A little OT, but has anyone come up with an active heat management system in a flashlight that’s also capable of achieving IPX8? I’m thinking of some kind of internal sealed liquid cooling system, but not sure if it would be effective enough for the typical pill size. Other thought is an air channel embedded in the surface of the head with two exit holes, and micro fans mounted inside with gaskets to shield the wiring.
“liquid cooling” does not magically make things cooler by just adding liquid.
Liquid cooling works by using liquid to move the heat away to radiators.
Flashlights are way to small to have any kind of radiator other than the body itself and the fins on it.
Since the LED is literally inches away from the body and fins, the metal the flashlight is made of already carries the heat from the LED to the fins for dissipation.
The area of the fins and body is what determines the cooling, not whether the heat is brought there by liquid or metal.
Also, a pump would have to be extremely small to fit in a flashlight and also adds another point of failure.
Cooling can be improved by using copper instead of aluminum and by increasing the outer area of the flashlight by adding more fins.
There are 2 new flashlights you might want to know about:
Emisar D4V2 8 LED mule 7,400 L estimated $45
Noctigon KR4 8 LED mule 7,400 L estimated $55
Not sure if anyone has real world lumen measurements yet. 18650 format. 18350 tubes are available, though you will not get as many lumens out of a 18350 battery.
if nobody bought this kind of useless lights they would understand not many are interested…. and they are dangerous too… this one sure is stupid designed and stupid dangerous
Have you personally used this specific model? Doesn’t seem too far off from the single cell 3x XHP50.2 that Lumintop and Astrolux are both developing.
No but we’ve used lights with twice the mass and the same effective size/number of emitters and know how hot those get in the blink of an eye. Not to mention the stress that sort of current load puts on every component including the battery.
I understand what you’re saying but I still appreciate something new that hasn’t been done before. If new designs aren’t tried won’t things get stale? Of course this light won’t appeal to everyone and I can respect that. Personally I think it’s neat but I’d prefer a NW tint and I would like to see some runtime graphs to verify the claims.
I think a Samsung 30T or 40T would do ok pushing 3x XHP70’s. Heat and component health are a concern and hopefully Imalent took that into account. As others mentioned, having the OPTION to use turbo is a nice feature, if your goal was only run this at max lumens all the time another option would be better.
I got a "measured" 11,000 lumens out of a compact modded Amutorch X9 with triple XHP50.2's on A GOLISI - should do better on a 21700 30T or 40T.
Nice Tom! How’s the beam? Does XHP70.2 theoretically output more lumens than XHP50.2?
Well 11K is close to the max from 3 XHP50.2 3V's, but for 3 XHP70.2's, ~25K or so (maybe a little higher) is the max, so 13K is only about 50% of max. I was pulling about 30 amps from one cell. The XHP70.2 should do better with efficiency and output, but of course they are 6V or 12V, so you need a boost driver for a single cell. Would be interesting if they came out with a true 3V version of the XHP70.2, then a straight FET driver would do. For the MS30, it is an interesting production light, being so compact, single cell,and also how that are getting that much in amps out of a boost driver. Not sure if Imalent's lumens are accurate though - it's probably over rated on this one. Looks like not available yet, so we'll see if they can really do it.
Of course of you did something like this: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/40599 for the XHP70.2's, it's a much simpler FET driver.
Also there are Chinese variants of 3V XHP70 clones out there, example: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/33016798142.html?spm=2114.12057483.0.0.283abc90UwxPR9, but looks like much lower lumens.
Thanks for the detailed reply and information!
It’s not really new. NSX3 and TM9K are extremely similar. In fact if I were getting a light like this I’d much prefer the XHP50.2 for a more usable beam at lower levels since you can’t break 10,000ish lumens on any single-cell light right now anyway and sheer output is the biggest reason to go with the larger emitters.
BurningPlayd0h, Tom E measured an estimated 11,000 lumens on a single cell with his modded Amutorch X9.
The MS03 is smaller than both the NSX3 and TM9K in all dimensions, not quite pocketable but close! Of course this won’t do as well with the heat. Hopefully it actually is close to the 13,000 claimed lumens.
Problem is still so much lumens even if emitters didnt emitted and heat whatsoever u would still get terrible battery from just 1 battery… u are paying lots of money for lumens that last a very very short while on turbo, to me its waste of money and lumens… better if they did a soda can host instead and pushed that much it would be better… Imalent just likes to shock their lights with huge number lumens on papers… nothing more……
maybe matt will get a review sample would be interesting see how it performs irl…
Too much over thinking. You get a flashlight that has 4 modes; 150 lumens, 800 lumens, 1300 lumens and 3000. 3000 can be done for less than 6 watts per LED. Oh and by the way we can get an 8000 high for a minute or 13,000 turbo for 45 seconds as a bonus. That’s not far of from the modders dreams. You could get the first 4 modes and a little less high and turbo with XHP50.2’s having slightly better throw. Ops now I’m over thinking it. It’s a small 21700 flashlight with 3 LEDs, 4 nice modes and 2 hot rod settings.
“magically” is a big derogatory. There are coolant liquids designed to help dissipate heat. I have seen computer motherboards that use a cooling system in conjunction with assisted air circulation.
Well, take a look at the Imalent MS12… it has an internal radiator & active cooling fan. Granted, this form factor flashlight is not small by any means, but it’s still hand-held. FWIW, Acebeam X70 in video below has an add-on cooling fan mounted on it.
Of course worth mentioning Imalent’s MS12 successor, the MS18 that also features an active cooling system with fans and allegedly a coolant liquid:
Liquid cooling systems in computers work because they pull the heat away to a much larger radiator in a different part of the computer thats usually right at the vents, vs a heatsink and fan circulating that heat through the case.
The fans in the Imalent lights work the same way, actively blowing heat off of a heatsink and out of the light. I really don’t know if a liquid cooling system in something that already relies mostly on conduction and has vents right there at the sink would help. Pulling the heat away from the head to a heatsink and fan setup elsewhere on the light would require a lot of space.
Heat pipes also incorporate liquid cooling in an unusual way that takes advantage of a phase change. Taking advantage of a phase change is possible, but difficult. Going from solid to liquid would probably be the least difficult. I wouldn’t be surprised if the benefit was so small that it couldn’t be measured reliably outside of laboratory conditions.
Ordered one today. Just for fun. May be I will find the way to improve heat dissipation in that monster.
okay just be careful, its imalent after all…