Imalent MS18 with 100,000Lumen and R90TS with 36,000Lumen

We had M4DM4X’s MS12 there but not full battery and it was outside the whole night in the car in cold. And in the morning we did’t had time to wait till it is warm up and charged because we should bring back the MS18 and R90TS to IWA (which was 30-40 km from our hotel) until opening time. So if we measure MS12 with cold and not full batteries it was not a fair compare.
Yes I had a small lumen tube so that is why we used the bathroom ceiling bounce. But I plan to build a bigger lumen tube soon. Calibrate it with Maukka’s lights and I invited Martin to my home and If he got the final MS18 and R90TS and we can measure in a calibrated lumen tube all the big guns:
GT
GT70
R70C
R90C
MS12
R90TS
MS18

Zozz, can you tell me what lumen number you assumed for the MT03TA? Also which emitters do you have in it? I also have the MT03TA and a calibrated TA lumen tube so I can cross check those numbers. Because the MT03 TA is so ultra floody, it is at a great disadvantage compared to less floody lights in a ceiling bounce comparison. I’ve tested it and know. Even the MT09RTA, which uses the exact same driver and emitters tested much brighter than the MT03TA using ceiling bounce.

With that said, I am still super excited about these two new lights. My expectations is about 70k Maukka/ANSI lumens for the MS18 but that is probably enough for me to buy it but waiting for NW version.

Zozz and Martin, since you guys get to talk to Imalent staff in person, can you ask if they know about the Oslon HX Boost emitters? It is already available for purchase with a MOQ of 2,000. If they use this emitter, they will probably increase the throw by 50% to 100% with slightly lowered output. Since I already have the R90C I will not buy the R90TS despite the seemingly huge improvements. However, if they decide to use the HX Boost, I will definitely buy it.

the method ZozzV6 used is not influenced by the actual lumen of a light.

he has a correction factor found out in many measurements for his equipment (tube&lightmeter)

it's only necessary that the light emmits the same lumens in the tube and 5 min later in the bathroom...

for example:

light a is measured in tube

lux meter reads 1000

1000* 0.3 = 300 lumen

in the room it reads 30

300/30 = 10 is the factor

use several lights to get more factors and maybe average them

-> we used just the lowest from the MT03TA hoping it's floody charactistic will fit to the 350kcd MS18

light b reads 100 in the room

100* 10 = 1000 lumen

The MT03 was cold and not completely full batteries. It not needed to show it’s full power just to get the multiplier factor.
Also mine has spring bypasses and I used Samsung 30Q-s in it. The best number ever I get from it is 19000 lumens. That day it done 14000 but we bring it in from the car and it started condensating waer on it’s body so the batteries were very cold. And cold batteries has lower power. If I remember correctly it done 15500 lumens in stock form when I got it new.
I did not have a TA lumen tube.
I made mine myself. we did measure in a small bathroom 100000 lumens so I did not pointed the light sensor to ceiling. Just the opposite wall. Not where I stood with the light. All walls were white so 100000 lumens in 6m2 area room :smiley: It doesn’t matter how floody is it :smiley:

Zozz a few seconds later :

Your own suntan studio. :sunglasses:

It’s basically a cubic sphere.

M4DM4X you should write here that photo exif data :wink:

ISO50 / 1/335 sec / F1/8

Huawei P20 Pro 2 m away from the door

HAHAHAHAHA LOVE IT!

Does this mean Zozz and Martin took and won the team Bird Box challenge at IWA 2019? Congrats!

Martin, always thankful for your YouTube reviews and deals you get for BLFers. Also thankful to djozz for all his contributions here.

First, in an open forum, you’re going to expect comments both positive and negative. Some of them were directed toward Imalent, and deservingly so - they screwed up before, big time. And they have a history of overstating their output numbers on their lights. So why do you find it surprising that many folks remain skeptical? Anyone plunking down over 7 large on a flashlight should remain skeptical, unless they just have discretionary cash to spend on the “latest and greatest.”

Secondly, just because you and djozz test a prototype light does not mean that the lights that end up in customers’ hands will be the same. I’ve been involved in a few industries - DIY CNC machining, golf, bowling, computers - and manufacturers are pretty keen at getting the “cherry” products to those that they know will do reviews and have the equipment to test them. I already mentioned earlier the BS marketing with stepper motors versus servomotors. Golf and bowling are even worse - anyone who thinks that they can buy the same exact clubs Tiger and Phil play, or a bowling bowl that the pros use, are living a pipe dream. Even computers - when the DIY computer components scene was hot in the 90s the two biggest GPU players were nVidia and ATI (now AMD.) They each would get caught red-handed by the enthusiast magazines for sending hot-rodded overclocked versions of their cards. Then when 3Dmark became the de-facto standard of DirectX benchmarking, they would cook their drivers to get higher scores - even so low as one time ATI selectively using lower anti-aliasing in different parts of the screen when a higher anti-aliasing was selected. Or AMD and Intel purposely dumbing down the specs of their chips when they would easily bin at higher speeds? The best was the first Athlon - a freakin’ pencil line between two vias on the top would allow you to overclock the chip as that would act as a “jumper” of sorts - a few manufacturers figured this out, and it wasn’t long before somehow some hackers figured it out. Cars? Well, yes in a way, but as I mentioned earlier that works in a different way, because of the way cars are driven.

Lastly, it’s OK for people to disagree on stuff; the world would be so lame if we all liked the same things or agreed on everything. Words and meanings, in my experience, get lost in the sea of typed words, which may not be put into context with facial expressions and hand gestures. Especially in a group that’s international. I bet if we all were around a table drinking pints of beer there’d be more laughter and back-slapping. That said, I think some of the language here in general is a bit out-of-hand and out-of-place. I laugh at how passionate people can be about inanimate objects - I collect electric guitars too (as well as build electric and acoustic guitars) and those forums get out of hand also. Back when I started online there were no forums; one would post on a BBS or whatever newsgroup, or go on the dark corner of the Internet - the Usenet.


It’s great that djozz has tested the MS18 to run within an acceptable range for spec. It’d be interesting to see further testing with a lumens vs. run time chart. It would also be great if more of these make it into the wild for some more independent testing. I understand that with new products there may be certain kinks that need to be sorted out so hope that they do.

People are quite educated and are used to Imalents exaggerated output numbers based on all their previous lights. Fact.

I suppose you forget about the quality control issues and not honoring warranties, etc…?

Only time will tell if Imalent can clean up their reputation. Two new lights doesn’t make all the rest dissappear. So everyone will be watching Imalent over the next couple years to see if they improve themselves. If their two new lights have decently accurate lumen specs, that is a step in the right direction. :+1:

I am not sure is the current measurement accurate. With 2.3A, the output of 30k lumens are quite low. It is merely 1667lm per LED.
If the 2.3A is already incorrectly, suggesting Imalent to lower it might not get the best performance out of the LED.

as stated above, compared to the beam character of a L2 the R90TS gave 35000 Lumens

we had a range of factors and used the lower one.

Yes I know that. But the way you place the lux meter facing wall would make single LED flashlight having higher factor compare to multi-LED flashlight. This is because less light would be hitting the wall for single LED flashlight with ceiling bounce. Haikelite MT03 is quite suitable reference in this case, that is why I believe the 30k lumens number is quite close.

I agree!

LouieAtienza:
You mixing me with djozz. We are two different guys. :wink:

I agree that rude or offensive comments aren’t helpful and so do the rules of this forum.

I don’t agree that there’s anything wrong with people using real examples of past products and experiences to predict output values or possible new experiences. So long as anyone kept on point and didn’t fall into an emotional rant against the manufacturer based on their feelings there is absolutely nothing wrong with using factual information from the past to try and make predictions.

Moreover, especially when we’re talking about the most expensive flashlights you can buy from places like BG I think it’s actually a responsibility to help educate potential buyers rather than gloss over a seriously flawed history.

How would you feel if you went to a forum that specialized in reviewing small production run specialized cars that cost $150 000 and everyone on that forum fully endorsed a new car because the initial results from the mfg prototypes were finally accurate to the stated claims. Then afterwards if something goes wrong you do a little digging and find out that repeatedly that same mfg that was endorsed strongly was scarred with issues across multiple products and had a significant amount of legitimate customer service complaints which were simply denied by the mfg.

We’re not talking about an up and coming mfg like Fireflies who’s had some issues with their first run of products. We’re talking about a company that’s been in the game long enough and had multiple successions to their entire lights series yet have such a bad track record there is actually a BLF poll for people to verify if they’ve had QC issues with Imalent.

Trolling isn’t helpful to anyone but suggesting that people don’t dig up the the past just because for the first time ever Imalent appears to have accurate output specifications?

Imalent appears to have taken a big step in the right direction:
-accurate output specs
-changes in design that respond to community feedback

Imalent appears to want to fix their reputation which means It’s also important they understand how damaged it really is. The more Imalent feels the need to rectify past mistakes and win back customers who’ve denounced them in the past, the more likely they are to continue making changes in the right direction.

It’s not out of line to suggest that a manufacturer who denied legitimate warranty claims wouldn’t revert back to their old habits if they start believing all they have to do is produce one good series of products to undo years of bad customer service and bad quality products.

This is what happens late at night. LOLOL :person_facepalming: :person_facepalming: