@pete, from what I have seen, there is no 1090 lumen moden in the main mode group. But I can notice the difference in brightness when double clicking to go to turbo, but mostly in the form heat.
I think they did this to boost efficiency by making turbo separate.
What they have done is quite smart IMO.
They divided the modes in 3 categories:
- Main modes, in which there is moonlight(1 lumen, and not 2 lumens as the manual states from my shoebox lux test) which is quite pleasant due to the low 3800k CCT, low at 100 lumens, which is a big jump, but tolerable since it is warm white, 400 lumens at medium, and 920 lumens at high.
-Turbo, which is actually 1080 lumens from what I have measured at 30 seconds with a 30Q at 4,17V, and once it heats up at about 50C, it goes down to 920 lumens. When it cools back down using active cooling, it goes up to 1080 lumens.
- Strobes. Strobe at about 10Hz. Faster at 18Hz like thqe Q8 would have been perfect. Beacon at at 1Hz is perfect for bicycle riding. And SOS.
It looks like they were conservative in terms of their brightness values too.
@SKV89, the long press is more like a medium press. Compared to my TK15 and especially S42, it is very fast, and does not bother me at all.
Thanks for the report . I think mine is at the post office as I speak. Very interested in your future emitter change . Does that led fit the board that is in it ? Let us know how you like it after the mod. I am not so concerned with tints but the added run time would be nice.
I’ve also got two of the U16’s in CW. I used the stock fully charged 16340. Both of those did 650 lumen. I suspect the difference is due to the smaller battery.
Both U16 drew 2.23A, the U18 drew 2.30A with a clamp meter.
My M3 also drew 2.23A, but uses an xm-L2 instead of xpl and it put out 860 lumen.
I think it’s just a matter of them rating their lights too high. Same as a lot of other companies.
Every time I measure the light it has been accurate to other’ trusted readings and my pwn, unless I have done something wrong this time.
When I’ll measure the current, I’ll update the post and remeasure the light output.
It is kind of strange they would overrate it by this much though.
At 2.3A, the XPL V6 gets about 1000 lumens. So even subtracting 15% losses from the lens and reflector, it should be doing 850 lumens, not 700 lumens.
They must also not be saying the truth about using an XPL V6, but a lower bin perhaps.
I’ll measure the current draw, and replace the light 3800k XPL with a 4000k 90CRI LH351D. If this gets more output than your 700lm CW XPL U18, then this will mean that they are using a lower binned LED than advertised.
The U18 on my JoshK sphere reads 680 lumen.
The U16’s read 635 lumen.
Basically my JoshK sphere reads a couple percent less than my TA Tube.
You might need to subtract a little more for reflector and lens loss, plus a little for driver loss. I was looking at Koef3’s V5 xpl chart and you can see that at 2.3A there is no way the U18 can achieve 1090 lumen. Impossible. It’s still a good little light, though. I don’t think the average person really cares if it’s 700 or 1100 lumen, it’s still plenty bright.
These new TA Tubes are reading noticably lower than other lumen tubes like the ones built by Manxbuggy1 and many other home made ones which were typically calibrated using several factory lights rated specs.
The TA Tube is calibrated by some reference lights Texas_Ace sent to Maukka over in Finland to measure in his professional integrating sphere. He’s got a certified reference light source which is why we trust his measurements. Here are some of his pictures if your interested. Maukka’s Sphere
Mine came yesterday . Some quick observations: good looking, compact, fairly well spaced modes except h-turbo, nice tint in mine (ww), UI with semi long press on-off will take a little practice. The only negatives so far : the usb port cover came off the first time I removed the charge cable. I didn’t know it was missing at first and was lucky to find it on the floor. Must have gotten snagged. Also, I suspect the lumen output is not as high as listed. Only a guess. One more thing, the lanyard hole is so small, I could not get the lanyard through it and the fishing line core became exposed trying. No biggie . I and going to gift it to my non flashaholic son for his birthday. Just hope the LVP works properly. The instructions are vague about it but it has been reported it works. Grade: B+
Low and med are exactly the same. Moon is tricky to measure so it might not be exact. Then my high and turbo are a bit lower. I wonder if that is battery related or emitter related?