Short Review of Lumintop ODF30

Did you stop reading at post #11?

If you look at post #15 I did a step down test and got 1 minute and 10 seconds before it slowly started ramping down. My light was already a bit hot, though. Reviewers like Lock got about 3 minutes before a big ramp down. You should read his review. He’s got all kinds of charts and graphs and pretty pictures.

Also, ChibiM did a review here. He has some nice outdoor video.

My only video camera is my Note 4 phone and the video is always too dark. I’m new to doing reviews, this is my first, so I’m lucky to pack as much info as I can here. :smiley:

The TC20 does not put out the rated turbo amount either. Newlumen has the same TA Lumen Tube I do and we both use the same 0.7 correction factor. It puts out the same turbo lumens as the ODF30 (I actually measured 3150 @ 30 secs). So if you like the turbo brightness of the TC20, then you will also like the turbo brightness of the ODF30 as they are the same regardless of who’s integrating sphere is measuring it.

About how long it runs in turbo is still a bit confusing to me. On Totobel’s TC20 thread some say 2.5 minutes and some say 3 minutes. Some even said 30 seconds, but I think that was due to the Thrunite protected battery.

My personal ODF30 started to ramp down at 1m and 10s and it wasn’t all that hot yet.

Locks ODF30 started to ramp down after about 2.5 minutes.

So I don’t know about actual turbo run time. This was never an issue to me as I don’t ever run turbo more than 15 to 30 seconds at a time anyway. If I need long run time at high outputs I have bigger lights to use.

On the High level Lock measured the ODF30 running about 20 minutes before stepping down due to heat. Lumintop rates it at 1800 lumen, I measure it at 1500 lumen. I think maybe this is pretty close to the TC20. I asked Newlumen to measure his TC20 on high using is TA tube with a .70 correction factor. I will report back what he measures. He says it’s 1550 lumen. So pretty much the same as the ODF30.

Overall, I’d say these 2 lights are pretty equally matched in overall performance on High and Turbo.

I just did another Turbo run time test on my light since it was completely at room temperature (23° Celsius). This time I got one minute and 37 seconds before it started to ramp down. It was quite hot to hold, so I think it was stepping down at about the right time so as not to burn your hand.

I think Turbo run time could be directly influenced by the battery that is being used.

Lock was using an unprotected black KeepPower 5200 mAh battery which has quite a bit more voltage sag at 10 amp compared to the battery I’m using which is the Liitokala cyan 5000 mAH.

My light might be heating up at a faster rate than Locks which activates the thermal step down sooner then on his light. This is just a theory at the moment.

My ODF30

Texas Ace Lumen Tube with a .70 correction factor

Brightness levels are roughly:
Turbo 3045
High 1519
Med 485
Low 134
Eco 7

Pretty darn close to mine. What battery are you using?

Since this uses a boost driver it seems to maintain steady output by increasing current.

Check out Martin’s (M4dm4x) video.

Ah, so your probably getting some amp draws over 10A with that battery due to the protection circuitry.

Do you get a big drop in lumens from turn on to 30 secs in Turbo? I’ve heard people with other lights say they get a 500 lumen drop due to the protection circuitry.

I tried it
No drop in one minute
It becomes very hot after more than a minute

That’s good to know. It seems the Lumintop protected 26650 can handle more amps/has less resistance than the Thrunite protected 26650.

These little lights do get pretty hot on turbo. I held mine for 1m 37s before it started to ramp down. It was really hot! This is laws of physics. Lol

If turbo were reduced 500 lumen it would last longer before stepdown. Do people prefer that?

Do people prefer a bigger and heavier light to get longer turbo runtime? I don’t know.

I think this light has a pretty good balance between small size, light weight and still packs over 3,000 lumen. :slight_smile:

I haven’t tried any of its more expensive competitors, though. The MR70 looks pretty interesting. I built my own compact light with 2 x 26350 and FET driver with NarsilM. It is almost perfect for me. Hopefully Lexel can get NarsilM working on his boost drivers soon, then we will see real 3500 to 4000 lumen compact lights. :partying_face:

I would say if u want to shine 3000+ lumens for more then a minute then u better of with an l6 ican use highest mode for several minutes it doesnt get that warm really. But some prefer smaller hosts even tho u can only run a minute its already very hot so yea u have to chose.

Mine does step down a little before 2:00 minutes. It used to step down within 10 seconds.. sometimes even within 3 seconds. Until Jason came to the rescue.. now its doing the step down correctly. But still not at 3 minutes.

Here is a world exclusive. I got the battery tube apart. Yay! I used a leather welding glove and a vice being careful not to distort the battery tube. Then I used a hot air gun to heat the light up. I eventually worked my way up to a rubber strap wrench and then just barely got it to break loose. They use some pretty wicked blue looking threadlocker that dries to a white finish.

I suspect this is the same driver and switch design as the Lumintop GT Mini.

That is some nice work you have done there Jason. :+1:

I updated the lumen levels based on my TA Lumen Tube calibrated with one of Maukka’s calibration lights.

Brightness levels are roughly:
Turbo 3150 2660 @20s
High 1500 1330
Med 500 425
Low 140 120
Eco 5 2

I also bypassed the driver and tail springs.

Using a heavy jumper wire from battery to battery tube gained me 70 lumen, so the tail cap spring bypass is working great. Plus I’ve got more compliance for different battery lengths than stock.

Thnaks jason… what did you do with tab? Did you break it? Or you just removed it and bypass the wires??

I just broke it off. It did not have much flex to it. I think it broke after about a 45° bend. I got rid of the old solder and put fresh solder on then added the wire connector.

Lmk how it works… i might send it to skylumen to fix it…

It works fine.

You haven’t fixed yours yet? Are you able to solder?

I don’t have an equipment or anything… I need to send my fenix tk75vn sst40 dedome back. I use Sony vtc5a and it cause one led to have black spot…

Oh Jason, thank you for the YouTube video of showing how to Narsil UI - Setting Thermal Stepdown (Ramping)…

I have to do it in my both q8. Thermal step down is too quick from the factory setting.