Sofirn SP70 Alone $50, PM for AMZ US CODE(LIMITED)

Commercial Sellers' Spot
2150

@djozz, I know about my first batch. They are very slightly magnetic. But not to the extent of real steel springs.

It’s heavily nickel plated since I always specify the plating thickness for easy solderability. It does make the springs slightly more expensive, but it is worth it since it’s almost impossible to sand off, and makes soldering very easy.

It does make me wonder one thing: how how are the springs getting?
Because if there is 12A flowing through even dual steel springs, their temperature must be extremely high.

Also, I mean, Emisar, Astrolux, Acebeam, Lumintop are using copper alloy springs in their high power lights
This is what surprised me honestly.

The reason I actually suggested to Sofirn to use BeCu springs was to stop them having to do spring bypasses on their lights. Would surely save them money, time, and employee time.

2151

Used mine in the rain this morning, taking the trash can walk. The beam is large enough to be useful in a general purpose setting, bright enough (especially modded) to be impressive, and the light is easy to hold and operate even in rain. I have to say I’m impressed, in spite of some possible small shortcomings I like it. They did good, again.

Pretty sure too that a Nickel plating wouldn’t be strong enough magnetically to swing the entire tail cap from a small 6mm dia magnet. :wink:

2152

Okay, I did some lumen testing on the SP70 with the Sofirn HD 25A, the black Liitokala and the Aspire 4300 with my Texas_Ace Lumen Tube and Maukka calibration light.

I noticed the light didn’t get hot as quickly as it did during my tail cap amp draw test. Sure enough, the springs on the tail cap do reduce output, so I did tests both with the stock “tail cap on” as well as with a short 8ga wire eliminating the tail cap resistance. I took measurements at Turn on and 30 seconds.

SP70 —————————————— T.O. —— 30s.
Sofirn HD 25A with tail cap - 5270lm, 4890lm
with 8ga wire across the tail - 5800lm, 5390lm

Black Lii 5000 with tail cap - 5250lm, 4700lm
with 8ga wire across tail - — 5570lm, 5200lm

Aspire 4300 with tail cap - 5080lm, 4720lm
with 8ga wire across tail - 5900lm, 5350lm

I took the wire across the tail measurements first then took the tail cap measurements second with about 3-5 minutes of cool down time in between, no recharging. So the “tail cap on” measurements might be a tad higher if I had recharged the cells fully in between, but not significantly higher. I just didn’t have time to do full recharges between every test.

These numbers are quite impressive. They are pretty much equal to my Lexel made FET driven L6 with bypassed springs dual BeCu springs from BlueSwordM and 5700K emitter from MTN E. I tested that light with the same black Liitokala 5000 and Aspire 4300 cells. I measured the L6 a short time ago with the tail cap on. I did “Turn on” and 20 seconds because the light got hot so fast. Here are the results.

Modded L6 ——— T.O. —— 20s.
Black Lii 5000 – 5300lm, 5100lm

Aspire 4300 – 5500lm, 5250lm

The Sofirn HD 25A cells also seem to be impressive. They beat the black Liitokala’s (maybe 60 cycles on them) and are really close to the Aspire 4300 cells (maybe 20 cycles on them). The Sofirn HD cells did not seem to draw the same amperage as the other 2 cells, yet the lumens don’t reflect that. It makes me wonder what spring bypass wires alone can do.

Just remember that lumens are tricky to measure with high accuracy and the Turn on numbers just flash for a quick second so I’m not sure how accurate that is. Maybe 1 second numbers are more accurate.

I also measured the parasitic drain at 1.88 milliamps. This is a lot lower than on the S70S which had a 4.43 milliamp drain. So it’s better, but still pretty high. I wouldn’t leave it powered up for months on end. Turn the tail switch off for any type of extended storage.

I plan to do a review thread with all my measurements and beam shots put together. I’ve just been super busy the last couple of weeks.

2153

Impressive! :partying_face: :+1: Thanks!

2154

Jason, you need to charge the cells and test again with the tail cap… that 30 second run with the wire bridge took a hit on the cells so your next reading is going to show significantly lower. Not a fair comparison test at all.

2155

I’ll try it when I get another chance. I think it will be in the same ball park, though.

2156

Nice set of output tests Jason! :+1:

2157

One small correction, I actually installed dual BeCu springs from BlueSwordM in my L6. It’s not bypassed stock springs.

2158

My number of SP70 is close to Jason for reference I give a lumen of stock S70s NW (look like the same tint as L6) and L6 OP XHP70 N4 3A
(0s/30s)
stock S70s NW Lii50A = 3648 / 3553
stock L6 Lii50A = 3382 / 3303

stock SP70 Lii50A = 5320 / 4845
Sofirn HD = 5415 / 5130
Shocki 5500 = 5510 / 5092

(with bypass 20 awg both drivers/tail keep dual springs)
Sofirn HD = 6156 / 5662
Shocki 5500 = 6242 / 5871

My measure may not so accurate but should not far behind . Sofirn HD is quit good comparable to Shocki 5500 but I don’t measure capacity yet will report back

2159

Neat that we are getting such close measurements.

I guess I need to solder blob my Shockli 5500’s so I can test them out.

I have not tested the capacity of my Sofirn HD cells either. I haven’t had a chance to run them down yet.

So it looks like the BLF edition just needs some better springs and it will see a big jump in performance. Nice.

2160

A better MOSFET and larger leads from the driver to the emitter makes a big difference too. :wink:

2161

Your numbers sound low Jason could the larger lights play with your sphere? Cause it to give weird numbers? I would think your modded L6 would do close to 9k lumens? If you do a ceiling bounce test between the two are the numbers still close?
The amount of current doesn’t add up to the output you get even if you add loses for the reflector and lens.

2162

Mine will arrive today via Amazon. I’m interested to play with it

2163

I have owned a lot of flashlights over the last 20+ years. I must say this Sofirn SP70 in the 2x26650 form factor is my favorite. The only other light I can compare to in terms of engineering beauty is the Surefire M3-CB Millennium Series Combatlight. This Sofirn SP70 and the 26650 High Drain rechargeable Lithium Ion battery totally rocks! :partying_face:

2164

Based on the two spheres I have, no xhp70.2 light can put out 9000 lumen. I don’t know how some guys measure such high outputs.

I did a quick ceiling bounce test with both lights using the Sofirn HD batteries at 4.1v and sensor about 14” away from light. I let the output settle for 3-4 seconds. The L6 measured 810 lux, the SP70 730 lux. I brought out my lumen tube and did the same test waiting 3-4 seconds for the numbers to settle. The L6 did 5300 lm and the SP70 did 5100 lm.

So the SP70 was about 10% less in ceiling bounce and 4% less in lumens.

Both lights had the SMO reflector. I measured again with the sensor 4” from both lights to maybe rule out the hot spot size difference. I got 950 lux and 850 lux which is about the same 10% difference.

I would not worry too much about lumen numbers. Some people treat them as gospel. If person A measures 9,000 lumen and it pulls 18A with a clamp meter and person B measures 5,000 lumen and the same 18A and they both measure about the same throw distance, this tells me the lights are performing about the same (using same model of flashlight of course).

I don’t know why DB measures 10,500 lumen after all his mods. Iirc, his pulls 21A and does 92x 971 meters throw. The throw is not that much more than the 860 meters I measured on the stock light with stock reflector. So all his mods do boost output, but the lumen numbers seem so much higher. Note that he us using a diffused lumen tube and it’s calibrated with a Maukka light. So I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

2165

971.6M throw Jason. Based on a 30 second 236Kcd reading. And yes, my lightbox is calibrated with Maukka lights, the same pair of lights that Robo819, TomE, Manxbuggy1 and RMM used. Yes, we passed them around and compared the results because all of our light boxes were made by the same 2 guys. Richard even tested two different kinds of light meters.

I also have a 6” to 4” reducer that I can use and in testing it with the Maukka lights it is calibrated even closer than my base set-up. So I can test some pretty big lights.

I just relate the numbers as I see them come off the devices, it is what it is. But you have to consider if I use lesser cells, cells like some of y’all are using, my numbers are also considerably lower.

Today I removed the factory springs and replaced them with Blue’s large springs that are bypassed with 18 ga wire. Even on Basen’s my light can do 9150 lumens. I don’t want to force the 21700’s in it as I don’t want to compress the springs for use with the higher capacity bigger cells.

2166

How do we know our lumen tubes are near the accuracy of the S2+ & BLF maukka light when measuring a higher output?

2167

We don’t. You would probably need to buy a big professional integrating sphere to get the best accuracy. That’s thousands of dollars. We are just hobbyists, so we have to accept a certain lack of accuracy to keep the costs reasonable.

The thing about the Texas_Ace Lumen Tubes is that they are all built the same, so even if it’s off, it’s off by the same amount for everyone. I think Dale’s lumen tube is one he built himself. It’s also bigger in diameter than my 3.5” TA Lumen Tube. Maybe there is something about the bigger diameter that changes the response curve at higher output levels? I’m not sure. I’m also not too concerned about it. I know Dales heavily modded SP70 is not actually doing double the lumens of mine. It’s a bit brighter because he’s pushing the led harder, but not double the lumens.

2168

I did not make my light box, as I’ve said many times, even just a couple of posts above…

“971.6M throw Jason. Based on a 30 second 236Kcd reading. And yes, my lightbox is calibrated with Maukka lights, the same pair of lights that Robo819, TomE, Manxbuggy1 and RMM used. Yes, we passed them around and compared the results because all of our light boxes were made by the same 2 guys. Richard even tested two different kinds of light meters.”

2169

And yes Funtastic, that has always been my problem with the small calibration lights. When my box was built some 5 years ago the brothers R tested it with some 25 known brand ANSI rated lights, big ones small ones powerful ones and not so much. The averaging of these 25 lights gave me the multiplier I used. Then other people started making lesser boxes and tested with puny outputs and everybody signed up and declared my box numbers off by ludicrous margins. I finally just gave up. For the greater good, right or wrong, my box is now diffused to read actual lumens on the meter according to the Maukka calibration lights everbody else swears by. So the box is “sworn in” on a 290.8 lumen little tube light and I am supposed to assume my 4” diameter 17 emitter 23,300 lumen Ham’r is being given a fair shake. (this about 3000 lumens below what the original light box read)

If I ever find someone able to measure Ham’r in a true blue sphere I will certainly give it a go.

For whatever reason, Jason has been the biggest voice against my original light box and even now, calibrated according to Maukka, I am doubted. It is what it is I suppose. There was a time when experience counted for something. Seems I am misunderstood. I do not post “trying to have the biggest numbers”, I mod with top components, sparing no effort, (and have spent over $10,000 in the process) to show the maximum capability of a light to the best of my ability, share it to show what I have found can be done so other modders have a reference point and the stock light a base value. Some have found ways to surpass my findings and some have not. Not important really, the goal has always been to show that a stock light can be better and give an idea how much. And to inspire sales so we, this forum, can enjoy budget lights at their best. I have struggled with physical issues for over 20 years and I mod as an escape, I am not here to be constantly challenged and shot down so, to put it simply, I will not be here much any more.

Unsubbed