Sofirn SP36, impressions of a sample

Well, I did it. Ordered one just now and a trio of 30Q cells from Mtnelectronics.com.

I’m planning some night snowshoeing hikes with my son and this will be fun to try out.

Just ordered a SP36, actually I have a SP33 on the way too, and yet another C8F 21700 host.

Since they rate the temp at 5350K-5700K. I think is about 2A to 2B or so. I'm confused what firmware it comes with, suppose it's Anduril even though the listing says NarsilM 1.2.

Since the Sofirn Q8 is rated at 5000 lumens with XPL HI's, the rating of 6000 lumens for the SP36 makes sense with XP-L2's, assuming it's V5 or V6 bin cool whites -- 5500K is cool white as I understand it, not NW as Sofirn claims. 5000K is borderline NW/CW.

Seems like everyone in the world is like 20% higher than the maukka standard, and they are using the true integrating spheres. Hhmm... I don't think they are intentionally fudging the reports coming straight out of the equipment, could be a case of not using the equipment correctly, they are all calibrated wrong, maybe they simply are not taking the 30 seconds min runtime into account, or some combo of these issues. But something is wrong somewhere - the maukka standard, the rest of the flashlight world, or both, least as we know it.

Does anyone know of any manufacturer that matches close or under the maukka standard readings? I guess if 100%, or near 100% of the market uses overrated #'s, a new guy on the block certainly can't come in 20% lower than all the rest.

Nah. It’s probably just manufacturers measuring direct LED lumens off of a power supply at 0 seconds turn on.

Tom, the first batch is shipping with NarsilM 1.2. Sofirn wanted to upgrade the thermal regulation though, so I think later batches are using Anduril.

The lumen rating thing has been an ongoing issue for a long time. A few companies (like EagleTac) use what appears to be a more accurate ANSI standard, but most use sort of a communal industry “standard” instead — the ZebraLight/cpfselfbuilt scale. By design or by coincidence, they mostly differ by about the same amount as emitter vs OTF lumens. If it helps with web searches, BLF user “reppans” has studied it somewhat extensively, or at least likes to talk about it.

The common scale is, as far as I can tell, based on matching a curve to fit the data. For example, here’s how selfbuilt did it. I used a similar method. So my numbers match his pretty closely, but they’re consistently higher than maukka’s.

Maukka’s numbers seem to be pretty accurate in terms of ANSI standard lumens, while almost everyone else uses the more popular industry scale. To fix this, people can get reference lights from maukka, for calibrating their measurement devices to a couple of known values. This greatly reduces the discrepancy.

So, let me try to get this straight. Me, Tom, Richard, David and Rick… all the THOUSANDS of lights we have measured are suddenly wrong because Maukka’s results don’t jive with ours? Even as we have found equality with so many name brand lights, so the manufacturer’s are all wrong too? Maukka must really have something special going on…

This is nothing new. The two competing definitions of a lumen have been a matter of debate since before I even made a BLF account. When I calibrated my light box several years ago, I made a conscious choice to go with the definition more commonly used on the forums instead of using the ANSI standard.

However, the matter has come up again more lately because there’s finally a relatively cheap way for people to calibrate to the ANSI metric instead of calibrating to match popular brands.

According to Sofirn and to their manual of the SP36, it comes with NarsilM 1.2. Adelina from Sofirn told me they intend to sell later versions with Andúril, though. Tom E, sorry for bugging you again but do you have any objections if I publish the German translation of NarsilM's manual on BLF/TLF? I also sent you a PM lately for I want to avoid any conflicts with possible copyrights or license agreements. No worries - I don't mean to push you for an answer but a lot of German/Austrian/Swiss buyers of the SP36 would greatly appreciate to have a manual in their native language. ;-) Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts about it (maybe also via PM to me, too).

Don't worry bout any of that - you are free to publish it, improving it, of course, would be nice .

Regarding the ANSI/NEMA FL1 standards, currently it's the 2009 standards and the likes of SureFire, Fenix, EagleTac, Olight, Klarus, NiteCore claim they adhere to those standards. I couldn't find Sunwayman or JetBeam referencing the standards. I haven't seen this debated much at all. Occasionally, for sanity sake, I'll test a name brand light and I find I'm pretty close. Last night I tested an old unused Sunwayman C20C and my tests in my PVC tube with the old calibration scale of 0.34 produced lumens lower than claimed, my reading on turbo was 585, rated at 620. Out of the 6 brands I listed, only one I would definitely not trust is NiteCore, since their market hype is through the roof. Zebra mentions ANSI OTF, but that's not specific enough. I know I've seen manufacturer's showing off pics and reports of their very expensive integrating sphere, but somewhere there seems to be a dis-connect. There is only one ANSI/NEMA FL1 standard, not two, and if there is an industry higher lumen standard, we shouldn't sit idly by and simply accept it.

I've confronted manufacturers before, like ArmyTek, but just checked their website and I guess I didn't influence them. I thought they went out and bought an integrating sphere and were going to do it right, but I see they claim "LED light output, lm", whatever that is, and no mention of ANSI/NEMA FL1. ArmyTek is an easy one to go after: claim is high tech, top scientists and engineers, world's first technologies, and they can't afford and figure out how to use an integrating sphere, and comply with the only world-wide industry standard governing flashlights?

Every manufacturer website should have a page on measurement/testing methodology and give us an idea of what they are doing - calculated from specs, milk carton, or $10K calibrated integrating sphere, and their methodology in using the equipment.

That’s great news Tom E! Thanks for your feedback. :-)

If I find some time and if there is demand for a written manual, apart from the very comprehensible UI chart, I will try to do a manual for Andúril both in English and German. I must admit I have yet to get a flashlight that uses Andúril but this is more or less just a matter of time. ;-) So far, I really fell in love with the flexibility NarsilM, RampingIOS V3 and Andúril can offer.

Supplemental:

I posted the German translation of NarsilM here:

That is the point, it is an average. And combined with knowledge from marketing: Bigger numbers sell better.
The manufacturer round up.

Texas Ace previous numbers before calibration have a correction factor of ca. x0.68 .
That hurts! But hey, the light is still the same brightness.
It’s only a number that got smaller.

Other members have tested lights also in pro integration spheres and they match with maukkas values.

Now I’m thirsty

Mine is on its way!

Well I have bad news. I ordered the SP36 and got an SF36. Sent a message to Sofirn. Hope they help me out soon. Quite the dissapointment. I get it accidents happen but getting a $20 light in place of a $50 light was quite the suprise.

Ai, they have problems with their own confusing naming :person_facepalming:

I hope that will be corrected very soon!

They have not let me down yet. Granted I have only had some minor issues but not a discrepancy like this. I really want the SP36. I already had an SF36 and a SF36W. I like them but not enough to pay $55 for one.

Looks like a great light! the built in charging is always a key feature for sustainability in remote areas, if the charging circuit has the ability to accept charging devices that have various outputs of voltage and maximum charging amps. (as in Solar panels, wind-generators, thermo-electrtic generators, off-grid banks, car adapters, etc. ) they all vary a lot. I don;t have one yet to do testing on.

Sofirn is sending me the correct light. Got tracking yesterday. Didn’t even question anything. Of course I sent a pic of the package and the contents with the SF36 in the picture.

I am very interested in the charger questions DBSAR raises above.

And also very interested in how to tell one version of a Sofirn light from another version.
Are they making changes right during production, so there’s no certain way to know what’s coming out at the end?

Batch labels please!

If i had one i would give the charger system the full range of testing. I have tested many different types of lights, lanterns, etc and so far the best two lights with built-in chargers i tested that would charge from all the different sources i benched them on, is the Klarus G20 and Blitzwolf BW-LT5 lantern/powerbank light. (both these would charge from every source i tested them with.