Durability Test / Crash Test now online....

UPDATE: APRIL 2020It's

ready: https://1lumen.com/18650-reviews/xanes-xt02-vs-convoy-s2plus-vs-m900/

Mocarny and 1lumen are teaming up for a durability review/test.

For our first round we would like to test 3-5 flashlights. We like to keep the tests a little realistical. Not like dropping it from an altitude of 1 mile or anything.

  • Drop test (realistically, this can happen often)
  • Waterproof test (not uncommon to happen in certain countries, or putting it in a washing machine)
  • Heat test (think about leaving your flashlight in the car during a hot summer day)
  • Body scratch
  • Cooling test (especially where temperatures go below 0 degrees.

We will start with a small amount of flashlights during the first test, and probably increase the second round.... which will be done a few months later.

Questions for you all:

  1. Is 3-5 flashlight enough?
  2. What other tests are important? (please be realistic, and don't come up with a swallow test, beat your neighbor with it...etc.. ;)

Flashlights:

  • Convoy S2+
  • On The Road M900
  • Xanes ST02

We're still waiting for the following and may never arrive:

  • Lumintop EDC18
  • Weltool T5

I just done a video on this, I tested a 2USD light.
Dropped it twice from 1.5m meters, 30min in water while turned on and ran it over with a car.

The heat test will be good.

Washing machine test :wink:

Also check to make sure the LVP and reverse polarity actually work

Awesome!

We will probably do a written review instead of a video.

Do you think 3+ flashlights is enough?

Good points, but it's more of a durability test rather than a 'normal' review :)

At least 2 thrunites smoked when their reverse polarity failed

I would say being able to survive that is pretty important :wink:

https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/708s1u/thrunite_tn42_smoking/

That is true. I will have to discuss this... maybe as one of the last tests :)

I would call this a toughness test.
For endurance you should make great many iterations of not-very-tough tests with something bigger happening from time to time.

People could comment on that as well.

Toughness test, Break test, Endurance test?

If anybody has the perfect description, let us know as well :)

About drop test: Most effective impact would be hitting the ground with the bezel, that should give a lot of stress to driver and glass cover. IMO.

But tail-first stresses the switch assembly more which may be the weaker link.
I remember a CPF test of some darksucks light where people would throw it around in various ways. Switch was the first part to fail.

I suppose that it’s important to check various angles because for each light the weakest spot is going to be different.

heating is not a bad thing to review.

i would comment though, that the ‘drop tests’ won;t really be all that informative.
almost every time something falls like that, it is a special case.
angles, forces, position at time of impact, are not controllable.
they are also mostly not even ‘knowable’.

you would need to do that about 100 to 1000 times per light to be reliable.
even if you find a failure it will only be one data point.
though if you drop a light 1000 times and it still works, that is good to know - even if the conditions are somewhat random and unknown.

wle

Interesting points.

We are thinking about doing 10-20 drop tests to see how they will hold up, not 100, and definitely not 1000 LOL.

skylumen (Vinh) recently made some tests on his brand new light / prototype, that may be inspiring for this:

One thing I find important is to perform the tests with less variability possible, meaning, standardized as much as possible!

This said, one question: do you intend to check “only” if the manufacturers’ specs match the real world or do you wanna go beyond that?
Meaning: check if “only” 1m is enough to “break” the light because the specs say so; or check waterproofness of a light “1m underwater for 30minutes” because that’s what specs say.

I normally don’t do these tests in my lights, but I do appreciate your efforts to check that in some “popular” (and not very expensive) lights! :wink:
Thanks :blush:

  • Convoy S2+ flashlight cold ,hot ,crash resistance. Tc demo - YouTube S2+ Simon video 5 years ago. Cold, hot, 5th floor window to concrete drop test. You probably don’t need to go from that high on the drop test. You probably don’t need to go to a full boil on the water heat test. Edit… he doesn’t claim that he used the same flashlight for all those tests. You probably ought to have 2 of every model if you are going to really stress them.

Ideally, you’d test at least 2 or 3 lights of the exact same model, to be sure you’re not either getting a “dud” or an “exceptional” light. Maybe that’s what you mean when you say 3-5 flashlights. But, even if you just test 1 unit each of 5 different models, it’s informative.

Do the same test over and over and over again. It might take dozen of tries before you get a light to land in a particularly bad way, such as on the lens or switch where it breaks.

If you don’t care about breaking the light, increase the severity of the testing, to figure out just when the light will break. e.g, Test 1 meter drops, then 2 meters, then 3 meters, etc.

For drop tests, do it onto concrete or hard rock. Asphalt is just too soft to be a good drop-test.

Water tests, might include some tests for using the switch while under water.

Personally, don’t spend too much time on hot/cold tests. You can do it, but any light that can’t operate within –20C to +60C is junk. So, no need to test it more than once for each light.

In addition to drop tests, do “throw tests”. This would simulate dropping the light while cycling, or out a car window. Maybe do it on a bumpy surface, to give the light lots of skips and bounces. You could also do this by simply tossing the light out a car window while driving.

The switch is often the weak point, so test that somehow.

Water tests might include salt water. That’s often much more destructive, especially for long periods of time.

How about a drop test of two of the same light, one with aluminum bezel and the other with stainless steel. I prefer ss thinking it would be much more durable hitting granite, but some others seem to prefer all aluminum to save the miniscule weight difference. Might be interesting. Thanks for the great idea of testing the lights!

Get Markus to blow it up. :laughing:

Shooting range test? :-D

Don't know who Markus is but, if blowing it up is all about we can try it with the heat test: insert a charged li-ion cell in the flashlight, place it inside an oven, select target test temperature and turn it on full blast. ;-)

Skip to around 3:15.