Ok on the hunt for a new torch. I want something for minimalist travel that I won’t worry if I lost it or had it confiscated.
I have lots of 18650’s on hand, not worried about losing them. These are the specs I am after if possible:
18650 for long runtime (essential as I won’t be taking a charger and probably not a spare either)
A high mode of at least 1000 Lumens for emergency use
Throwaway price so I can potentially have multiples on hand (£10 range would be great but the cheaper the better)
At the moment top of the list is the BLF A6 but it’s not quite throwaway price and I have seen mixed reviews.
Convoy s2+ with sst20. Can be found on aliexpress, around 1000lumens and cheap. Not real sure why you would throw it away and not bring a charger but to everybody his own.
Sorry, the throwaway part was to illustrate the price constraint. I don’t intend to throw it away, but I want something where it wouldn’t bother me if it was lost, left behind, taken away from me or given away.
Ok going to try the S2 with SST40. Less than £12 delivered so a touch higher than I wanted to spend but still £5 less than an A6 and better output, not that I need it. Looking at the modes I would guess the 3% mode would be ideal for long walks and should last for hours, 30% mode great for occasional scouting further ahead and then the 100% for quick long range blasts. I am guessing that 30% is the highest it can sustain longterm, and 100% probably only lasts for a few seconds before cutting back.
Hopefully the 3% won’t be too bright for close up use indoors but we will see.
I think it’s 5A, I’ll have to check through my stock to find the most suitable battery, the are all quality brands though so there should be plenty that will handle that current and it would only be for a few seconds at a time anyway. A review I watched said that the torch itself can only sustain 100% for something like 30 seconds before ramping down.
My main use though is going to be a low-medium light for walking with long runtime but the ability to really light things up if I need to. Currently I use my BLF X5 for this role, on full power it’s superb but that lasts for a matter of seconds and even on a lowish mode the run time is really poor. Means I can’t trust it as my only light for night time use without taking at least one spare battery.
I have a small single cell charger I can take travelling with me, but for ultralight travel it’s nice to minimise things as much as possible and it looks like this torch could cover a lot of functions.
At 5A you’re getting very diminished returns for more power, especially in an S2. In my experience, anything above 3A in an S2 sized light is wasteful unless you’re specifically going for max lumens.
I know you’re chasing lumens but it’s a fairly meaningless target without taking beam pattern into consideration, 1000 lumens in a mule is very different to 1000 lumens from a focused aspheric.
I don’t have an X5 but from what i understand it’s an XP-L hi in a larger reflector (14500 light obv), so moving to the smaller reflector of the S2+ means a more floody beam, and moving to the larger SST-40 die means more flood still. The reason i’m saying this is: if you like the beam pattern of the X5 then the S2+ is going to more floody, and you’re compensating for reduced throw by running the LED with more power, which means more heat and less runtime, and i still don’t think you’ll be able to see as far with the SST-40+ as with the X5, but you’ll have a much wider view closer up.
You could go back towards the beam pattern of the X5 with a smaller LED, such as the XP-L Hi, and be able to see the same distance as with the SST-40 with the advantages of using less power. But you would also get less flood for close up work. Everyone has their own preference.
Battery wise i was thinking more of runtime than being able to deliver current. A GA would deliver slightly less power than a more powerful battery, but the difference in brightness would be negligable and you’d be able to eek out a bit more runtime. But i missed the part where you already have batteries so what i’ve said there is pretty redundant
Roughly speaking, at 30% you’re looking at about 1.5A current draw which means 2 hours on a decent, fully charged battery, with the 3% mode getting you 20 hours.
Having typed all of the above, the SST-40 might work out ideal for walking so might be the best fit for you, it all depends on what beam pattern suits you,
Thanks for all that detail there. I have certainly learned something. When I first said 1000l+ it was really so I had the option of some proper brightness for really lighting up the path ahead and also as a self defence feature. Throw really isn’t as important as overall intensity for self defence in my opinion.
Runtime is the real reason I wanted an 18650 torch, but if it is going to be my only torch at times then I wanted the higher output options for defence and proper illumination for say scouting a field quickly.
Main use will be on a low level for checking the path in front of me. My X5 is a superb torch for doing everything I mentioned above but even on a low setting it would only just last for a 1 hour walk for instance. This had meant that in the past I have had to carry 2 torches which is fine sometimes but not always ideal.
My hope is that the 3% setting will be enough for lighting the path, 30% enough for looking further ahead and 100% used only rarely. I know the 1400l of the X5 is excellent as a self defence feature, the 1800l should be equally as good even if it doesn’t throw as far.
Oh and for beam pattern, I don’t massively like the beam pattern of the X5 for walking, I prefer my o-light Sr15 but the throw of the olight is terrible and the X5 is superb. Hopefully the S2 will be somewhere in between.
Throw is very importaned for self defence. Throw is measured in intensity and overall output in Lumens. I think unless somebody is really close. S2+ sst20 has more throw with less power and heat. And 1800 lumen in such a small light is pretty useless and drains your battery very fast. and 1800 lumen isnt almost twice as bright. The difference is smaller. 2000 lumens is not twice as bright as 1000 lumens.
There is a s2+ with 21700 battery in it. Which because its slightly bigger will give you around 5000mah with a proper cell. Highest 18650 is about 3500mah.
The 3% is not bright enough for walking imo. If you bought the s2+ with biscotti driver you can change the modes and output.
The Biscotti drivers run the light at 2.8 amps as they are 7135 based drivers and they put 8 chips on the board. With the sst40 at 2.8 amps, it will still be as brigh as the sst20 and more floody. I built one with the sst40 and a 7135x12 driver (4.2 amps) and yes, it’s really bright, but if it didn’t step down it would get really hot, and yes, drains the battery like crazy.
The SST40 driver should be more efficient or at least as efficient as the 7135xN driver at the same output as it doesn’t use PWM. It should work with XPL-HI too even if the XPL-HI is not officially rated for 5A, I’m not sure of the SST20, I had bad experiences with Nichia and overheating.
The thermal step down in the SST40 driver should prevent accidental overheating in turbo even if some people consider it premature, OTOH the 7135x8 can overheat a lot. There is a new variant of the SST40 driver with Biscotti and thermal step down, but it’s only available on request at the moment and nobody has tested it yet.
Distance wouldn’t be important for self defence, I would only be using it up close. I am guessing you are in the US and thinking I mean for use with a gun, I am in the UK, the torch itself would be the self defence, blind my attacker, disable them as best I can then make my escape.
In that case, sst40 would be better in terms of shear light output if you don’t care about duty cycle or battery life. Even at 5 amps, that high binned sst40 is still doing 1600+ lumens out the front of the light. You’d want 100% on for the first mode as well.
