Sofirn SC31 Pro Andúril Flashlight Review

Sofirn SC31 Pro Andúril Flashlight Review

Sofirn dropped the SC31 Pro 18650 Andúril flashlight not long ago, and I finally got my hands on on. It’s notable because it’s a very low cost Andúril light! Read on for some thoughts and testing.


Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the official product page.

Versions

There’s just one body of the Sofirn SC31 Pro, but it’s available for purchase in two emitter temperatures: 6500K (seen here) and 5000K.

Price

Without a cell, this light clocks in at $28 (sale price). Looks like it’s $31.99 right now on amazon. The amazon price with cell is $40.


Short Review

I’d consider this one a good beater light. Inexpensive, Andúril user interface, lighted switch. It’s a good light, especially for the price.

Long Review

The Big Table

Sofirn SC31 Pro
Emitter: Luminus SST-40 (CW)
Price in USD at publication time: $31.99 on amazon
Cell: 1×18650
Turbo Runtime High Runtime
LVP? Yes, Andúril has LVP.
Switch Type: E-Switch
Quiescent Current (mA): Switch off: 0.05
Switch Low: 0.11
Switch High: 1.57
On-Board Charging? Yes
Charge Port Type: USB-C
Chargetime
Power off Charge Port With Cell: All modes
Without Cell: 6 stepped modes
Claimed Lumens (lm) 2000
Measured Lumens (at 30s) 1526 (76.3% of claim)*
Candela per Lumen 7.8
Claimed Throw (m) 200
Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) 1000lux @ 3.624m = 13133cd
Throw (Calculated) (m) 229.2 (114.6% of claim)*
All my Sofirn reviews!
  • Measurement disclaimer: I am an amateur flashlight reviewer. I don’t have $10,000 or even $1,000 worth of testing equipment. I test output and such in PVC tubes!! Please consider claims within 10% of what I measure to be perfectly reasonable (accurate, even).

Read the Long Review at zeroair.org.

Or click to exactly your desired destination!


I'm sure someone here has the SC31 Pro. What do you think about it?

i love it. especially for the price point, its VERY good value, during 11.11 it was like $23 USD without battery. and with coupons, you can get it under $20!

For under $20, this is a great value! Particularly if you can get the 5000K version. Though, this is definitely not the worst 6500K light I’ve seen!!

i wish the heat dissipation could be better though, so it doesnt step down thermally in such a short time

Hah! Can’t say I disagree. Great review as usual!
This has quickly become one of my preferred lights to EDC.

Something seems really off to me in the charts. Perhaps it is the thermal calibration? Perhaps I just got lucky? Perhaps it is because my use has been at 18 degrees C or less? Could be that my eyes are just off but I certainly don’t see how they could be off as far as the chart indicates. I know the difference between a TH20 AA Turbo (roughly 250 lumen) and 800 lumen. The charts indicate that the SC31 Pro can only sustain about 200 Lumen. Certainly not the case in my example.

The other night I stuck the SC31 Pro on the top of the fridge, at the default top of ramp (high not turbo), while I split some dough, made loaves, and cleaned up the kitchen. This took far longer than 2 min! At that point the light was warm but quite holdable and the output was, to my eye, at least as high as level 4 of 5 on my convoy silver C8 XP-L HI (right around 1A IIRC). At that point, a double click took it above full power on the C8 (About 3A). It was still able to do in excess of 1000 lumen after running for far longer than those charts would indicate possible. When I checked the temperature it blinked out 47.

After walking the pooches and putting the bread in the oven to bake I once again stuck the SC31 Pro on top of the fridge while I finished cleaning the kitchen. When the bread finished I took it out and took the picture below with my phone. You can see the fridge on the right. The SC31Pro is providing the light for the picture. The automatic settings were, no flash, f2, 1/20 sec, ISO 958, 3.57mm focal length. The light was easily on for more than 2 minutes when this picture was taken. Does anyone think that 200 lumen could have done this? I don’t understand the difference but isn’t a picture at least a solid indication of lumen output given the exposure information?

I’m very disappointed.

I own several Sofirn lights as they typically offer outstanding value and performance at their price point.

I really wanted the SC 31 Pro 5000.

It was in stock a bit back so I bought one.

I was contacted and told the 5000 was oos! They couldn’t even give me a solid date for a restock and offered nothing by way of apology if I would accept the 6500.

I canceled my order.

The run time chart looks like a regulated output. I thought it was a FET driver?

This graph is strange, in my SC31 Pro turbo works for over 2 minutes :stuck_out_tongue:

I think I read somewhere that this is a FET+1, so the flat line starting from 200 lumens would be where it gets regulated by the (+1) 7135 linear regulator.

The temperature calibration clearly wasn’t done. It’s only reaching a maximum of 28 degrees. Set it properly and the sustained brightness will go up, the runtime will drop, and you’ll see it’s not regulated at higher outputs. My turbo also lasts for multiple minutes before ramping down, and it definitely sustains more than 200 lumens.

Zeroair I like most of yours reviews and I have see on another Anduril flashlight based reviews lumen temperature graphs in some cases are not very accurate. Do you check thermal calibration and temperature setup of Anduril lights. This is one of reason why we see very short Turbo time in most cases. Also I have 5000K SC31Pro from first batches and it great.

Yeah, duh me . I didn’t notice it was 200 lumens.

Check the temperature settings. Stick it next to a thermometer that reads in °C and let it equilibrate a few hours unmolestered. Quickly, and I mean quickly, before holding it warms it up a coupla degrees, let it blink out what it thinks is the temperature. Compare with the external thermometer’s reading. If need be, also quickly, go into thermal config and set it to the right temperature. Repeat the temperature blinkout to make sure it took.

My first one was off by a whole bunch (something awful, like 40°C when it was really only 21°C), but my second one was almost spot-on. Resetting it got rid of the premature stepdown.

Looked at an old PM, it was reading 44°C when it was actually ~21°C. So it was just on the verge of stepping down when it was just getting warmed up.

Hence why I think there is something off on the chart. Does anyone think that 200 lumen could produce that picture? I think my light does a very good job of thermal regulation. I just pulled my light out of my pocket and it read 28. Seems pretty close to me. I know when I was out with the light clipped outside my pocket for over a half hour I checked it and it was 3 degrees which was pretty close to what the outside temperature was. Seems to me that the light is capable of putting out much more light than the charts would indicate if the calibration works like mine does.

Hey niajef! I updated the thermal calibration and retested the light. It actually holds up quite well after calibration! But calibration is 100% required!

Thank you! I threw out a couple of updated runtimes after calibration, which you might find interesting.

You were right - and sorry I didn’t get back to this earlier. I wasn’t getting emailed notifications of new replies, so I missed a lot.
Anyway, I did calibrate the light, and it now performs MUCH better - as you can see in the two new runtimes! Thanks!!

It was likely a thermal calibration issue you’re seeing. I recalibrated and you can see two new runtimes; I think these will answer your concerns.

After calibration, mine does too! WELL over 2 minutes actually (after the little drop from initial output, anyway).

You’re right - and I have just posted the update to include thermal calibrated runtimes (2). Thanks!

I don’t always check - and I should, and I will try to do better going forward! I did go back and calibrate this one, and it does in fact perform much better! Mine was set to 41°C (!!!) default. So that definitely needed correction! Thank you.

Done, and retested! And yes, the performance after calibration is much improved. VERY much improved.

Thanks everyone for your patience while I updated the charts! And sorry I wasn’t getting the notifications of new replies.

Thanks for redoing the test with calibration, that’s much better.

Were previous Anduril lights also tested without calibration ? I see several of them with very low sustained output and low temperatures that would indicated no calibration (FW21A, FW3x for example)

What Gabriel said, thermal settings need to be adjusted.

Oh, and his review is readable on BLF

I’m just going to come out and say it, It’s 100% lazy, irresponsible and hurts the consumers (and our hobby) if we don’t hold manufacturers to the expectation that the lights are shipped with the driver calibrated for the lights they’re installed in.

If I recall correctly, I make a note specifically if a light was calibrated for a test.

Right, the point of my recent comments were that I calibrated the light. If nothing else, it’s an interesting exposition on what an uncalibrated light can look like (very bad) vs what it can look like calibrated (much better).

I see the review by Gabriel.

I wholeheartedly agree, and that’s sort of my point about these lights. They’re sold on amazon. I would guess many amazon purchasers aren’t going to be able to figure out, much less be willing to, calibrate a light in this way. As a result, testing in stock format is important, and valuable.