TLF/BLF/Lumintop FW3A review (18650, 3x XP-L HI cool white)

That matches my experience too. Perhaps I should finally get a sheet of minus-green material and stop being so picky about which emitters are used. Almost everything is going to look green, so I should put some rose-tinted glass over it to make things look better.

Lee Minus Green filters are great stuff!

I have a #279 filter in my modded FW3A right now. It’s not a Zircon filter so probably won’t last super-long in high-brightness LED applications. But on the other hand it came in a roll big enough for a hundred small flashlights.

It does reduce output 14% and makes the tint warmer though. Currently using it with 2x 5D and 1x 3D emitter.

Banggood.com have just sent me 2 XPL HI 5000K for review, I’m not sure why they sent me 2 but they are very very different

One has a frosted optic and Nichia Like tint the other has a clear optic and yellowish typical XPL 5000k tint.
The frosted one gets anywhere from 2800 to 3700 at turn on and the clear optic one gets 2600 every time.

The Frosted one is also temperamental in muggle mode, often doubling it’s power to 600ish lumens.

How do the optics look like?

Below is a sample of the “plastic optic”, Carclo 10511, and Carclo 10507 optic on the FW3A.

The frosted one looks like the middle light but my clear optic is different from the clear one in the pic, mine doesn’t have the 3 spokes in the middle.

It’s likely your clear one has the copied optics made in China. It’s supposed to have lower lumens and yours exhibits that behavior. Replace it with a factory Carclo 10507 and you should see a pretty nice lumens increase.

Cheers. Lumintop contacted me asking why banggood was all over the review, I forgot they’d also sent me one, oops.

I had no idea there were clone 10507s out there. Thanks Dale, i will check mine.

I was not in the group buy but have recently been looking at the Titanium variant. I noticed an alert on Neal’s pages about lower numbers out of a cloned, made in China, optic. I still haven’t bought one but was looking at the sapphire lens to go with the Ti/Cu FW3A and as I already have clear spot optics that part wasn’t a concern for me… a little surprising but not really a big deal as they are so easily changed out.

The polished copper has an appeal to me as well … always something, isn’t it?

anyone got a link to the runtimes in steped mode?

It will vary based on the battery and leds. I think this is all we have.

What is the rechargeable battery used in this test or any recommended rechargeable baterries…Thank You

Most people have been using the Samsung 30Q. I’ve been using 18650s recovered from an old laptop battery, they are only 1800mAh but I’ve got 8 of them lol. I’ll get some better ones when my FW3T comes in.

It was a high drain 3,000mah like a 30Q.

There are a lot of battery choices as long as it it not button top and no protection circuit. These add length and the max length that fits is about 66mm.

Here are some top cells in 3000mah to 3500mah:
Samsung 30Q or 35E.
LG HG2 or MJ1
Panasonic NCR18650GA
Sony VTC6

Hi BOO5TED

You have a lot of 1800mAh and never run out of stocks, Thank you for the info,

No problem, many cordless power tools have 18650s in the battery packs also.

Thank you very much…. JasonWW

Hey, do you know if Lumintop FW3A can use the 18650 protected batteries (with the same length)? I need a precise info please because I alredy have four 18650 protected batteries with the same length as those used by Lumintop FW3A. THANKS

Max battery length is 66mm, if you can find a protected cell that length or shorter I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. That being said, I’ve never seen a protected 18650 even close to 66mm.

Plus you’d need the protection circuit to handle at least 10 amps or so. Anything less would probably trip the circuit. The light would turn off if going to Turbo. That would be a pain in the rear.