The Best XM-L Throwers: You Pick The Winner

All about the same :) I have got the Sunwayman and I don't regret it. The crelant might throw a bit further but at a cost of a smaller hotspot and narrow spill and therefore less of an allrounder.

Sunwayman T40CS (mouse out) vs. Crelant 7G5 (mouse over)

Olight M3X (mouse out) vs. Crelant 7G5 (mouse over)

Sunwayman T40CS (mouse out) vs. Olight M3X (mouse over)


ILF, you definitely need a tripod for your camera...

Good to see that your 7G5 is up to snuff now. I received my new U2 16mm star from LED DNA. Lets see if it would equal in output to the original one (or even give more output!)

Olight M3X gets my vote from picture. It just came naturally. :)

Thanks coolperl.

2100,

I got a tailcap reading of 1.905 amps with Trustfire flame 18650 2400mah batteries from my new 7G5. This thing is burning on the high side. I love it.

From the pics it looks like the M3X and T40CS have the lesser spill compared to the rest, which should mean they are more able to collimate most of the output light in the hotspot, so better thrower than the others.

Hard to tell which one between M3X and T40CS is king. Maybe 60yds is too close a distance to really measure throw capability, would need a farther object pics to show differences.

Anyway Catapult V3 seems floody in comparison, and 7G5, TK41 and SR51 beamshots are very similar indeed, nice hotspot but with considerable sidespill (which apart from this King of Throw race, I consider very useful in real world usage), if not for the colour: SR51 is NW meanwhile 7G5 looks more CW, and TK41 in between.

Thanks for the pics ILF

I’m not sure I get the interest in more and more spill in lights that are purchased primarily for throw (if I’m correct regarding that assumption).
I understand perhaps wanting to have a wider rather than narrower hotspot in many cases but how does spill do anything positive?
It reduces contrast, creates backscatter and makes it harder to pick out whatever the hotspot if directed towards.
Surely no one is using these bigger throwers to see how to walk around the yard. I’m sure everyone has much better lights for that so what is the primary attraction to having more spill with a light whose strength is primarily as a thrower?
Educate me please :slight_smile:

Oh it's just a little personal preference. Agree too much spill makes for a lot of backscatter, but no spill at all and you see only what's in the hotspot. When I look in the distance I found with a little spill I can better recognize what's around the hotspot, instead of waveing the light around "searching" with abrupt transition between light and dark.

But if throw is discrimination to win the race, maybe I should not consider spill at all?

Those are essentially my thoughts too.

I would buy the crelant 7G5: it has a brighter more usefull hotspot i think and i can't seem to see much difference in brightness with the other ones.

ILIKEFLASHLIGHTS what tail cap readings do you get will all of your thowers?

That would help in determining which it better. Some of these lights may be over driven.

It looks like I'm not a true flashaholic yet because none of these pictures makes me desperately want to hold something else than the SkyRay STL-V2 I already have...

ILIKE... How about some close range white wall shots so we could "see" (or at least imagine by ourselves) the proportions of the hotspot vs. the spill? Perhaps even shot to a painted "target" with circles with a radius of e.g. 1ft, 2ft, 3ft etc. if that's possible.

When I saw your first post after buying the 7G5 I was gutted I didn't buy the M3X, but now you have a replacement I'm happy again, 7G5 wins to my eyes :)

The m3x gets my vote out of that bunch. Got a few lights now huh?

You'd be fine with the STL-V2. I have the STL-V6 and it's definitely in the same "throw" league.... We are just collectors, that's all.

The up close white wall shots can be misleading. I always find myself saying this one is brighter...no wait this one is and so on when they are pretty close in brightness. But if one is quite a bit brighter, you should see it. But when you take nite shots at this yardage your eyes usually can pick the brighter one. I know which one I know is the brightest.

Not sure what you are looking at but the Crelant clearly has a larger hotspot and greater spill making it a better all arounder. :slight_smile:

Here's the order I got them picked.

1. Crelant 7G5

2. Sunwayman T40CS

3. Olight M3X

4. Olight SR 51

5. Fenix TK41

6. ThruNite Catapult V3

Yes, that's true when it comes "just" to the perceivable brightness. I was thinking more about the dimensions of the hot spot and spill - the proportions which do not change in the longer distances either do they?

And tonite I'll go ahead and throw the Sunwayman V60C in here as well. But it will probably be around the bottom and might even beat the Catapult V3.