the same LED’s. So the only difference would be the FET used in each and the spring resistance / Wire thickness.

The wires on this light could be upgraded to thicker ones for some gains. Bypassing the springs would also net some gains. Not sure what FET was used but pretty sure it is one of the best on the market, at least it was when I was still in charge.

It is all math, the MT18 should have the lumen advantage all else being equal. So not sure what is going on there.

@Texas Ace, nope. Doesn’t do 10000 lumens. That’s estimated.

The real performance of the SST-20 4000k 95CRI model is 7500 lumens:

Ok, that makes much more sense. That is about what I would expect between those 2 lights.

It does push pass 10,000 lumens if you use the right cells

I really like this light in the SST-20 4000K. Beautiful tint on turbo and feels solid in the hand.

Good to know my estimates were basically spot on, I knew that the 30Q’s were not giving me all it had.

This light gets hot super fast (4000k and 5000k)… but then again which SST lights don’t.

This sand color looks nice. I thought it would be more like brown. Do Mateminco and Astrolux use different colors?

It does heat up pretty quick, although the SST-20 is not really to blame for that, I have an XP-L HI Prototype as well and it gets hot just as fast if not faster.

The real issue is the 120w+ that it is using. Nothing you can do about that much heat in such a small package except turn the brightness down.

Yeah, it turned out pretty nice.

Mateminco is the factory that makes the lights for Astrolux. Astrolux is mostly sold outside china and Mateminco is mostly sold Inside china as I understand it.

Although in some cases Mateminco does make slight changes to the design (for example the body tube on the MT18 was suppose to be a little different between the brands with the Mateminco version looking better).

I know that Mateminco also produced some special colors of the Mateminco MT07 / Astrolux MF01. To me, your MT18S looks more like a golden color while the MF01S seems to be brown/bronze. One would need to ask Mateminco but I already have the silver version so I could not justify or afford a golden one.

I think that is largely a matter of lighting / camera making the color appear a bit different, it is a bit more bronze/sand colored then the picture makes it look but does have a gold vibe to it as well for sure. it is a combo of all 3 colors depending on the angle / lighting.

I was chatting with my Mateminco contact so I just got confirmation, the colors are the same for both brands.

Thank you for clarifying that. So it is one of those colors that look different in every light and is hard to define.

By the way, thank you for your essential contribution to the improvement of this second generation MF01. I’m sure it wouldn’t be quite as great without your advice. :+1: