26650 lights that can maintain 1500-2000 lumens?

Where did you get that it maintains 3000 lumens for hours??? Its output at turn on is 2,740 lumens and quickly dropping. It can maintain about 107minutes at 1,000 lumens. Still good but nowhere near 3,000 lumens for hours.

I just completely made it up!! Pulled that one right out of my backside.
jk. I got it off the product page I linked to:

Guess they didn’t test this model. Back in my day, Zebralight modes maintained constant brightness, and that’s the way we liked it!

Zebralights do maintain brightness after stepping down but the stepped down levels are much lower than the rated turbo output, which is typical of all flashlights. Only Olight and Fenix spec their runtimes with honest step downs on their websites and honest ANSI 30s output levels. Zebralight like Acebeam and many others exaggerate their output 20% or more above actual output.

There don’t exist any 26650 lights that can sustain 3,000 “real” OTF lumens.

I have never known Zebralight to exaggerate output. Generally, they are accurate with output to 2 decimal places, but this is assumes they have tested the light, which is ordinary for them to do. Looking at the SC700d product page it is pretty clear they didn’t test it yet. Also, every Zebralight product page for any flashlight that steps down indicates that it steps down. The SC700d doesn’t indicate any stepping down, which is what threw me off. Even the brightness testing curve you posted above doesn’t appear to indicate any stepping down… just rapid drop off from maximum brightness to 1000Lm, and there it appears the current regulation kicks in. That chart squeezes a lot of time in the horizontal axis, so maybe there is a tiny bit of regulation at 2500Lm, followed by an intentional step down, but it is odd that there is no mention of it on the product page.

Just a heads up the product page does list a “stepping down”, rather every zebralight product page mentions it in a similar way to the point its basically copy pasted with adjusted values for different lights.

Show me:
http://www.zebralight.com/SC700d-21700-XHP702-Neutral-White-High-CRI-Flashlight_p_233.html

If you look at the Zebralight product page for, say, SC5c II,

http://www.zebralight.com/SC5c-Mk-II-AA-Flashlight-Neutral-White-High-CRI_p_192.html

you see
“High: H1 475 Lm (3min, then 352lm, total 0.5 hr) ”

Most of Zebralight model product pages have such an indication of step down in the same place (but I wouldn’t say it is copy and pasted, except where mode brightness levels are identical, which is rare).


But the product page for SC700d does not have an indicator there:
“High: H1 3000 Lm (PID, approx. hours) ”

See the difference? No indication of step down. This may be an oversight by Zebralight’s web designer or marketing copy guy, but the fact is, there is no indication whatsoever of step down on the SC700d product page.

My FT03 XHP50.2 can do continuous turbo (I’ve turned off the step down) until the battery dies if I’m walking and it’s –15 or colder. Can’t say none and not specify the conditions :partying_face:

Here’s an example. Per Maukka’s review of the H600Fc Mk4, (1124 lumens measured @30s vs. 1568 advertised). Maukka is one of the most reputable member here with a super expensive, validated integrated sphere. But keep in mind Zebralight is not the only one. Almost all of the manufacturer’s lumen ratings are 15–25 higher than actual as if it’s the industry standard. Only Fenix and Olight lumen specs are accurate and sometimes even conservative.

The FT03 with XHP50.2 cannot maintain anywhere near turbo output

Did you read my entire post? It most certainly can when it’s sufficiently cold out, and there’s airflow.

PID means that output is adjusted by PID (proportional, integral, differential derivative, for the components in the feedback formula to avoid oscillation) controller to avoid overheating, so runtime and output will strongly depend on room temperature and ventilation, output certainly won’t be constant.

Edit: PID link on Wikipedia

Hasty generalization. Look at what Maukka actually says,

Why wouldn’t Maukka just say what you’re saying, that all Zebralight’s numbers are exaggerated?


I was wondering about PID, appreciate the explanation, but the conclusion “output certainly won’t be constant” doesn’t follow unless you add some qualifiers, like 100° ambient temperatures.

The output graph SKV89 posted from 1lumen.com appears to show some remarkably constant output at 1000Lm. I wish it showed more resolution on what was happening in the first 5 minutes.

The human eyes are poor at gauging lumens. If you measure the actual output using equipment, even if there is good airflow and cold weather, the output will still fall and it will not be able to maintain anywhere turbo output.

How much will the output really fall though? Just due to voltage sag? The 50.2 has a pretty low Vf. Otherwise it’s just going full FET with step down disabled.

Jaxman X2

The objective of PID is avoiding output and temperature oscillations (and overshoot) that happen with simpler controllers (i.e. the flashlight overheats, output decreases, the flashlight cooldowns,then output increases again), it will be as constant as possible but it won’t be constant over the entire discharge. That they say output is regulated by PID means that the initial output won’t be sustained (unless the room temperature is cool enough) - they wouldn’t need to say that otherwise.

Well you see there is only TWO lights on zebralights product pages that show your example and they are AA lights and EVEN then they are an outlier as out of their entire lineup of AA lights only the SC5c and SC5w present the example you mentioned. Now if you look at EVERY lithium variant it WILL list something along the lines of “High: H1 X Lm (PID, Y hrs)”. When I said its basically copy pasted look at everything under “Main features” everything is identical for essentially every light they just plug in lumen values and dimensions of protect that is to say they use a template so they wouldn’t leave things out by mistake its designed for simplicity.

Case and point :

Zebralight SC64w HI 18650 XHP35 = High: H1 1300 Lm (PID, 2.8 hrs)

Zebralight SC600w Mk IV Plus 18650 XHP50.2 = High: H1 2300 Lm (PID, approx. 1.8 hours)

Zebralight SC600F Mk IV Plus 18650 XHP50 = High: H1 2260 Lm (PID, approx. 1.8 hours)

Do you see what I mean now ?

We were talking about SC700d, and you made an assertion that wasn’t true about SC700d product page. I never disagreed with what you were saying, except about the SC700d product page. Now you’ve posted examples of other models product pages that also don’t list step down. What are you doing? I’m missing your point. That standardizing their product pages means ZL is lazy? Where are we going with this?

I really like this torch, it looks solid and has a magnetic tail cap like the D4SV2. For the price I might pick one up next week.

I really doubt their 2400 Lumens for 73 minutes claim. The D18 with all 18 sst20s and its surface area barely does 2000 sustained. Looks quite bogus if you ask me