“REVIEW”: On The Road i3 (2018/2019) - 16340 - Zoomable - 620 Lumens [Pic Heavy] - [***MODDED XPL-HI***]

I have a slightly too small plastic aspheric but I can’t find a way to open the bezel without scratching it.
Any suggestions?

Sorry for not having replied yet above, I wasn’t on the computer and will answer later on :slight_smile:

About the bezel, press the flashlight againt your hand (with or without a glove) and twist the flashlight anti-clockwise direction, while holding it from the “head”! Thats what I did in mine and it opened easily! :wink:

I’ll reply later to the rest :+1:

Tried that already, doesn’t move. Tried pressing it against rubber, it didn’t work either.

I opened my Utorch S1 mini which has a similar bezel by pressing it against a sharpening stone but this obviously caused some scratches. :wink:

Hum, that’s weird, I opened it without issues. I hope they didn’t glue the threads :person_facepalming:
Do you have any nose point pliers? You can put some heat-shrink tube on the tips and use the bezel grooves to make some twistying force !

Never tried that type of LED on this light, so I cannot see how it behaves. Maybe some things in the beam are related to that? Mine is not “stock” anymore, so I can’t make fair comparisons currently to say how it should behave. :zipper_mouth_face:

It is supposed to be a new model, so I am not sure what happened with yours :zipper_mouth_face: A deffective batch may happen. and as the lens is glass, it may, of course happen it is not completely perfect. Shapping it is surely different from a acrylic lens, so it may have some imperfections.

Mine broke on the edge some time ago. It doesn’t affect the beam however :partying_face: . I asked the store to send me one when I bought the OTR 311 . It is till on the way… :weary:

Some of the things you mentioned on your post and showed in the photos, also happen with mine, but not so seriously. Specially what is shown on 3, 4, 5, and 6. During the travel, it creates some additional ring, but nothing like that. That thing only happens to me in one of the 2xAA Zoomie lights I have from Lidl, that has a white spot in when zoomed out.

I will see if the new lens I will get does something like that and will inform here on the thread :wink:

Thanks mate :wink:
Hum, I have a mix opinion about that. All my zoomies have different “ifs” either they are plastic or glass. I will see what I will get with the new OTR Z821 and with the new lens for this i3!

Thanks for this input! I actually thought that glass would be better, but I perceive now it is not :zipper_mouth_face:
I will have to check if I can put an acrylic lens on the i3 to compare with the glass one.
I guess I will have to compare all of them to check what you say, because I really find it interesting and never noticed that in fact :zipper_mouth_face:
The major con I noticed on mine so far, is that it broke :frowning:

I am a fan of FC switches, so I think I would go along with that :stuck_out_tongue:
I am using the i3 with forward clicky switch + Crescendo firmware. It operates diferently from a reverse switch but I don’t mind and I like momentary on and no “noise” clicking it :wink:

Thanks for your input! And I am also thinking that the alu pill with retaining ring (screw in) may be a better option. I’ve been reading what is said here and on the other thread, and maybe you guys are right, and brass is not the better option :+1:

The Z1 glass lens is good
The marinebeam glass lens is good

Maybe luminarium’s comments are coming from the perspective of trying to find cheaper hosts to mod.

Agro,

Don’t even bother with fitting plastic lens to them… It will not fit (well it will at certain distance from emitter but then you loose flood mode or even worse you’ll have zoom in to over zoom mode(overzoom is :confounded: ) :disguised_face:

? I am saying the real truth from my experience with different glass aspheric host.

So yes Z1 glass lens may be “good” but acrylic plastic lens of same size(jaxman Z1 vs B158) will be better

Glass lens is good for some setup I personally need (VCSEL IR Laser) but it sucks performance vise if you need max lux performance with classic Osram WF led.

Thans for the suggestions MascaratumB. Heatshrink pliers didn’t work but it inspired me to press against a shoe lace. It unscrewed easily, there’s no glue.

19.8 mm plastic lens didn’t fit, by far.
One needs more than 21.05 mm lens OD not to fall on the LED.
I tried widening it with an o-ring on the outer edge which fixed the diameter issue but the lens still didn’t fit properly.
It may need even larger diameter….but it also needs a thicker edge. My lens has 1.3 mm while the stock has 2.5 mm.

This is a quality host crippled by a junk lens.
If I got a good lens it could have a lot of use but as it is now - it’s worthless to me.

I’m a bit surprised at this.

My i3 has a very good glass lens. No artifacts are visible in any zoom position and it focuses to a very sharp image of the LED die surface. I modded mine to XPL HI when I got it a few years ago. Works great.

I think that you must contact OTR. Tell them for the problem and tell them that you wanna buy new replacement lens. We will see how they will react.

Please try this…

I did it yesterday. :slight_smile:
No answer yet.

Agro

I just received the replacement lens for my i3.
This lens is different from the original one and it originates some artifacts as the ones you showe above, namely an intense “dot” while almost focused in, a kind of “hole” in the zooming travel (very subtle, though), and the final zoomed beam is not as good as in the original one.

Just to document, here are the measurements of the lenses. I must also say that with the new lens I cannot use an o-ring below it due to the height of the lens (otherwise it originates a gap in the bezel).

Original (left) VS New (right)

Those mm in height make the difference in how the beam looks like! Not sure if it has a solution unless with getting a lens with optimal height :zipper_mouth_face:

Hmm…

What you did to that black lenses? :laughing: Or it just some kind of filter underneath?

New lenses looks better but what may happen here is that because of 2mm difference in lens height light goes slightly into overfocus.

Temporary solution like you already did would be to remove oring beneath lens (if it has o ring beaneath). Ugly but working solution thin circle layer of transparent silicone on the place of an old oring…

But all that should not be happening since light is not on a budget side… You can get new Conwoy Z1 for less money…

I really don’t understand their QC standards… Simple white wall test would do the trick. They do have eyes :person_facepalming:
That kind of seller behavior drive me mad. But don’t be disappointed cause they are all like that… Even 100$ Dereelights had such issues (Tiablo, Crelant, Uniquefire and others…) Glass lens are lottery! no matter what some guys think. If you don’t buy glass lens from reputable source(and that will cost 3-20x price of the flashlight) you’ll be better with plastic ones.

So production process and QC of glass lenses for China flashlight manufacturers is el terrible! However they do have I would dare to say 99% consistency if they will go with acrylic ones. Acrylic should be winning lens for China zoomie industry. Cheaper, better light transmittance and no performance variations. Easily scratched? You can scratch them with nail and it will still have better performance than same size glass one…

I am still waiting for mine i3 btw… Freaking Corona…

It’s 0.2 mm and it’s not as simple ans shifting a focus.

Assuming that they simply made the base 0.2 mm thicker without altering the curved side, this still changes beam pattern because light that hits the the air-to-glass boundary refracts and continues inside the lens. Now it’s shifted so literally any part of the beam other than dead center hits the curve lower than it would otherwise - and that part of the curve is being hit at other angle than it would be otherwise.
This seriously changes beam pattern.

I seriously doubt they would change thickness without altering shape. It would be too amateurish, if their supplier is able to produce asperic lenses they surely understands this.
OTR probably simply switched the lens model or maker.
Or maybe tooling to make a different shape would cost too much and OTR thought that some packaging or strength improvements were worth the artifacts.

Ahah, the black looks is just a black permanent marker line that I did on the flat part of the lens to avoid some artifacts on the beam. It prevents some reflection on the bezel and therefore, in the outer line of the beam (specially when zoomed out).

Yup, there is not much more I can do to solve that! Also, as I am using a different led and MCPCB from the original ones, that may play a role here too. The original led was an XML2 and the original PCB was aluminium of 1mm. Now it is a Samsung led on a 1.2 or 1.5mm MCPCB that automatically raises the led and the focal point is different too.
Maybe with the original settings the new lens could have a better focus too!

Hum, yeah, you can get that light, but not put it in your pocket as you do with i3 :stuck_out_tongue:
I see what you mean here, but maybe it has to do with lens provider. I was not aware of the differences between glass and plastic lenses, so maybe some tweaks on the machines that make it is the issue.

My Z821 is already in Portugal (not sure when it will arrive home). Shipped on the 9th July :wink:
The 311 took 2 months (19th May - 20th July) :weary:

Did you measure your lens? Can you tell if it is similar to my original or my new lens?
Also, did yours come with the o-ring below it?

I believe that those 2mm make a reall difference, at least in the setting I have (as I explained above). Not sure if the original setting would suffer from that!

Note that those artifacts are not terribly overwhelming, but they are more notorius and eventually distracting, specially when using it for “white-wall-hunting” :stuck_out_tongue:

I am not curious to see how the Z821 will perform…

Oh yes… I also ordered that one and not i3 :person_facepalming: :beer:

Just checked it is in Amsterdam (NL post).

I received this Z 821

Size compared to some small zoomies

My opinion…
GOOD:

- One of the smallest (if not smallest?) 18650 zoomies out there

- Very light and high quality flashlight body dedicated to 18650 battery size

- Great anodizing process and great anodized tailcap threads

- high quality reverse clicky switch (unfamiliar to me and it looks like FW clicky switch) on 17 mm PCB

- Fine zooming system (push-pull with very little head moving)

- Beautiful old school looking zoomie

  • MCPCB retaining ring on brass pill

BAD:

- O ring or square ring under glass lens seems broken

- Very thin O ring which is located in a flashlight head once when flashlight disassembled is PITA to put it back on its original place

  • LENS are average quality glass lens with crack here and crack there… Nothing spectacular or AR coated… Or ultra clear… I would dare to say that most low budget manufacturers have better quality lens than OTR.

UGLY:
OMG! It has press fit pill! Do you now what that means for modders?
May the force be with you! Use the Force to beat that out!

Dear OTR if you are watching this what should you improve? What? You don’t know? Well look this:

- change lens to better glass one or even better and cheaper for you swap them for acrylic one…

- Square O ring underneath aspherical lens is ok but put better quality one which does not brake (or you just put that broken one on purpose?)

- Oring inside flashlight head should not be there?! It should be on the flashlight neck section so it would be easier to handle. It is impossible to return it back on its place

- REDISGN PILL! You ruined very good concept pill! Instead of press fit system use retaining ring for driver! Or use driver solder to pill system…

  • Lower the price! It is to much considering it does not has DTP Board and some inner parts as mentioned above are just terrible quality It should not cost more than 15$ in this condition.

Final thoughts: For someone that does not wants to mod anything this seems like a good light.
Throw goes up to 16 kcd
Driver with High(2.6A), Ultra low(0.10A), Lower(0.4A), and Low mode(0.75A) with hidden strobes and SOS… It has last mode memory even if you remove battery it will start on last mode selected…

Thanks for your input on this light :wink:
I have to say that the “broke” o-ring is probably put in purpose! I guess it has to do with not creating a “bubble” of air while zooming in/out.
My i3 had the same thing!

Yeah, the thin o-ring between the head and tube may be a PITA to put back in place. I lubbed the one on the i3 and it stays sill right there!

About the pill, well it could be different indeed. I didn’t have much trouble modding the i3, once you have a driver with the same diameter. However, it may ruin the original driver when pushing it from the top, you can sever or damage any component.

I am amazed on how small it is though, and I like that :wink:

I will wait to check mine’s quality! BTW, can you tell if the driver is 17mm or less? I’m already thinking about the mod :smiley:

Thanks again for your input on this :wink: