Yeah, I can understand that about waiting for a proper review.
Okay, I just went ahead and changed the wording a bit, so it wouldn't trigger anybody...
Still, we have to keep in mind, that it's not just what the manufacturer claims, (although that could influence the final verdict a little bit)
If a manufacturer claims a flashlight is 200,000 lumens, but only does 100,000 ... it's still a fact to say: Extremely bright. Even though it's 50% below claimed output.
Calling something bright is subjective maybe? :D
100,000 lumens IS extremely bright... or not?
So the question is: when are we allowed to call something bright? extremely bright?
In the end you can’t please everyone.
In this case i might add a slight clarification, its insanely bright even if it doesn’t meet manufacturer spec.
After that leave those who want to grumble on their own.
I have never seen a 13,000 lumen flashlight in real life and 8 x 100W bulbs in one flashlight would be insanely bright to me when i do someday see one (at present my brightest light is my 4000 lumen Convoy M3C).
I just replaced my car headlights yesterday to restore a staggering 3,000 lumens of halogen light. I look forward to seeing how much of an improvement it is at night and if it had 13,000 lumens i’d probably be arrested for blinding oncoming drivers.
Pardon me kind flashlight reviewing sir. I was wondering if it’s possible you got a bad light? I read your review and did see you recharged your best batteries and all that jazz and they still didn’t budge from their numbers. I ask because I saw another reviewer that got 23,000 plus lumens on theirs. Could something in the light be restricting/subduing the power or maybe just limiting it to a single battery? I know different reviewers have different readings, but this one seems like a massive difference and may it’s just that it’s a dud? Just wondering if this has already been checked out and discounted. Thank you for the review and congrats on number 350. :partying_face:
Thanks for the feedback on the “insane lumen output” comment, that has now been re-worded. As much as I was disappointed by it not hitting spec, I guess I was still impressed by 14,000+ lumens. I’ll be a bit more careful in my choice of adjectives in the future.
Re: possibility of having gotten a bad light. It’s possible, but everything seems to be functioning properly. And the batteries were testing properly with low internal resistance and all drained down consistently over the tests, so I think all cells were being used properly. I tested and retested so many times (and used different testing setups) that I don’t feel like there were any major flaws with the testing process. I’ll be curious once more of these get into peoples’ hands what they observe.
Still, I’m wondering why the output is so low compared to the rated output.
Maybe there’s some resistance in other components that weren’t a problem in the prototypes, but due to cost cutting for production, they used higher resistance stuff?
That is definitely possible. Any little bottleneck in such a high current light makes a difference.
Agreed, every little bit of resistance adds up and with this much current, could have a significant impact. With this high of a power draw, running the cells in series instead of parallel would probably give you better performance, but then you give up on safe internal charging and it generally makes things like driver design more complex.
Well I tested the EA01 when it came out with the xhp50.2 6500k and came put lower than other reviewers. I saw max like 3600 or 3700 lumens and others were consistently over 4000 on a 30T. I tried different batteries, even different luxmeters and still couldn’t crack 3700 Lumens. I was still over the 3500 advertised though. Just goes to show that you might get a good FET, solid solder joints, a good bin emitter, properly applied thermal paste, aligned optic/reflector, etc, etc. All those can affect output to varying degrees. At the end of the day these are low-cost lights that don’t benefit from exhaustive factory testing like more expensive brands and you get the best cheapest of whatever Mateminco was able to get off the Chinese marketplace that day into the parts bin for that production run. Sometimes you win!
I did a spring swap on a Ft02S a while back. They share that tailcap spring with the EA01 and FT03 I think also. Looks similar to other Mateminco products also…the outer, taller spring is not magnetic, copper alloy, the inner, smaller spring is magnetic (steel). I removed the inner spring and used a solder wick. I dislike that design somewhat because the spring pcb is really glued onto the tailcap and makes soldering difficult.
The Lumintop D3 I tested has a copper alloy tailspring
Speras are expensive lights, and I mentioned the L21B because that light does everything performance-wise (and more so) as the T3R, but at over 1/2 the price. Same buck driver, 21700, nearly identical throw, etc. If you dont need the Speras added features, I see no reason to get it over the Convoy.
why 3.6? as far as i know should be 3.7v for standart li-ion
not that it would make any significant difference in overall calculation. but i`m always ready to learn and chance are that mentionin 3.6v you know something that i dont know
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to TS. like conclustion about Speras. that is brave to compare it with another brand model in overall. usually manufacturers are damn unhappy when reviewer mentions another similar model.
