Wurkkos TS30S + monster LED SBT90.2 = $60 4750lm 1km SUPER-Thrower. Comparison w/ TS30S Pro & other lights incl. the :-) insane 13000 lm Nightwatch Valkyrie. (Summary & measurements on P. 1)

The temp calibration out of the factory is imperfect on the chips themselves - I think it was TK that pointed this out some time back. So basically if we want it to be accurate on the flashlight then it needs to be manually set at the time of product manufacture. Some do this and some do not - it’s an extra and time consuming step on the manufacturing line so by not doing it we potentially save a little cost and/or hopefully don’t suffer cost cutting in some other area to make up for it. I’ve not had any that were THAT far off, but regardless it’s wise to always check the temp upon receipt of a new Anduril light, and adjust the temp ceiling if desired. Your error is so large that it makes me think someone accidentally added a click during the set procedure (if they are actually doing it). Normally they’re only off by 2-4 degrees in my experience and many are spot on or just one degree off (usually high).

This may change if we collectively move to a new chip, as it seems may be required in the future.

Good points thanks. Yes I have 5 other Sofirn and Wurkkos (and hence an expert with clicking for temp :slight_smile: ) & all were within just few degrees, not this much. I was afraid something was wrong with the sensor itself but so far the light behaves as it should. External surface temp using IR gun now about 45 C, similar to (non-Anduril) IF22a. During the initial out-of-the-box testing, the external temp of was in the low 30’s during a Turbo run-down.

@Loafglenn, thanks. The clip I use is the “Convoy Universal Clip Suitable for S2 S2 Plus M1 C8” —-> web link is here and yes it’s fairly sturdy and feels made for the light. It’s a touch small so I bend the arms out a little bit to reduce scratching on the light and it still holds on very tightly. Oh and no I’m not that reviewer on AliExpress.

The review is on the wurkkos website. And it’s the exact same clip as yours.

I want to add that clip to mine. What’s the light that it goes to so I can try and make and order for one. I wanted to place the convoys s2/c8 screw on clip on the tail but would need to drill another hole near the lanyard attachment so I reconsidered the customization on.

Same point as I pointed out. Aduril 2 works ok and if we want perfection, we just need to fine tune it…

White wall shots of the 4 lights - predicting well how each light illuminates. IMHO:
Spill: The 2 lights with TIR optic (Sofirn IF22a and Olight M2R) both have spill that is dimmer - hence near field & periphery illumination is not as bright. Sofirn IF22a has a very dim spill and as a result has a very narrow field of illumination as seen in the beamshot above. Wurkkos with its very bright spill lights up a wide area in front of it - everything :slight_smile: is lit with this light.

Hotspot intensity (reflecting throw/brightness of distant object in the middle of beam) goes in this order: Wurkkos > Sofirn IF22a > Nitecore > Olight Pro Warrior. Wurkkos TS30S and Sofirn IF22a clearly a class above the other 2 lights when it comes to throw.

@Loafglenn link for the clip I use for TS30S is HERE if that’s what you are looking for.

zeroair’s review also says

Would you recommend using a better cell than the included?
Or does it really make much of difference?

I am really enjoying your review style btw. Very nice work.

What kind of difference do you notice?
Brighter and wider spill with not quit as much reach?

Thank you for the nice comment. I have done A:B comparison of Wurkkos 5000 mAh battery versus Samsung 40T 4000 mAh battery using photography. The Samsung did result in higher brightness at least on Turbo start-up as seen in the 2 shots below. (Although it may not be visually clear, the RAW software does indicate which pic is brighter, just no absolute value.) This makes sense because the very high 15 amp current draw in Turbo mode should be easily met by Samsung’s approx. 25-35 Amp rating.

OTOH, a couple things to considered:
1. The higher brightness would benefit only in Turbo mode. If you use this light the way I do - leave it on for longer than 5 minutes at a time, this higher brightness would likely result in faster step-down to lower mode, where current draw is not as high and difference would expect to be much less. OTOH, if you use it mostly in occasional short on/off period and want max brightness, then yes IMHO you should use Samsung (only $5 at 18650BatteryStore.com).
2. The Wurkkos has higher capacity (5000 vs 4000 mAh of Samsung), a benefit in a current hungry LED like this one.


Thanks for your reply.

I should have mentioned as well, that one of the reasons I was asking is because Wurkkos.com actually has a good deal (for me at least) on some 21700 Molicel P42A’s.

Im trying to decide whether or not to grab one/two of those along with the light, Instead of the included cell. Or as well as the included cell lol.

Hi there,

I reckon that you have not purchased a dedicated luxmeter, but no problem. Do you have a phone with ambient light photo sensor? Quite a number have nowadays. Just DL any of those luxmeter apps and use it, it’d tell ya if your phone does not have one, then read the lux figures from a ceiling bounce, try to keep things between runs standard, for eg the temperature of the flashlight. (use a small stream of running water to cool it down faster between the runs). The cell should be ok if the runs are short like less than 5 seconds and you have a > 1 minute rest time after that for the sag to recover, no biggie. If you really want it to be 100% scientific and you have the time to spare, charge up the light again for a minute or 2, let the cell and light rest for 10 mins and start off from the same voltage accurate to 0.001 volts.

This is more convenient and “accurate” than just reading off the histogram or something, and you’d also have absolute figures before vs after mod and calculate things like percentages gain. In fact then you’d also be able to know how much are you sagging at 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 min etc, and things to know if that initial gain is worth it or not etc. Depends on how you use the light as well, as you’ve mentioned.

You might also try to do a spring bypass, the luxmeter with ceiling bounce is still a very good method to gauge these before/after mod thingys, no need for any lumen pipe or box just that those are more optimal.
Also, for your use, you are just after that percentage % gain increase number on the same light after mod, so ceiling bounce is more than sufficient.

Some lights benefit from this bypass, others don’t…i always do lux readout from a ceiling bounce before and after, really depends on a few factors.

I can see the Samsung 40T hotspot being brighter visually already…… do try to get a lightmeter reading as per my earlier post, it’d be telling.

1lumen did report 20A and 22A input between the Wurkkos 5000mAh and 40T, 5 amps more than zeroair, difficult to say which is more accurate. But ultimately getting a lux reading when comparing A vs B be it different cell or different mods is key and preferred, you see light output but you don’t detect electrical amps flowing in the light and that energy needs to be translated into output. Ceiling bounce with marked out spots for the meter and tailstanded light is better and easier, you can also do hotspot lux readings but that tend to vary a bit more than ceiling bounce depending on how you position the meter on the hotspot.

Thanks - I like the info of your detailed posts. You got it - I’m using the RAW program’s histogram to check relative brightness. I still like it because I am lazy to have to do one more measurement, but I just downloaded Light Meter and Lux Meter and will give your ceiling bounce method a try. This will have to do until the Opple Pro is available. I appreciate your careful method; yeah I waited 1 hour between battery tests, just had breakfast in between :slight_smile: .

Good catch on the 1lumen article’s battery discussion. Did he measure 20A from the 5000 mAh battery? I thought capacity comes at the expense of drain, and 5000 mAh 21700 batteries generally have 10-15 Amp max discharge?

Some battery “puzzle.” I have two Wurkkos 5000 mAh batteries:
The one that comes with my TS21 has 5000 mAh capacity and a triangular top plate like Sofirn 5000 mAh, rated at 10 A max discharge. Test/review of Sofirn 21700 5000mAh (Black)
The one that comes with TS30S also has 5000 mAh capacity, but a round top plate similar to Sofirn’s 4000 mAh battery. Test/review of Shockli 21700 4000mAh (Black) 2018

I guess they are re-wrapped Lishen or Shockli, but interesting that they might be different batteries?

Not too sure about the 20A reading on the Wurkkos 5000mAh, that’s why i earlier said it’s difficult to say which is more accurate.

But for the SBT 90.2, decent gains can be had by going from 15A to 20A. Subtract a bit for driver inefficiencies, a high drain cell and bypass is preferable.
BTW if you don’t have access to soldering, just use some rolled up aluminum foil, insert one end into the “hole” of the spring at the top part and route the other end to touch the bottom gap of the spring, tuck it in with a screwdriver, snip off any excess and you are done. No safety issue with the TS30S’ tail spring design. Just be a bit more careful if doing this way for series type battery carriers.
With rolled up aluminum foil, it’s very easy to do A-B comparisons since it doesn’t take more than 2-3 minutes to install/uninstall it. (i suck at soldering and take 30 mins for each spring, imagine doing that for multiple 3-4 cells soda can lights).

Yeah, you never know what you are getting. But these should be decent cells from Sofirn basically, generally they know what they are doing.

With this double spring design, Is a bypass really achieving anything with this light?

Not sure, it really depends. On 1 particular light, i did not get any improvement even though it has a single spring. Sometimes you can get some differences, sometimes not. You’ll never know. So just try it out with a simple wrapped up foil and measure it with the light sensor.

@2100
Ah, okay. Thanks.
I think I had a small misunderstanding about bypasses.

Heh heh……always measure the output of your lights, that is the key takeaway.

For eg, once i forgot to clean the contacts of the Q8 style of soda can lights, ie both the aluminum tube carrier contact ring and also outer metal ring of the driver disc, and this resulted in like 30% drop in optical output.
This is esp so if one is a rather heavy user and always frequently takes out the cell for charging on a dedicated charger instead of using the USB-C (various reasons eg the light does not support QC/PD and only regular 5V 2A).

So in a way, say if the light’s electrical contacts are dirty, you are not really gonna see that small 3-5% improvement coz that is relatively small in comparison. On some lights with lousier springs you might see 10% or so. There are other factors like driver, driver to emitter wires…but usually those we just presume to be ok and eat the losses esp on lights that you cannot really screw out the driver easily. “Eat the losses” is also because seriously speaking, that +5% or even +10-15% isn’t gonna matter in real world (unless if it’s an instant A-B comparison on an identical target), just a feel-good numbers game to us flashaholics. lol.
Take for eg the above –30% drop in output, i did not detect it at all in real life usage. lol

Enjoy the hobby - that’s the most impt! lol :crown:

I did some prelim “test” using ceiling bounce and like it a lot - thanks. FWIW the numbers vary a little bit but Samsung battery has about 10% higher lumen. For example Samsung 40T ~ 420 lm Wurkkos battery about ~380 lm. I have a few questions since you appear to have had a lot of experience:

1. I put my cell phone next to flashlight (more or less underneath hotspot). Does it matter much where you put phone?
2. Large room vs small room like a bathroom (boy my wife is gonna tell her siblings and they are going to laugh about this) - does it matter?
3. Floody light vs light with throw - any change or comment in the way you measure?
4. Do you try to put light closer to ceiling? Mine is about 5 ft from ceiling.
5. My numbers - are they about the same range as what you are getting?
Thanks again.