My flashlight got a 'little' too hot

No, timer is a poor solution. If it was a $10 light I wouldn’t complain about timer…if it was a $20 light I would have mixed feelings. But it’s a $700 light. There shall be thermal control.

As said before, it’s been a standard in $50 lights for years. Actually in BLF lights for $30 as well.
There is no excuse to shipping such undeveloped UI in expensive light.

But it’s Imalent. Powerful but badly developed lights for a high price.

Sometimes we disable temp protection on purpose because when it’s on the flashlight doesn’t even reach 45°C but the immalent takes it to another whole new level :smiley:

It ran for 36 minutes before I turned it off, it sat on top of my integrathing sphere, so the heat only built up inside the sphere and couldn't get out anywhere. So, this may not be a practical problem for most people.

It happened when I starting the light in the 10.000 setting, so I didn't turn on the higher modes this time. I already finished runtime tests for the higher modes the days before.

And yes, that Heat warning symbol was flashling.

Thanks for your explanation and clarification on the procedure ChibiM. :+1:
I charged my light and I may try it tonight for that period of time to see how it behaves. I will report then to let you know if this is a “standard” situation for all the lights, or if it may be a “defective” one you got concerning the thermal control.

BTW, to those unfamiliar with this flashlight and its thermal control, please read the point 6 of the user Manual (click for larger image).

Well, the Caution hot surface warning is there for a reason :sunglasses:

Yeah, those Imalents tend to get HOT!
I remember burning a hole in my table after doing a current measurement :person_facepalming:
However this looks very extreme! And it lasts for quite a while, usually they step down quite fast.
Conclusion; you got an ultimate BLF enthusiast light over there, it’s very bright,
it does not step down, it lasts, its the ultimate hot-rod!

Imalent: “we put the hot in hotrod!”

So, I picked my MS18 today to check how it behaved in comparison with ChibiM’s one.
Honestly, I didn’t do a test that long , but I guess the conclusions can be retrieved from the table below.

Test was made at 10.000 lumens during 10 minutes only.

I stopped the test, as the head of the flashlight was already too hot to handle (if grabbed by the head), although handling it through the battery tube with thumb on the switch was still OK, but warm. By then the tube was at around 38.3ºC

At 10m I also felt some different smell, and while appraching the head to smell it, I accidentally touched the host with the nose tip and burned it :disappointed: Not nice! Blame is on me :+1:

I stopped the test because, given the heat progression, I knew this would lead to similar results to what ChibiM got.

Voltage ºC near the switch ºC head (near bezel)
start (OFF) 16.38V 22.4ºC 22ºC
1 minute 15.74V 25.3ºC 26.9ºC
5 minutes 15.62V 34.4ºC 45.3ºC
10 minutes 15.56V 42.8ºC 65.5ºC

If at 10 minutes the exterior is at this temperature, I will assume that the inside is above 70ºC , which means that the fan didn’t activate , as stated in the User Manual. Of course, without having a way to measure it internally, this is just a wild guess, but it seems logic to me that the heat will be higher in the internals.

This said, what I can say, again, is DO NOT LEAVE THIS FLASHLIGHT ON UNATTENDED, in any level, but specially at this one. If above it, the fan will turn ON. If below, I believe that the light will still get hot, but the amount of heat is probably lower.

Also, this test is of course much more “accurate” than the one I did yesterday in which the battery was more drained, while today it was starting freshly charged !!

Thanks ChibiM for alerting to this situation! :+1:

Dang reminds me of hot rivets and iron workers.

It’s more like complaining that your Ferrari engine overheated when you were driving 20mph because the radiator fan never came on. And their answer is “who the heck drives a Ferrari 20mph? We never anticipated that!”

I have noticed mine getting quite hot on 10k, never ran it more than about 15 minutes though. I’m guessing they’re all that way. Good to know. My imalent dt70 the temperature control doesn’t work on strobe mode either…

Interesting how the 4 brightest modes (22,000, 30,000, 60,000, and 100,000) worked fine, but the 10,000 lumen mode overheated.

But according to the manual, the fans only turn on in the 22,000 and higher modes. So it seems the fans are key for keeping this flashlight from overheating.

But according to the manual it should also activate when it reaches 70°C internally.
Or am I wrong in my interpretation of the point 6?

You are correct according to the manual, but it seems only the fans turning on keeps this flashlight from overheating.

Obviously the MS18 should overheat faster in modes greater than 10,000 lumens, but it appears the the fans in conjunction with the thermal protection prevents it from happening.

I don’t know nothing about flashlights, but when you turn on a flashlight upside down the heat that normaly would excape is trapped. since it is not a expected usecase, you can’t culprid the manufacture.
it’s more like driving a Ferrari in reverse gear up to 20.000rpm and complaining there was no protection against it

I understand your reasoning, but it's not correct. If a flashlight has is temperature controlled, they better make sure that temperature controller works each and every time. I hope they will fix this issue, because 10,000 lumens produce a lot of heat..

Honestly, these car comparisons are completely out of place. Running a flashlight on any mode (10000K / strobe) for extended amount of time is not comparable to any of these situations.

6.C the fans will not operate below 22000 lumens sounds like you get nothing below 22000 lumens even if its on fire.

I guess they were sure that the passive cooling was fine for below 22000 lumens in whatever testing they did. Perhaps not the same testing as here given the results.

But why disable it at all, if it’s at 70 degrees it’s at 70 degrees and that should be the major issue.

My question is why is it facing down?

Something about his post isn’t making sense or adding up,1. Why is it facing down, 2.how did he get to that temperature Imalent gives a warning indicator for when the light is hot also is he continuously using turbo? Unless your running an S&R event you’ll never actually use the turbo on a regular basis unless you’re showing off the light.

It appears that the head is set into something. This makes sense, since it is a runtime test. With runtime tests, brightness measurements are taken to provide an output curve over time. It is likely set into a device to measure absolute, or at least relative, output.

He was pretty clear that this test was on the “10,000” lumen mode which is/was well documented to not self-regulate the way higher modes do. This is actually not uncommon on flashlights - the highest mode will have some sort of thermal throttling but there may be a lower mode which is overlooked.

It’s a pleasure to have you onboard, LouisianaReaper95!