Funny? Even more funny is that you didnt seem to take note of the reply the OP left for you in post 15, explaining that the same cells were used in both lights… with another image of the same graph I re-posted above.
Great review, beautiful light. Thanks, _the_.
whats cheapest deal for these ? so quality is better then skyray king ?
i have powered both up. They are both stupid bright, at least to my untrained eye. Reviews aside
unless your looking for a tree limb extra or really studying beam shots its a toss up. One has 5
LEDS moderately driven opposed to 3 LEDS’s for the King/Dry with
a purpose driver. I do own an Apex and always in awe of the King
and Dry but at this amount of output and after a few weeks of
playing with both along with a few other high output lights?
Duty cycle? Both have been run hard the King gets shut
down because the owner doesn’t want to cook the LED’s.
Apex seems gets warm and keeps on at warm for a very long time.
I’ll toss this in only because its fact…Apex with an equally
performance minded driver at la Dry will be something to
watch. I posted the readings and its mild compared to some other lights.
Would i add a DRY to my collection? Hell yes. And the other way
around if owned a DRY. Im not partial to “Celebration Gold”.
Yea, had ric made a full solid heatsink, I’m sure he will have no problems driving it at 2A or even more, given the outer mass and the fins around the heatsink. Now i know why there is no led at the centre … Solution is to stick a large copper/aluminium block at the center with thermal epoxy.
Many thanks to the for the tear down inside.
Well, if that XM-L disc with 5 emitters is made of copper, then it could have turned things around. Someone needs to do a IR temp readout of that white aluminum emitter disc.
Its probably not so much of the surface area of the host touching that big disc. If you divide that area on the host by 5, it seems to be “ok”. I mean you have XM-L on MCPCBs as small as 10mm (and some are smaller even), 16mm is pretty common.
Issue is that heat HAS to travel to the edge to “bleed it off”. Conventional 16mm MCPCBs do it with 100% contact underneath.
Of coz i am not saying that this is a bad design, it probably is ok for 1.5A thereabouts…. it probably would hit the ceiling if it were 2.0A and not provide much additional output.
Someone needs to do a IR temp readout.
Yes it needs to be conducted away to the side that is why leds are only on the side of the board. Ir temp measure will be good to see the hot spot
Well I’m not trying to be smart or a wise guy I’m just having an opinion like you are - you say I didn’t read the post above but did you? He also said it wasnt scientific and to take it with a grain of salt.
I didnt say the tm11 was as bright as king/dry/apex, but the tm11 has been measured in a sphere to be 2000 lumens OTF, so holding the apex and the tm11 together I see my apex as 50ish% brighter and after 8 min the tm steps down but apex is the same brightness and isn’t hot to touch like the tm. Darkside said basically the same thing above. So the king is brighter than the tm11 no doubt - they use the same 3 xml’s but king is driven harder but I see no differance in size of the body to the tm and as the tm is driven lower and still gets almost too hot to hold after 8 min surely you can’t tell me the king is doing fine other than for short bursts of a few minutes without doing some damage to it soon. (but I guess that’s whats good about budget lights)
The TM11 came out first and the king was a copy (because i said its a ripoff) you seem touchy about the king because you own one and I’m sorry I didn’t mean to offend (I don’t doubt that it may be brighter than the apex/dry as I have never had one) technology changes fast and brighter things will always come out as I have found in this apex.
I look like i am new to this forum, but I have been buying and selling lights for over 20 years (especially led lights in the last 8 years) costing anywhere up to $2000 each for custom lights - this isn’t to boast all I am saying is I’ve had tons of the brightest production and rare custom lights out there made so I can honestly say I know a little, I have just recently got back into the buget lights as I’m finding them more fun of late as they are cheap and the quality has become better and the suppliers are happier to push the boundaries for the sake of a sale, but in all honesty I would trust my life to a custom any day.
One thing I have noticed with the cheaper Chinese lights are they aren’t consistent in manufacturing and output - example: I have bought 3 exact same custom lights they are all the same in tint/output/finish and reliability because they hand made and the LEDs are hand picked, I have bought 10 of the same (what I thought was good value cheaper lights to help coworkers get a half descent light and they still complain is expensive for a light) and there are inconsistencies between almost every light in color/tint/output/bad threads/chips.
Rant over.
Great review, but I think this light is a bit of a disappointment - for the price.
IMO, this proves that the Skyray King is still the best value out there by far. I just wish they’d do something about the awful color!
Thanks for the review, _ the _ !!!
This thing is dying for a solid copper heatsink, a center emitter, and 2 DRY drivers. J)
…and flux capacitors instead of batteries, if you want more than 2 seconds of runtime. :3
oh DOC! can i get few more of those flux capicitors for my delorian!
Excellent review!
I still think that this flashlight needs another LED in the middle…
Guys
I’ve just received this (the cool white version), and am extremely disappointed by the output.
I also have a Nitecore TM11 (cool white), and my TM11 is BRIGHTER than this Apex 5T6 … no doubt about it. Tested with the same four 3100 mah fully charged batteries, doing celling bounce tests. Not only is the TM11 is brighter, but it has a wider spill beam.
Build quality and finish is _excellent _though, and its one good looking torch.
Don’t know if I received a dodgy sample, but I’m e-mailing RIC about this and hoping he comes up with a good solution.
Cheers
d337944
Update: RIC suggested I measure the current to the led - I’ve done so and am getting only about 1.1 - 1.2 A per lead, meaning much less than “3000 lumen” in total! I’m assuming its just mine that’s dodgy … but also note from others’ measurements the Apex 5T6 is not as bright as claimed.
Thanks for saving me $100+ dollars.
Also wondering what size the reflectors are… They remind me of these 18mm reflectors from DX:
http://dx.com/p/18mm-12mm-aluminum-textured-op-reflector-for-cree-led-emitters-4-pack-14598?item=3
Are they a direct replacement? This light with OP reflectors should be a nice flooder…
Hey there JustFit … true, my Apex may produce around the 2200 lumen mark - though _still dimmer _than my Nitecore TM11 - but what I was disappointed about was that I paid money for a “3000 lumen” flashlight and it certainly wasn’t anywhere near it.
If you don’t have anything around the 2000 lumen mark, the Apex will blow you away and you’ll love it! As mentioned the build quality, design and finish is really top notch. However if you want a 3000 lumen product, look elsewhere.
YMMV … other samples may be brighter than mine - I think mine is just a bit “dodgier” than normal …
For the money its still a good product, and RIC looked after me well.
Cheers all,
d337944
or you can mod it to 3000lumen
Any suggested replacement driver?