[Review] Imalent RS50

Thanks to Imalent for sending me one of their new flashlights for review, the Imalent RS50.




The RS50 is a sister model of the (also relatively new) MS08, but it uses Cree XHP50.3 HI for more throw. Everything else appears to be the same.

You can find a slightly longer review (in German) and with some more pictures on my website (Google translate.

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What you will get

The flashlight comes in a very nice cardboard package with a magnetic lock. The box contains:

  • Flashlight
  • Heat Shield
  • Three protected 21700 Li-Ion batteries with 4000 mAh each (4.15 V)
  • Two (!) charging cables
  • Holster
  • Two replacement O-rings
  • A replacement screw for the heat shield
  • Instructions in eight languages (EN, CN, DE, IT, JP, KR, FR, ???)

First you have to remove a protective film from the lens. Then the flashlight can be used driectly – there is no insulating disk and the batteries are fully charged! Just unlock the light with 4C and you’re ready to go!


Overview

Black anodized aluminum with minimal “knurling” on the battery tube. All edges are nicely champfered. The bezel has small crenelation.

With a length of 125 mm the RS50 is similar to most “normal” flashlights, but it has a very large diameter of 74 mm. With the additional Heat Shield it is even more with 138 mm length and 80 mm diameter.
This becomes noticeable also in the weight: 781 g total! (441 g for the flashlight itself, 123 g for the heat shield and 217 for the three batteries).o

The large switch (13 mm diameter) is located at the side and has very short travel.

At the sides there are two aux LEDs (red/green) which function as a beacon and to indicate low batteries and a locked light.

Officially the flashlight is IPX8 waterproof up to 2 m. I believe this for the flashlight itself, but I’m rather skeptical if this is also true for the heat shield. But the manual doesn’t state anything else, so whatever.

Sadly there are some negative things about the build quality. There are very sharp burrs in the inside of the battery tube that will happily slice into the wrappers of the batteries. A nice chamfer stops right before them.

One LED has a clipped corner. Probably happened during assembly of the reflector. This doesn’t affect the function (just about!), but shouldn’t happen.

Of course this flashlight has the condensation issue typical for throwers with large volume of air in the head.


Power supply and charging

The RS50 uses three 21700 Li-ion batteries in parallel. The manual says that each of them must be able to deliver 35 A. The supplied batteries are protected and have a capacity of 4000 mAh each. Only button-top batteries can be used as there’s a brass ring in the head. The tail has thick springs.

Charging can be done internally by using a magnetic USB cable. This cable connects a bit loose. During charging the flashlight switches off. Also it will be unlocked after charging, so make sure to lock it again before putting it in your pocket.

But maybe you decide to charge your batteries outside of the flashlight. According to the manual charging takes up to 7 hours! I’ve measured up to 1.8 A with a termination at 4.20 V. You could also charge the batteries in your external charger with 2 A each and are ready to go three times as fast.

There’s one major issue with the charging cable: GND and 5V are connected straight from the USB power supply to the contacts and the contacts are magnetic. This means the cable really likes to stick to metal objects – and will short out your power supply!


Heat Shield

Although the flashlight reduces its output to prevent overheating and damaging itself, it quickly gets pretty hot to hold. The solution: A “Heat Shield” made from plastic that is slid over the flashlight like a sleeve.

It also contains two little fans to cause some additional air flow. This doesn’t cool down the flashlight (it will step down in the same time), but makes the flashlight comfortable to hold even when it’s 80 °C hot. And it works very well!

To power the fans the heat shield has a small battery (not exchangeable) and its own charging contacts. That’s why there are two charging cables in the box! Charging takes about 1.5-2 hours at 1 A. When the battery is empty after about 2 hours, there’s no additional cooling anymore. Or: Is one of the batteries empty, you’ll have either heat or darkness.

The fans are controlled by a switch at the bottom of the heat shield. They turn on randomly in your pocket because the switch is exposed and there’s no way to lock it. If I had designed this thing: Contacts between heat shield and flashlight so that the heat shield can be powered from the flashlight itself. This also means that the flashlight can turn on the fans automatically when it gets hot.


UI and handling

  • 1C: on /off. Last mode memory (except turbo)
  • 2C: turbo; another 2C to get strobe
  • 3C: low 1
  • 4C from off: lockout
  • 1H from on: switch brightness (low 1, low 2, med 2, med 2, high)
  • 1H from off: enable/disable aux LEDs

3C for low needs getting used to as you mostly find it as 1H. There’s no way to go back from turbo to the previous brightness without turning the flashlight off.

Due to the large diameter the flashlight feels very big in your hands and youl will always fear to drop it.

: https://www.sammyshp.de/betablog/uploads/20211231_Imalent_RS50_C5697.jpg

Unfortunately there is nothing to add a lanyard (almost, see later), no clip, no screw hole. But you will get a holster.

It can be attached with a velcro loop or a D ring. The loop is too small for a belt (do you really want to carry 800 g on your belt?) and are more intended for a MOLLE style system.

The holster has a major flaw: The bottom is open. With the heat shield it fits perfectly, but without the flashlight will slip through the bottom (but not completely). Why not make it closed, this would also protect the fan switch from accidential activations.


Illumination

The RS50 uses eight Cree XHP50.3 HI LEDs (looks like 6500 K to me) in a multi-reflector:

Imalent claims that the RS50 is able to deliver up to 20,000 lm. After a comparison with other flashlights, I think that it’s very optimistic, but I cannot measure it precisely. Even if the flashlight is referred to as the “Throw King” and “Long Distance Monster”, it appears floody. Nevertheless you can see a decent spot. Not a precision tool, just pure brightness. It’s fun.

According to the manufacturer the levels are at 300, 600, 1800, 3500, 6500 und 20000 lm with an intensity of up to 336 kcd.





Driver and runtime

After just a few seconds the output will drop and after one minute it barely hits 30%. Afterward the brightness is mostly stable, but still decreases constantly. You can enable turbo again, when the flashlight is cool enough.

But you will not achieve the same brightness as initially without recharging the batteries. This is because the driver is a direct-drive FET driver. The brightness is regulated with PWM at 21 kHz. Too bad Imalent didn’t choose the 6V or 12V version of the LED and a proper boost driver.

The flashlight has a low voltage protection at 2.89 V when it switches off (in addition to the protection circuit in the batteries).


Conclusion

It’s so much fun with all this light in your hands and I can also imagine some situations where this might be helpful. But mostly it’s just for the fun. For the hefty price of about $250 I would have expected a better driver and more care for the details.

Find the Imalent RS50 on the manufacturer’s website




Solution to the “how to carry” problem:

Thanks for the review!

How do you like the XHP50.3 HI?

The RS50 looks like a better R60C, which uses 6 SST70 LEDs. I wonder what the RS50 would have been like with 8 SFT70 instead.

Hi Sammy!

It would not enter my mind to buy such a flashlight for myself, but your review is exceptionally well done! The realistic beamshots and runtime graphs offer true informative value! By the way: nice to see that Imalent adds protected batteries to the bundle.

See you on TLF as OpraDre :wink:

Better than the domed XHP50 which has horrible tint shift in most reflectors. Nothing to complaint about the XHP50.3 HI. Available in 3V, 6V and 12V, high output, good efficiency. Low CRI of course and I don’t know which CCT are available. Overall a really nice mid to high power LED.

I don’t have a direct comparison to the MS08, but in my opinion the RS50 has already enough flood, more throw would be nice, but with the XHP50.3 HI it is well balanced.

Nice review! I got mine a few days ago and love it! I agree with the outside cage design. You cant tail stand it as the fans will eventually get turned on….bad design.

Just like to know if this RS50 does throw as the advertised 1100 meters?

Hard to say. If it does then it would be FL1 standard. That means the usable distance is much shorter. Sadly I don’t have the proper equipment to give you any meaningful absolute values. But it is comparable to my Wurkkos TS30S, maybe slightly more. Again, it all depends on so many factors. The RS50 is very floody for a thrower. Just think about illuminating a football field.

Here is the solution for the issue with the switch of the heat shield with can be activated much too easily:

Improves the tailstand and magnetic charging still works fine.

Download here from Thingiverse: Imalent RS50/MS08 Heat Shield Switch Protector by SammysHP - Thingiverse

Just:

WOW