Anyone got a zanflare T1 lantern?

Thanks hIKARInoob!
Nicolicous, I think the adjustable tint is a feature many have dreamed of in this type of light, this thing checks a lot of boxes for me and probably many others.
OTOH I still see things through the lens of what state of the art was when I started this hobby. Maybe others are less impressed than I imagine, but if you offered this light 10 years ago for this price I’d bet nearly every single forum member would buy one.

Cheers bansuri! It certainly is not a perfect product, but I have no problem with that. All the important technical and safety features are there, and the lantern is just so amicable. At this moment I don’t have any flashlights below 4000K, and the warm white the T1 produces is just so cozy for the late evenings at home. Yesterday I had one T1 on my left next to a bunch of flashlights in my computer room, and another one on my right on a shelf.
When going to bed you just take them with you and place them anywhere you want.
I don’t use colour temperature ramping, it’s just warmest white for me. The regular ramping is a bit clunky you might have read: going from lowest 3 lumen upwards you get a sudden jump. But ramping colour temperature is very smooth, you can’t go wrong with that. It is technically a very beautiful feature to see colour temperature change this smoothly as you rarely have this feature in a flashlight. It’s really nice!

Not only that LVP works reliably (blinking as well as shutting off)… also on the other end of the voltage range the T1 is very battery friendly:

Both of my T1 stop charging at a termination voltage of 4.13V with a termination current of 0.1A… If only all USB-chargeble lights would behave that way…

Haven't tried to run my lantern on battery power for any length of time but when a few hours on USB power, the end cap that holds the battery in gets so hot that you can't touch it. Anyone notice this? Just wondering how dangerous that would be if it was that hot when using the battery?

maybe the solution is to stick on some rubber feet so there is airflow. Is there an air gap underneath without using something as a standoff?

Mine gets so hot even when hanging when the heat can easily escape upwards. Less than 1/16" gap to surface if standing.

Why are these getting so hot at such a low amperage?

Not sure but it's the magnetic tail cap that is so hot, but like I said, this is on usb power as I haven't run it on a battery for long yet to see if it is the same.

I suppose the heat could come from burning off the extra voltage from USB

I’ll check mine tonight. I’ll leave it on till the battery goes dead. I’ll check the temperature then. So far it hasn’t gotten hot, but I haven’t used it fully.

It won’t be dangerous but if it’s to hot to touch it may hurt the cycle life of the cell some. Most cells we use today have to be thrown in fire almost to have a explosion. Around 400 to 450 degrees. If it’s not melting the plastic it’s probably not to hot.

Do you have a IR gun or a temp probe on a dmm you could take some readings.

Maybe the DC to DC converter isn’t getting any air inside the lantern. Also you have to led heat being trapped in there as well.
Ever grabbed one of those 2 amp wallwarts that’s been plugged in a couple hours. They’ll but hot as hell to especially if it’s up against a bed or something.

Was a battery inserted when running via USB?

This is what the manual says about this:
Note: when the tent light is on we suggest to avoid
charging because this could prolong the charging time
or damage the battery capacity.
If you need to charge the battery when the tent light is
in use, we suggest anyway to enable low mode.

Good idea, I'll turn the lantern on now and when it gets really hot, I'll see what my IR gun reads. Tempted to get the wally wallwarts many times but never did!

No battery was inserted.

[quote=pilotdog68] I suppose the heat could come from burning off the extra voltage from USB [/quote]

Could be too not sure. After the IR reading, I'll let it cool down and run the battery down as well then can know for sure.

After one hour on usb power the IR reading is holding steady at 143F on the tail cap. What do you guys think?

Im pretty sure it’s because of the high input voltage, the only way to find out would be testing again with a half charged battery.

Well that tempature won’t fry the electronics and won’t kill a battery. Most batteries can go up to 176degrees as their Max operation tempature. And more then twice that before danger of runaway. 140 degrees is child’s play for Led junction tempatures The real danger is burning your hand

Edit also go for the walmart 2.1 amp wallwart chargers if you need one. The 1 amp chargers that came from my daughters tablets from Amazon get much hotter then it does. Kinda makes me wonder if they do that on purpose to give it a certain life span. I’ve had other 1 amp blocks the same size only get about a third less hot.
But anyways whatever that Walmart electronics brand is, works fine. I bought a couple of them about a year or so ago and they see daily and nightly use between all the. Phones and tablets. I would think but could be wrong. Walmart probably wants to avoid as many lawsuits as possible and if there wallwart burned your house down. Well they don’t wanna go there. So I think they care a tiny bit about quality control. Compared to some random Chinese company on Alibaba, aliexpress, eBay, etc thats building them from old recycled power blocks and selling them as new. Probably doesn’t have any safety features and good luck if it fails. I believe there’s some kind of fuse in them. I might take one apart sometime and see. At least with most store bought stuff bought in the western world the retailer and or manufacturers are held accountable for bad and dangerous products. I’ve found a lot of Walmart’s brands arnt that bad but there are a handful stay away from their off brand to a real block of Velveeta cheese. It maybe 2 dollars cheaper but it’s horrible. But hjk has a ton of good wallwart reviews and tear downs if your looking for one

What high input voltage, your wallwart or powerbank is already stepping down mains or boosting batteries to 5v and the lantern on USB only is using 4.somethibg volts. And this is with no battery. With a battery charging and it being on high I think it may top 160 degrees I hadn’t got mine yet will it let you run it on high and charge at the same time? I imagine the lantern is sealed and somewhat waterproof? So my theory is between the DC to DC converter and the led heat it’s just being trapped like a greenhouse

Thanks Speed4goal, then I guess it should be ok for normal battery use then and will keep an eye on it if I use it to charge batteries and see how hot it gets. Will grab the 2.1A wallwart too as I need two more anyways. Didn't know they were that tough. I have used the 2.1a ones from the dollar store that plug into the car 12v and they still working years later but you never know with those.

After having it run on battery power for about 90 minutes, end cap temp was 117F with the IR gun, so I pulled the battery and IR gun reading for battery was 123F

I just noticed the same thing. Considering this lantern is only 350 lumens, it is a bit concerning. BTW, my tailcap spring looks perfect. No corrosion at all.